WESTFIELD – A Springfield man who later said that he wanted to go back to jail reportedly stole a pack of cigarettes from the hand of a convenience store clerk last night.
City police report that officers Michael Csekovsky and Richard Mazza responded to a 8:19 p.m. report of a larceny at the Main Street Cumberland Farms store and a bystander reported that the described suspect had walked toward the center of the city when he left the store.
Mazza found the man at a nearby bus stop.
Csekovsky spoke with the store clerk who reported that a man he described had asked for a pack of Marlboro 100 cigarettes and, after he took the pack from the rack but before he could ring up the sale, the suspect took the cigarettes from his hand and started leaving the store.
The clerk told Csekovsky that he told the man that he had to pay for the cigarettes or he would call police and the man reportedly said “go ahead.”
Mazza reports that he asked the suspect at the bus stop if he attempted to steal a pack of cigarettes from the store and the man replied “I didn’t attempt to steal them. I stole them.”
The suspect, later identified as John Skowron Kirwan, 40, of 27 Morris St., Springfield, told Csekovsky that he was on probation and wanted to go back to jail.
He said that if he wasn’t arrested then police would be dealing with him again later.
Kirwan was arrested for shoplifting by asportation and is expected to be arraigned today in Westfield District Court.
