Crime & Safety

Police: 'Career Criminal' Nabbed for Break-In

Tarrytown Police Department on Tuesday arrested Nathaniel K. Greenhill, of Yonkers, for allegedly attempting to burglarize a Benedict Avenue home Tuesday. His record includes another burglary arrest in Tarrytown in 2002.

About an hour after a man broke into a Benedict Avenue home Tuesday afternoon, encountered the owner and fled down Broadway, police found him just walking down the sidewalk.

Tarrytown Police, with the help of Westchester County SWAT team and dogs, apprehended Nathaniel K. Greenhill, 54, of Saratoga Avenue in Yonkers in front of the Chase Bank on South Broadway.

Following positive identification by several witnesses, by 5:30 p.m. Greenhill was charged with burglary in the second degree, a class C felony. He was arraigned and held on no bail to appear in Village Court this morning.

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Police Lieutenant William Herguth described Greenhill as a “career criminal” with 51 arrests for burgarlies and larcenies in his record, including one for a Tarrytown burglary in 2002.

Greenhill apparently broke into the residence at 4 Benedict Avenue by climbing in an open window. Unfortunately for him, a woman was home watching TV when he did. She confronted the man, who immediately turned around and scooted back out the window, fleeing south down South Broadway, said Herguth. The woman called Tarrytown police at 12:07 p.m. and the hunt for this man began.

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Tarrytown police called for reinforcement from the county who sent a bloodhound and a K-9, along with the SWAT team that always accompanies their dogs, said Herguth. Bloodhounds are trained to track scents while the K-9 is a shepherd-type dog who can chase and stop a perp on the run.

Herguth said the bloodhound pointed police in the right direction where officers spotted a man resembling their suspect walking in front of Chase Bank at the Bridge Plaza complex about an hour after the break-in. Police noted that “portions of his clothes were similar to what was described," Herguth said. Once officers stopped him and got his name, some who were on the force for many years recognized Greenhill from his first Tarrytown arrest 10 years ago.

Herguth wanted to specify that this was not an attempted "home invasion" as it had been classified in an early email alert from the county, but a "daytime burglary of a dwelling" with "no harm."

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