PROVO, Utah, Dec. 11, 2021 (Gephardt Daily) — A 55-year-old man has been booked into jail after police say he did more than $5,000 worth of damage to the Provo City Library.
Officers responded to the library on Dec. 9 (Thursday) on a report of criminal mischief, the suspect’s probable cause statement says. The actual damage is estimated at $6,000.
“Library security reported to dispatch that a male had just thrown rocks through the windows on the south side of the building and had fled,” says a statement filed by an officer of the Provo City Police Department. “I arrived on scene and made contact with library security. They were sweeping up large amounts of glass in the interior hallway as I walked in.”
The reporting officer returned to the library and spoke with three employees who were witnesses in the incident.
“One of the employees chased down the suspect and recorded a video of the suspect with his phone,” the PCPD officer’s statement says. “The video clearly showed the male suspect’s face. Officer Himmelsbach advised me that he believed the suspect was the same male that he had arrested in early November of 2021 for the same crime with the same modus operandi.”
The suspect in November was a man named Johnny Joe. The reporting officer pulled up Joe’s file and compared it to the newly taken video recording.
“The suspect in the video, and Officer Himmelsbach’s arrestee appeared to match as they donned the same facial shape, skin tone, ethnicity and modus operandi,” Joe’s probable cause statement says.
“The suspect had also been contacted earlier today (Dec. 9) by other Provo officers as he was sleeping in the neighborhood earlier that was right by the Library. I spoke with yet another Provo officer about the suspect who had dealings with him the other night. This officer was able to identify the suspect in the photo, and told me that the suspect was even wearing the same clothes as he was the other night when he had contacted and cited him for another crime.”
Joe was booked into jail on charges of:
- Criminal mischief — loss greater than $5,000, a second-degree felony
- Intoxication, a class C misdemeanor
“The arrestee has a lengthy criminal history with a total of 38 convictions from various crimes,” the probable cause statement says, going on to list two convictions for criminal mischief (2016 and 2020) and one for reckless burn (2016).
“The arrestee was also cited at the end of November 2021 for throwing rocks at moving vehicles, and local files show many instances where the arrestee has said derogatory things towards officers and citizens. While I attempted to interview the suspect tonight after his arrest, he stated multiple times ‘F*** the judge’ and kept mumbling curse words and other incoherent noises.”
The officer also noted that “As I advised the arrestee of a permanent trespass to the
Library, he mumbled something about how that wouldn’t stop him from returning.”
Joe was booked into the Utah County jail, where he is being held without bail.
