Residents help officers catch burglary suspects

By Randa Wagner -

Mor­row County res­i­dents were instru­men­tal in assist­ing deputies in the appre­hen­sion of two sus­pects caught in the act of a Sun­day home burglary.

Mor­row County Sher­iff Steve Bren­ne­man said home­own­ers on CR 97 in Perry Twp. near the Rich­land County line came home to find an unfa­mil­iar and unoc­cu­pied vehi­cle with its engine run­ning in their dri­ve­way. When they real­ized some­one was in their house, they removed the keys from the run­ning vehi­cle and started to leave the res­i­dence, intend­ing to call 9–1-1. That’s when things got really interesting.

“The sus­pects came out of the house, approached the home­own­ers’ vehi­cle and attempted to stop them from leav­ing, pound­ing on the vehicle,” Brenneman reported. “The home­own­ers kept going, called 9–1-1 and the sus­pects fled on foot.”

Five on and off-duty Mor­row County offi­cers responded to the area, includ­ing the Canine unit, which was suc­cess­fully track­ing the sus­pects when Rich­land County trans­ferred a 9–1-1 call say­ing the sus­pects were now on Bellville-Johnsville Road in Rich­land County, ask­ing a res­i­dent there to give them a ride back to Mansfield.

About that time, passersby who were neigh­bors of the bur­glar­ized res­i­dence saw the sus­pects at the Bellville-Johnsville Road res­i­dence, deduced they were the sus­pects and, with the aid of the res­i­dent, appre­hended one of the sus­pects while the other fled on foot.

The sec­ond sus­pect was found by Bren­ne­man about a half mile away along the edge of a wooded area by a pas­ture. Bren­ne­man, guided by res­i­dents wav­ing and point­ing in the direc­tion the sus­pect ran, drove his SUV down the lane of an Amish farm, where the sus­pect gave him­self up when the sher­iff began a foot pursuit.

Bren­ne­man said when he returned to the loca­tion of the first sus­pect, three or four men were hold­ing him down. The sus­pect had assaulted one man repeatedly.

“I don’t advise peo­ple to take that kind of action,” Bren­ne­man noted, cit­ing it’s not usu­ally a safe course to pur­sue. Quick think­ing on the homeowner’s part to take the keys out of the car and leave was def­i­nitely a plus in this case.

“Would we rec­om­mend peo­ple do that? No,” advised Bren­ne­man. “But leav­ing the res­i­dence and call­ing — rather than stay­ing and con­fronting the sus­pects — is def­i­nitely wise.”

Assault charges are pend­ing in Rich­land County and at least one man is supected in con­nec­tion with an attempted break-in there. Dustin W. Urban, 26, and Jason M. Black­well, 27, were each charged Mon­day with bur­glary, a felony of the sec­ond degree. No bond was set at that time.

“We’ll be look­ing at them for other [break-ins] in our county and Rich­land County,” Bren­ne­man said.

The public’s assis­tance, will­ing­ness to get involved, and watch­ing out for their neigh­bors was a big help to officers.

“Peo­ple are upset, they’re angry and they’re tired of get­ting ripped off,” Bren­ne­man said. Refer­ring to law enforce­ment man­power in the county, he added, “I think they under­stand where we’re at.”

Posted by Randa Wagner on Aug 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.