Police, Hovering Helicopter Searched For Burglar Thursday Night
The incident happened on the 300 block of West Durham Street.
Police said a department helicopter helped search for a burglar who robbed a house on the 300 block of West Durham Street Thursday night.
14th Police District Lt. Michael Kopecki said Friday that the burglary happened around 10 p.m. Thursday. He said a laptop was taken.
"We were looking for a guy," Kopecki said. "They chased him and lost him in the area."
Police deployed a helicopter to look for the suspect at that time. The chopper has what's called a thermal imager, which makes it easier for police to spot someone who's hiding underneath steps or in a backyard.
That's what they suspected the alleged robber was doing.
Those suspicions were confirmed later in the evening when police found a man hiding underneath the steps. They think he's involved with the burglary on the 300 block of West Durham and believe he's also behind other similar crimes in the area.
Kopecki said there was a theft on the 300 block of Glen Echo Road earlier in the afternoon, and police think the two burglaries are connected.
"He's got a long history of thefts and burglary in the district," he said.
The suspect is in custody but Kopecki said police don't currently have evidence that directly connects him to this particular incident.
Police hope, however, to locate the laptop that went missing from the home on the 300 block of West Durham Street. Based on information about the suspect's prior crimes, they think it could be in the grass nearby.
"He'll break into a place put it into the weeds and come back for it later," Kopecki said.
Police also knocked on doors last night in the area to tell people to lock their homes and to stay alert.
Multiple residents said they were startled by the sound of the helicopter at 10 p.m. on a Thursday night. Some said they saw the suspect hiding in alley behind West Durham Street and West Mt. Airy Avenue.
At least one resident put a message on Twitter about the incident. User @bettina27 wrote that the helicopter was hovering for "a while" and that lots of cops were in the area searching for the suspect.
