HOMESTEAD, Fla. – A witness to a recent burglary in south Miami-Dade County said, “What an idiot!” The burglar was dangling from the roof of the SmartStop Self Storage before falling.
About $20,000 in sneakers vanished from a storage unit, at 1235 NE 12 Ave. Homestead police officers later identified the clumsy burglar as Tyvarius Tygwyan Stroud Mattison.
There were at least two other burglaries at the SmartStop Self Storage.
The owners of one unit claim Stroud Mattison had stolen tens of thousands of dollars worth of clothes and sneakers in late June. They waited for his return and confronted him on Thursday.
“The way he left my unit, he was actually coming back for more,” the victim said. “He was getting into it through the ceiling, using a dolly or cart as a stair and unscrewing the screws from the top.”
When the storage unit owner confronted Stroud Mattison and called the police, he attempted a desperate escape, using the storage units as a maze. However, he ultimately ended up in front of see-through windows, legs dangling, knowing he had been caught.
Miami-Dade corrections records show the suspect was at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center Friday. He is facing one count of second-degree grand theft, two counts of third-degree grand theft, three counts of burglary of an unoccupied structure and one count of resisting an officer without violence.
Stroud Mattison appeared in court Friday where a Miami-Dade judge found probable cause for the charges and ordered him to stay away from the storage unit. If he needs to retrieve his belongings, he must be accompanied by a police officer.
The suspect requested a lower bond amount, citing financial difficulties, but the judge denied the request due to his prior offenses and the significant value of the stolen items.