Police say man caught red-handed stealing from grandmother

Police say a 25-year-old Wauwatosa man was caught at the bank trying to forge a check he took from his grandmother.

According to a Wauwatosa police report;

On Oct. 10, the man had asked his grandmother for money, a request she denied over her suspicion that he had stolen two television sets from her home. She said that he has a drug addiction. She asked him to leave, but she decided to walk away herself to avoid an argument.

She had been doing some gardening outside and had left her purse nearby. When she returned, her grandson had already left and she discovered her checkbook was missing from her purse.

She immediately called police and her bank, WaterStone Bank, 7500 W. State St. While on the phone with her, at about 2:30 p.m., an employee notified her that her grandson was in fact waiting in a car at the bank's drive-through. He was trying to cash a $220 check in her name.

Police found the man in the back of a friend's car and asked him to get out of the vehicle, which he did. After a quick search of the man, police found a crack pipe on him. They found another crack pipe at the spot where he was sitting in his friend's car.

The suspect first tried to pin the blame on his friend, the driver, by saying that he had taken the checks from his grandmother. He changed his story multiple times, finally admitting that he was the one who tried cashing checks to either pay off debts or smoke.