Entering Auto Suspects Arrested After High-Speed Chase

ALPHARETTA, GA -- Alpharetta police believe the suspects arrested during an entering auto spree could be tied to dozens of cases spanning three jurisdictions.

Two of the suspects were apprehend overnight Friday while a third remains at large.

Officers responded around 3:26 p.m. Sept. 16 to a call from a resident on Cogburn Ridge Way who told dispatchers that people were walking through the neighborhood pulling on vehicle door handles.

The caller also said there were two vehicle "driving slowly through the street while other people walked from house to house," according to an incident report released by the Alpharetta Department of Public Safety.

Officers responded "en mass and saturated the area" in an effort to locate the suspects, department spokesperson George Gordon said. Officers also blocked off the entrance of the subdivision.

That blockade didn't deter the suspects, as the vehicle, a black Chevrolet Equinox jumped the curb, drove around the police car and left the neighborhood.

The car took off a high rate of speed along Cogburn Road towards Windward Parkway and as it approached the intersection, the Equinox crashed into the curb on the left side of the road, veered on and off the sidewalk and crashed into and over the median.

Three suspects inside the vehicle jumped out and fled on foot in different directions.

Gordon said Alpharetta police once again "saturated" the area with dozens of officers in an effort to pursue the suspects, who all appeared to be young men between the ages of 16 and 25 year old.

Alpharetta police lost sight of the suspects, who took advantage of the wooded area. About an hour later, a Milton police officer spotted two men walking through the parking lot of Del Taco on Alpharetta Highway.

Gordon said the two men were covered in grass and mud and since the restaurant was closed at that time of night, the officer became suspicious.

The two men were stopped and identified as Atlanta residents Devante Morris, 17, and Javares Simmons, 20.

Gordon said detectives are working to identify the third suspect, and believe the trio could be tied to as many as 30 to 40 entering auto incidents in Alpharetta, Milton and Forsyth County.

The suspects, he added, came into Alpharetta to commit the crimes, and appear to have been on the spree for some time.

"They were going to cause a lot of damage," he said, referring to the suspect's decision to flee police at a high rate of speed. “That’s a dangerous environment that they created besides committing the crime.”

Morris and Simmons are each charged with theft by receiving stolen property, loitering and prowling and willful obstruction of law enforcement.

The Equinox, along with a Lincoln MKX also involved in the incident, was believed to have been stolen, Gordon said.

Once Milton detectives and their counterparts in Forsyth County can compile the information from their cases and talk with the two suspects in custody, Gordon said he believes Alpharetta police will "break this case wide open."

He also credited the citizen who didn't hesitate to dial 911 when something didn't feel right.

“That one phone call from that citizen probably solved dozens of crimes.”

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Image via Alpharetta Department of Public Safety