ATLANTA — It was a frightening 60 minutes for a mother, who called 911 after a man allegedly got in her vehicle Monday morning, and drove away with her 9-year-old son still in the back seat.
During those 60 minutes, the Fulton County Police Air Unit had its eyes on the vehicle from the sky, chasing its every move, while Fulton County Sheriff's Deputies, Georgia State Patrol Troopers and Atlanta Police Officers chased it on the ground.
Police Pilot Leroy Champion and Detective Alexandria Ward, who is training to become a tactical flight officer, said they were up within five minutes of getting the call.
"For me, personally, anytime a kid is involved, your tense level gets up a little bit," Champion said. "You do everything you can to try to find that person. You fly, fly, fly, go get fuel, then fly, fly, fly."
Seconds in, they realize the camera system they tend to rely on during pursuits, wasn't working.
"We pretty much had to start looking visually for the car. With the camera system, you're able to zoom in a lot close, you can actually read the tags from above. We knew that the vehicle had a paper tag as well," Detective Ward said.
She had to rely on finding the vehicle visually. Champion said the mother of the child was tracking her car through a GPS. However, there was a 25-second delay with that.
"It would give us a location and we looked at that location, the car wouldn't be there for me with that kind of tracking system. We stayed in the area until we picked it up," Champion added.
That's why they had to strongly rely on communication among all the agencies involved.
"There's a whole lot of communication that goes on you know when we are in a call like that," he said.
Moments later, Georgia State Troopers did a pit maneuver and Champion said one Atlanta Police officer ran to grab the boy from the back seat.
"He jumped out of his car, ran up to the car with no cover, no nothing. I commend him for that. I said 'The kid is okay, the kid is okay'… about three times," he recalled.
Police said nobody was hurt and the suspect was arrested just one hour after allegedly stealing the car.
"Seeing that child come out of that vehicle unharmed, shaken up obviously, it makes you emotional," Detective Ward added.
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