Tag: stolen cars

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) — The I-team is investigating what’s behind a wild crime spree and high-speed chase through the Triangle last week.

Some of it was caught on camera at Mazda Sport Durst off US15-501.

The video shows a car ramming into the side gate of the dealership. Someone gets out of the car and looks around but doesn’t take anything.

What these guys want–allegedly teenagers–is across the street.

“It’s mainly all the high-performance type vehicles,” said Sport Durst, long-time owner of Sport Durst. “Just the motors alone are worth a ton of money.”

A week ago Sunday, someone broke into his Chrysler store in Durham. Ultimately the group allegedly stole two challengers and thousands of dollars in cash.

The same night, the video shows them in the back lot doing donuts.

But Sport wasn’t done with them.

The next night they came back in one of the very cars they stole from him.

“All of a sudden I see my car coming down 15-501, it turns, goes up in front of the building,” he said. “They got up to the Mazda building right here, went across the median, no lights, then across the median into traffic.”

Orange County deputies eventually helped chase Durst’s stolen car. Eventually, law enforcement put out stop sticks in Graham and took the teenagers into custody after chases where speeds reached 120 mph.

“It’s not uncommon for the crimes that we see being committed in our county every day, every night to have a connection to those counties working around us,” said Charles Blackwood, sheriff of Orange County.

He said he’s concerned about the increase in serious crimes committed by young people under 18 and the way they are currently prosecuted statewide.

“If that juvenile is just released back to their parents or whoever, they are right back to stealing cars in an hour and a half, they’ve got to be housed in a juvenile facility,” Blackwood said.

Data obtained by the I-Team shows there are far more teenagers committing crimes than in the past several years. Numbers from juvenile justice show the percentage of those held in custody is increasing but numbers-wise it means many of these teenagers are not being held by the system.

Durst showed us the two Challengers–one of which is a total loss.

“What if you are a wife and your child were on that highway that night and that car was going 115 mph and your wife or child were on that road?” Durst wondered.