Teen leads police on wild goose chase after stealing deputy's radio

A Douglas County teen is under arrest after police said he stole a police radio out a deputy's marked vehicle and made bogus calls over it.

Georgia Newsday talked to one of the dispatchers on duty when the calls came in.

"He had a really good radio voice," Cpl. Nancy Barrett said.

The sheriff's office is not releasing the boy's name because is he 15 years old.

The teen is charged with stealing a walkie-talkie from the front seat of an unlocked vehicle.

Even veteran dispatchers admit they were fooled at first. That was until the he gave a made-up badge number. Barrett knew it didn't match the voice on the radio.

"That was the first clue and then the deputy that belongs to that badge number, he definitely goes, 'That's not me.' That was our first tipoff," Barrett said.

At first, no one realized the radio was missing. The calls sounded authentic.

"It was a little shocking. He had very good radio etiquette, like he knew what he was doing. He was using proper codes, which was a little interesting," Barrett said.

Barrett said when she first received an "officer needs help" call, dispatchers thought it was the real thing.

"That somebody could scare me to the point that I think one of my guys is in trouble. He was clear and concise, so that's why we took him seriously," Barrett said.

Then the calls got stranger when the deputy whose radio was stolen realized it was gone.

That's when the sheriff's office got federal authorities involved.

"We ended up getting the FCC to start tracking down the location of this walkie-talkie," Capt. Bobby Holmes said.

That tracking and another tip led deputies straight to the teen. The sheriff's office said he'd been breaking into lots of cars stealing radios, GPS units and cellphones.

Holmes told Davis the teen admitted to having the radio. The sheriff's office said the teenage faces a long list of felony charges.