Moronic Thieves Butt-Dial 911 After Best Buy Heist, End Up Getting Arrested
While butt-dialing is often attributed to late night drinking and clumsy tech users, it seems two bumbling criminals managed to butt-dial their way right into prison, reports ABC News. Earlier this week, two Texas thieves successfully broke into a Best Buy store near Houston, and while escaping, they made a simple mistake that cost them their freedom.
In the early hours on Saturday, the duo broke into a Best Buy located near Houston. The two made off with some valuable merchandise after knocking over a store in Sugar Land, Texas, at around 3 a.m. on April 27. After leaving the scene of the crime, officers in the area responded to an alarm that went off at the aforementioned Best Buy. While they were responding, police dispatch received a 911 call in the area, not from a fellow officer, but from a random caller. At the time, they only heard background noise from the call.
As is standard procedure, law enforcement pinged the cell phone, which was heading toward Houston, away from the robbery in Sugar Land. Speaking to Houston ABC station KTRK, a communications officer from the Houston Police Department explained that police were able to piece together that the 911 call was actually coming from the thieves.
“[He] somehow butt-dialed 911, they put it all together, officers were already en route to the alarm call when they got the other 911 call,” the officer recounted.
Burglars butt-dial 911 while breaking into Best Buy, police say https://t.co/eBv7FX72Mx #KPRC2 pic.twitter.com/QrN83GGis4
— KPRC 2 Houston (@KPRC2) April 27, 2019
Law enforcement officials sped off after the suspects, which progressed into a high-speed car chase that reached top speeds of 120 miles per hour, KPRC-TV reports. Eventually, the pursuit ended after approximately 40 minutes after the alleged thieves bailed from their vehicle in northeast Houston. Fleeing on foot, law enforcement used a helicopter and K-9 units to track down the suspects.
Two of the three suspects have been captured, while the third is still missing. When searching the suspects’ vehicle, officers found stolen laptops and other high-value merchandise from Best Buy. As ABC News notes, the same Sugar Land Best Buy was robbed back in March of 2015 — over $200,000 of merchandise was stolen.
Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time that burglars have been caught based on an accidental butt-dial. As reported by USA Today, in 2015, 42-year-old Scott Esser was arrested after inadvertently calling the cops, who overheard him talking about a burglary. While law enforcement was unable to pinpoint where Esser was calling from, they responded to a burglary later that evening. After putting two and two together, Esser was arrested.
