How agencies worked together to track down teen escapees
McBEAN, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - A deputy is expected to make a full recovery after being hit in the head and shot at by a couple of teenage offenders who led authorities on an hourslong manhunt.
Jenkins County Deputy Milo Perry was recovering at home Friday, the day after authorities say he was attacked by a pair of juvenile offenders he was driving to a youth detention center in Augusta after they’d made a court appearance.
He was taken to a hospital for observation but was home by Thursday night and is expected back at work Tuesday.
The shackled suspects – identified as Corinthian Newton, 15, and Brandon Davis, 14, both of Millen – were eventually caught by bloodhounds that tracked them to a storage container they were hiding in.
They’ll be prosecuted as adults on new charges that will the burglary and firearms charges counts they already faced, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The new charges are two counts of aggravated assault on a peace officer with a firearm, according to GBI.
They’re being held in the Augusta Regional Youth Detention Center.
They were caught around 5 p.m. Thursday, hours after deputies rushed around 1:30 p.m. to Highway 56 and Knight Road, in Burke County just south of the Richmond County line, in search of them.
They had been in court in Millen and were on their way to being transported back to the detention center in Augusta when they escaped, according to authorities.
Burke County Sheriff’s Office Col. Jimmy Wylds said that while being driven back to Augusta, the teens complained repeatedly about being hot in the back of the vehicle.
The deputy refused to roll down the windows, but eventually opened the partition between the front seat and the rear compartment.
“And at some point, one of them goes into the cab of the truck and started wrestling with him and was able to get his gun and pistol weapon and they stopped and got out and they fought a little bit outside,” Wylds said.
Authorities said they hit Perry in the head with the gun and shot at him but missed. GBI said they also shot at a Burke County deputy.
Multiple agencies ed the manhunt with all kinds of tools and technology to track them down.
In the end, it was a decidedly low-tech method that caught them: A state bloodhound named JoJo got a whiff of them on a bloody shirt they’d discarded, then tracked them down.
A lot of credit goes to JoJo the bloodhound who played a major role in the capture.
“That bloodhound worked out amazing,” Plueger said. “When it came down to it, we utilize that bloodhound to help try to find a track so it finds a track and then eventually it found a sweatshirt with one of the suspects that actually taken off and so that helps to track even better. And from there follow that right to the container where they’re the juveniles were.”
PHOTO GALLERY:
Chad Plueger, colonel of operations for the Burke County Sheriff’s Office, explained how a manhunt like this unfolds.
“What we typically do is we get a lot of our patrol deputies involved and so we start looking at where he was last seen,” he said.
He said they’ll look at all the nearby roads, get the intersections and block the roadways.
In this case, a “special response team” entered the woods to start looking for the suspects, while two helicopters and drones were in the sky.
“So we set up a good perimeter – we try to get it out as wide as we can,” he said.
Sheriff Alfonzo Williams was thankful for all the help from other agencies.
“Georgia State Patrol came in to help us from all over the state. They flew aviation in and they had brought two helicopters, and I’ve had numerous agencies – I don’t even know if I could the name of them all, to be honest with you,” Plueger said.
Communication is key when so many agencies are involved.
“It’s just fielding those phone calls and trying to go over the radio and try to direct people to where they can be best to help us out locating these suspects,” Plueger said.
There were a lot of unknowns.
“Now, we know they’re shackled. But we also knew there were gunshots that have been fired. So were those gunshots directed directly towards the deputies later on? Are they trying to shoot off their shackles and now they’re not wearing them?” Plueger said.
But it all worked out well in the end.
“We get one mission, and everybody can come together and worked together – no matter what agency we work for – to get things done,” Plueger said.
A lot of credit goes to JoJo the bloodhound who played a major role in the capture.
Copyright 2024 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.
