ABINGDON, Md. — Tracked down in the dark of night, a pair of suspected thieves who had stolen items from nearly two dozen vehicles in the Box Hill South neighborhood of Abingdon, including Nathan Duncan’s SUV.
“I opened up the door and saw my stuff trashed everywhere—-went through my duffel bag, backpack, through my console, driver’s side, took my wallet, took my cash, credit cards, anything they could find,” said Duncan.
Finding the thieves would be a challenge.
Duncan called and alerted deputies at 4:27 in the morning, but they had already stolen away in the night.
A second call reporting similar crimes came just 26 minutes later and some seven miles away onDoncaster Road in Joppa.
Deputies spotted a dark pickup on nearby Falconer Road, like one reported in the area, and gave chase before it jumped a curb three blocks away on Barksdale Road and what turned out to be a 15 and a 16-year-old disappeared into some nearby woods.
Little did they know, with some high-tech help, deputies would find them in a matter of minutes.
“Deputies on patrol actually have the drones in their cars, were immediately able to launch a drone, get up overhead and helped us find with the heat vision these two people hidden… trying to hide in the woods, but the camera gave them away,” said Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler.
In the video, you can see the deputies converging on the suspects as they raised their hands in surrender—-all due to a piece of technology that takes a lot of the guesswork and the risk of escalated violence out of a high-stakes confrontation.
“In the truck, we recovered a ghost gun, if you will, an unregistered handgun,” Gahler revealed.
It’s a fact not lost upon Duncan who could have easily come face to face with the thieves inside his car had he left for work a few minutes earlier.
“Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to come into a position where I had to protect myself or anyone else and use, me being a gun holder, myself, use mine,” said Duncan, “but I can’t say the same for other residents who would have had this encounter.”
