COVINGTON, Ga. – Police are looking for whoever used a brick to shatter glass in the entry doors at one pawn shop and the person who ran from them at a second one early Wednesday morning.
According to a Covington Police Department incident report, officers responded to Emergency Pawn at 10105 Wheat St. just past 1:30 a.m. on a burglar alarm.
Responding officers found a pair of entry doors with shattered glass but no other damage due to a metal door behind the entrance. When the key holder arrived officers searched and cleared the building without locating anybody.
At 1:42 a.m., after hearing about the burglary on Wheat Street, Officer Keith Waddell went to John’s Pawn Shop at 7159 Highway 278 to check it.
According to a CPD report, when Waddell arrived at the business he saw someone on the ground next to the fence on the left side of the building.
As Waddell was getting out of his patrol car, the suspect, wearing all black clothing and a black mask with white on it, got up and ran, fleeing across Highway 278 toward a medical professional building and Floyd Street with Waddell in pursuit.
According to the report, Waddell lost sight of the suspect as he made a turn onto Newton Drive. Other officers set up a perimeter of the area and Officer Austin Knight made visual contact before losing sight of the suspect when he began jumping fences in a wooded area behind houses in the area. Sgt. Hayward DeRouen responded with K9 Officer Doerak to assist in the search but police were unable to locate the suspect.
Officers did find a black shirt behind a house on Floyd Street that got caught on some briars possibly belonging to the suspect. They also found a hammer next to the fence at the pawn shop where the suspect was laying. Both items were taken in as evidence.
CPD Public Information Officer Justin Stott said the two incidents have not been officially linked, but the suspects in both incidents were wearing dark clothing. Stott also said that authorities think the pawn shop incidents may be related to the recent early morning break-in at the Tractor Supply on Lochridge Boulevard.
