Neighbors' attentiveness helps catch 6 teens accused in break-ins, police say

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Police said neighbors who took the time to get involved, and a police officer’s quick response led to the arrest of six teenagers in March who were eventually tied to a string of break-ins, including attempts to break in to local gun stores.

It started with a woman who looked out her window in the Stafford Community off Caldwell Road in northeast Charlotte and saw several teenagers she did not recognize walking along a fence line behind her house.

“And I'm looking and I'm like ... who are those kids? I know my neighbor didn't have those kids,” that neighbor, who did not want to be identified, told Eyewitness News Wednesday.

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She knew something was wrong when she saw several of them holding bags.

“When I saw the bag, it just made me feel so sick to know -- they broke into someone's house, and we need to find out what happened here,” the neighbor said.

She called 911, and then started snapping pictures through the blinds of her windows showing the teens and their bags getting into two different cars -- one white and one maroon.

“Of course they didn't know I was looking. The more I would look the more I took pictures and I just kept snapping and snapping,” she said.

Moments later, officer Jerry Dawson pulled into the neighborhood and began looking for the cars.

“I could look right between the houses here and see that the cars weren't parked there,” Dawson said.

He had worked that neighborhood for years, and knew just where to look. As he turned the corner, he spotted the cars parked at the end of a dead end street.

“Once they saw me they started coming out of the dead end and I was able to get the tag from the first vehicle from my side view mirror,” Dawson said.

When that tag came back to a stolen car, Dawson called for backup and it did not take long for officers to catch six teenagers, three of them not even 16 years old.

They are charged now with a string of break-ins, stolen cars and even attempted break-ins to gun stores, all because a neighborhood got involved, and the woman who made that call had a warning for other suspects.

“They need to be also looking out that when they step into somebody's house they have cameras looking out now and good cameras,” the neighbor said.

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