ATM theft leads to police chase, shots fired

By Megan Matteucci

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An early morning ATM theft at a south DeKalb County mall resulted in a 30-minute chase, two injured police officers and a chain-reaction crash on I-285.

Two of the suspects are in jail and police are looking for two or three additional men, DeKalb police officer Jason Gagnon told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The crime spree started around 3:30 a.m. Saturday when a group of men broke into the Gallery at South DeKalb on Candler Road and stole an ATM machine, police said.

Shortly later, officers got a call that several men were using power tools behind a Panthersville Road apartment complex in an attempt to break open an ATM. Officers rushed to the scene and caught the group red-handed, Gagnon said.

One officer jumped out of his car and ran up to the suspects.

But the suspects weren’t ready to surrender. Instead, they broke into a Dodge Durango and sped off, heading directly at the officer, Gagnon said.

Unable to avoid being struck, the officer fired his gun as the suspects in the Durango barreled toward him, Gagnon said. The Durango struck the officer, knocking him to the ground.

“The officer fired shots in self-defense, but it didn’t hit anyone – and it didn’t slow down the suspects,” Gagnon said.

The suspects sped off, with several other officers in pursuit.

The officers chased the Durango along I-20 and into Clayton County, through Jonesboro and Forest Park. The 30-minute chase, which was joined by Georgia State Patrol, ended around 5:30 a.m. when the Durango struck a concrete wall on I-285 near Jonesboro Road.

That’s when the suspects jumped from the vehicle, climbed over the wall and fled. Officers immediately captured one of the suspects, police said.

Another suspect was captured shortly later, but only after he beat up a man behind a nearby Home Depot and stole his pickup truck. Officers sped after the pick-up truck and captured the suspect later off Norman Avenue in Atlanta, police said.

Officers thought the mayhem was over, but not quite yet. Two officers were sitting in their patrol cars on the side of I-285 waiting for a tow truck to come retrieve the wrecked Durango when a passerby slammed into the back of one of the officers, Gagnon said.

The impact caused a chain-reaction crash between the driver’s car and the two police cruisers.

That crash resulted in one officer going to the hospital with minor injuries. In addition, the officer who was run over by the Durango and the pickup driver at the Home Depot were also treated for minor injuries.

The subsequent crash caused traffic to back up on I-285 for more than an hour.

As of Saturday morning, police were still searching for the other suspects. Detailed descriptions were not available.

The two captured suspects are being held in the DeKalb County jail. Their names were not immediately available, but they face charges of aggravated assault on a police officer, burglary, fleeing, vehicle theft and hijacking a motor vehicle, police said.

Police have recovered the ATM.

“All the money was still inside,” Gagnon said. “All this, and we had no serious injuries and the money is still inside.”