A four-month rash of burglaries, mail thefts, identity fraud, and shoplifting reportedly came to an end last week with the arrest of two men in Putnam County.
And although many arrests are made without incident, these two were anything but, according to Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills.
As of The Eatonton Messenger’s press time Tuesday, two men had been arrested, and Sills said he intends to arrest at least one more person in the case.
Joey Lee Mayfield, 60, of Bluegill Road, Eatonton, was arrested Aug. 18, at 5:40 p.m. on the following charges: three counts burglary 1st degree (felony), impersonating a law enforcement officer (felony), possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute (felony), willful obstruction of law enforcement officer (felony), two counts theft by taking (misdemeanor), one count loitering, and theft by shoplifting first degree — Baldwin County warrant.
Brandon Keith Blocker, 29, whose address is on Pine Bluff Drive in Ivey, but he was living on Bluegill with Mayfield at the time, also was arrested Aug. 18 around 5:30 p.m. Blocker faces charges including three counts burglary 1st degree (felony), one count loitering (misdemeanor), one count theft by taking (misdemeanor), one count probation violation — Baldwin County warrant.
Long rap sheets
Currently on probation in Carroll, Douglas, and Cherokee counties simultaneously, Mayfield has 45 prior arrests in Georgia and Florida, on similar charges for which he is currently facing in Putnam. Those prior arrests include 16 felony convictions.
“Georgia law says once you have three felony convictions, then on your fourth, you get the maximum penalty with no probation or parole,” Sills noted.
“I do not believe the law has been abided by,” he added with sarcasm. “And unfortunately, that is a routine issue.”
Sills said Blocker has seven prior arrests in Putnam, Baldwin, and Laurens counties, which include probation violations in Putnam and Baldwin. He said the Dublin case was dismissed.
“This is why we have so much crime,” Sills said about the multiple counties in which both of the accused men have records. “This is so illustrative of the mobility of today’s criminals, where they are routinely traversing the state and committing crimes everywhere.”
Latest crimes
What Sills described as a “rash of burglaries, mail thefts and regular thefts” began in May in the Lake Sinclair area of Putnam County, mainly in the Twin Bridges Road area.
“One of the burglaries, for instance, in addition to all kinds of other things that were stolen, they took out the stove and range and water heater and stole it from the house,” Sills said.
The incidents were sporadic at first but have been increasing since the first week of July, especially mail theft, he said. Eventually, someone’s home security camera captured a picture of a white Kia with a person’s arm reaching out the window and stealing mail from a mailbox. Flock cameras enabled detectives to identify the vehicle, and further investigation revealed Blocker was “someone potentially associated with that vehicle,” Sills said.
Alarming arrests
After determining the vehicle was occasionally parked at a residence on the 200 block of Bluegill Road, deputies staked out the house and waited for its return.
On Monday, Aug. 18, Sgt. Jeffrey Duncan saw the Kia heading toward him on Bluegill with Mayfield driving and Blocker and two women as passengers. Duncan turned on his patrol car lights to let Mayfield know to pull over, but Mayfield continued down the road and pulled into the driveway of the house the deputies had been staking out. Duncan pulled in and parked behind them.
As Duncan began getting out of his vehicle, Mayfield put the Kia in reverse and backed up and “slammed into the front of the patrol car,” Sills said. He explained this is a relatively new tactic criminals are using in an attempt to force the patrol vehicle’s airbags to deploy, which not only temporarily incapacitates the law enforcement officer, but also disables the car because it will not run with the airbags deployed.
“This has been occurring all over the country, but it’s the first time it’s happened in Putnam County,” Sills said. “Of course, Mayfield said he didn’t mean to back up, but he had no reason to back up. Fortunately, those push bumpers we have on the front of our patrol cars took most of the impact, and the airbags did not deploy.”
When Mayfield stepped out of his car, he was wearing a gun in a holster on his hip and a law enforcement badge.
“Two times, Mayfield reached down toward this gun with his right hand,” Sills said. “I don’t know why Jeffrey didn’t shoot him because it would’ve been justified. I mean, he didn’t follow commands, and two times he reached down to the gun. The video from the car cam is frightening to watch.”
As it turns out, the handgun was a BB gun, “but there’s no way to tell it’s a BB gun or a government model .45 pistol when it’s in the holster like that; just no way,” Sills said.
The badge was a genuine law enforcement badge, but it was actually a Code Enforcement badge from Carrabelle, Florida. Sills said Mayfield had used gold tape to cover the State of Florida seal on it.
“We learned that he would wear the badge and gun into stores while he shoplifted, probably to make store personnel think ‘well, he’s a police officer, we don’t have to watch him,’” Sills said.
Sills said that some of the evidence they recovered has allowed the Milledgeville Police Department to charge Mayfield with shoplifting at Hobby Lobby earlier that same day, when he was wearing the badge and pistol.
After he was taken to Putnam County jail, Blocker had a medical issue, which resulted in him being taken to Putnam General Hospital, Sills said. From there, he was transferred to an Athens hospital where his condition improved, but he remained hospitalized this week.
Evidence roundup
The sheriff said he and his deputies are still taking stock of all the evidence and noted more charges would be coming. As of Monday, he said they had tied Mayfield and Blocker to 18 separate thefts or burglaries and more than 20 incidents of mail theft as well as the methamphetamine possession with intent to distribute.
They also found evidence that Mayfield was counterfeiting checks from the stolen mail. He appeared to be counterfeiting a Georgia driver’s license with his picture and the name of the person the checks were made payable to.
Additionally, they found evidence that appeared to suggest Mayfield was attempting to make some sort of identification that he was a postal inspector.
“Of course, that’s handy to have,” Sills said. “So, if you come home and a person is in your yard and he’s got on this code enforcement badge or this postal inspector badge and says, ‘I’m just checking on something,’ you’d be ok with it.”
“But it’s just that we catch ‘em when they shouldn’t have been out of jail in the first place,” Sills continued. “And then all that crime they did here, the phenomenal danger he put my deputy in … And a deputy completely justified in killing him but just by the grace of God he didn’t, there’s just no end to it.
“The public needs to talk to their legislators and pay more attention to what’s going on at the state level than what’s going on in Washington,” he said.