Deputy Sends Reminder After Confrontation: Let Us Deal With Dangerous Criminals
HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (CBS4) - A Highlands Ranch mother says she told her son he made a mistake when he confronted a group of thieves in their driveway earlier this week, and police agree with her.
Dorothy Morton and her family are still shaken up by the incident, which happened late Monday night.
Morton says she heard a commotion and looked out her window. She saw her son run from the side of their house into the driveway. There, he confronted the teenage criminals who were breaking into their cars.
"I heard the guy say 'I've got a gun' and then I heard the pop," Morton said.
Morton said a shot was fired while she was on the phone with 911.
"I had to make the assumption that they were aiming at my son," said Morton, whose son wasn't hit injured.
The teens then drove away, but Morton's son wrote down the license plate on the vehicle they were driving. With that information, authorities eventually tracked down the teens responsible.
Douglas County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Steve Johnson said the teens led Douglas County deputies, Lone Tree police and Colorado State Patrol troopers on a high speed chase before they were arrested early Tuesday. Four teenagers in all were caught after their car crashed into a median on the Plum Creek exit of Interstate 25.
Johnson said the teens are responsible for break-ins of several cars in Highlands Ranch. He said they took "small amounts of change, and small trivial items."
Morton's family says they would like to see the teens, whose identities are not being released, face attempted murder charges.
While investigators with the Douglas County Sheriff's office are thankful they got the plate number and a good description of the teens, they don't encourage confronting a suspect.
"Instead, stay in your house, dial 911 and let us do our job," Johnson said.
Morton said she shared that same message with her son after the incident.
"I was just grateful he didn't get shot," she said. "It scared me half to death."
The teens are being charged with felony menacing, burglary, juvenile possession of a weapon and felony eluding.
