A citizen monitoring a two-way radio frequency early Friday morning enabled Cumberland Police to arrest three area youths who allegedly were attempting to steal CSX locomotive train horns.
Police said the citizen was listening to radio traffic about 3:30 a.m. when he heard conversations between individuals who apparently were attempting to remove property from the locomotives stationed along East Offutt Street.
The concerned citizen ? who resides several blocks from the train yard ? alerted Cumberland Police who then began monitoring the radio conversations of the suspects. Another officer began patrolling the CSX yards area along East Offutt Street just off Virginia Avenue.
Within minutes, the police officer heard one suspect radio another: ?There?s the ...... police,? just before another uniformed officer located two suspects inside a parked vehicle in the area of the railroad yard.
Police then talked to the third suspect by radio. That suspect then exited the railroad yard where he was arrested along with his two companions.
The youths, two 17-year-old Keyser, W.Va., residents and a 16-year-old LaVale youth, were charged with felony theft before they were released to the custody of their parents.
Police said the youths were attempting to steal locomotive signal horns with an estimated value of $500. They reportedly were in the process of removing one of the horns when police interrupted them.
Capt. Kevin Ogle, operations supervisor of the Cumberland Police Department, voiced appreciation for the citizen?s involvement.
?This is a unique way of solving a crime, thanks to the help of a citizen who happened to be monitoring the same radio frequency that the suspects were using,? he said. ?Obviously, if he had not called us, we would not have known about this theft incident.?
Of all things to steal, AN AIRHORN? People are so low.
The new thing for the young redneck crowd to have is a set of airhorns on their pickup.
Air horns are nice I drive a truck trains horns are lovely but they do have a price tag you can get one at a trck stop for like 300$ but the realones are 800$ plus I would like to have one my self for general redneck purposes but I would never steal one
Glad the little darlings got caught for a change :)