Oakland County sheriff’s deputies have arrested a man suspected of breaking into five Pontiac businesses.
Freddie Bernard Harrison III, 54, is in the county jail after being arraigned on five counts of burglary.
He was arraigned Friday before Novi’s 52-1 District Court Magistrate Lewis Langham on all charges. Langham set Harrison’s bond at $5,000 cash/surety with GPS tether. The Novi court handles weekend and holiday arraignments, as county offices were closed for the holiday.
If convicted, Harrison would face 10 years in prison for the charges of breaking and entering into a building with intent.
Sheriff’s detectives from the Pontiac substation identified Harrison as the suspect after seeing a pattern in five Dec. 26 burglaries similar to a string of 2022 burglaries.
They learned that Harrison, convicted in the 2022 cases, had been paroled by the Michigan Department of Corrections on Dec. 22. Surveillance video also helped the investigation, police said, because the recordings showed the suspect using an item to break a window and enter closed businesses, then attempt to open cash registers before leaving the building.
Within 90 minutes of issuing an alert to area police to look for Harrison, he was located and arrested without incident.
Sheriff’s officials say Harrison had absconded from parole on Dec. 25.
Police said financial losses from the burglaries total less than $500 but damage caused by the break-ins are estimated at more than $15,000.
Sheriff Michael Bouchard praised the detectives while criticizing the judicial system for giving Harrison what he called a short sentence for the previous burglaries.
“Clearly, the system did not rehabilitate nor deter his future criminality, and that must change,” Bouchard said. “And on top of that fact, he had previously been to prison for not only multiple burglaries in the past, but second-degree murder. When our system does not hold people accountable, it creates a revolving door, leaving victims in its wake.”
Undersheriff Curtis Childs declined to name the five businesses involved in this string of burglaries. It’s unclear if Harrison’s arrest is related to the Dec. 26 Sprout grocery store break-in.
Earlier this month, St. Clair Shores police arrested a different man with a history of home invasions on suspicion of committing a new string of burglaries. Now 60, the suspect there had been sent to prison four times, the last sentence given in 2012 for cases out of St. Clair Shores, ending with parole nine years later.