String of break-ins continues

SWAMPSCOTT – Swampscott police reported two break-ins in the area on Puritan Road on Friday afternoon, the most recent in a string of incidents.Swampscott Police Detective Sgt. Tim Cassidy reported that the breaks occurred between 1 p.m. and 3:15 p.m., and that a neighbor saw two “clean-cut,” tall, thin Hispanic young men at the scene of the crime carrying a TV out of one of houses.During the second break-in, one of the suspects knocked on a door and asked the resident if they wanted a newspaper “as a diversion,” said Cassidy.?If no one had answered the door I?m sure they would have broken in,” said Cassidy.The suspects took what Cassidy described as “a large amount of jewelry,” $20,000 in Canadian cash in mostly $100 bills, and flat-screen TVs and computers.Cassidy said as the suspects were leaving they backed into a wall and smashed out the rear window of what the resident described as possibly being a 2004 gold Nissan Pathfinder. The suspects then pulled into a second driveway right next door to that house. A broken car window was found in the driveway and the house was ransacked by the suspects, Cassidy reported.Police said three homes on Elmwood Road were burglarized last Thursday, and police had reported break-ins on Cherry, Pine and Essex streets and Franklin Avenue in the prior week.Police said a chase for a suspect in the break-ins temporarily cancelled open campus at the high school on Thursday afternoon. The police reported no arrests in the break-ins, however, Thursday.Residents are urged to call police if they see anyone suspicious around their homes or their neighbors? homes.Anyone with information is asked to contact the Swampscott Police Detectives Unit at 781-595-1111.