Roof-Climbing Thief Caught Dropping In

Tag : Steel Punching

"Me and my son said: We will spend the night here," theelder Meeks said. "He is not going to get any moremoney."

Before long, they heard noise on the roof.

Then the board that had been placed to cover the 10-inch hole inthe roof was moved.

Then a man popped down, landing on the concrete floor with a thud.

The Meekses pounced.

"We jumped on him," said the elder Meeks, who is5-foot-10 and 180 pounds. His son is about 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds."We fought steady for 20 minutes. Punching, kicking. He was ondrugs. We couldn't hurt him.

"We were on top of him, and I reached for the phone and calledpolice," Meeks said. "We were trying to hold him down andtalk, but I had to put the phone down because he tried to get upagain."

In minutes, police arrived and arrested the man, who identifiedhimself as Justin Daniel Peppers, 22, with his state prison inmateID, a police report said.

Peppers was charged with burglary, battery of a person older than65, battery and criminal mischief. He was taken to the Orient RoadJail.

Tuesday, Meeks had arrived at the market he inherited from hisfather-in-law, Roy Parks, in 1978, and found that someone had takenabout $140 from the cash register.

"We could not figure out how he got in," Meeks said."The doors were locked, and they have steel pins in them, andwe have an alarm."

Wednesday morning, when Meeks came in to open the market, henoticed he had been victimized again. This time someone took about$80 out of the till.

"We didn't leave as much money in the register," he said.

Puzzled at how anyone could get in and out of the doors withouttripping the alarm, Meeks began looking around the store.

Then he looked up.

It hit him.

"The only place he could come was a 10-inch hole in theceiling," he said. The hole was filled by a bucket and oncewas covered by a turbine vent that a storm blew off a few yearsago.

Still, he had his doubts. How could anyone fit through such a smallspace?

Meeks, as he had done before, called Plant City police, who werepatrolling the area at night. They said the burglar would be back.

So Meeks scampered up to the roof and bolted down the bucket,figuring that would prevent further intrusion.

He was wrong.

When he opened the store Thursday, Meeks found the intruder hadreturned. This time, a large air conditioning unit was removed fromthe wall leading to his office and a box of quarters -- $500 worthin all -- was missing.

Looking up at the ceiling, he noticed the bucket was damaged.Despite his earlier doubts, he was now convinced that whoever wasbreaking in to his business was coming through the roof.

That's when Meeks drew the line. "I'm not going to lose anymore $500," he said.

That night, Meeks and his son were armed when Peppers droppedthrough the hole in the roof, but once he saw the man had noweapon, Meeks says he put his gun down.

"I can't shoot an unarmed man," he says.

Before being carted away, Peppers started complaining to policethat his face was cut, his back hurt and his ankle was twisted inthe scuffle.

"He started complaining that he was beat up," Meeks said,laughing. "He wanted to press charges against us for beatinghim up. And I had blood all over me."

Editor Howard Altman can be reached at (813) 259-7629 orhaltman@tampatrib.com.

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