Burglary ring busted in Colorado Springs

Four people have been caught related to 24 cases including a string of burglaries in Colorado Springs and El Paso County.

Detective Mark Garcia with the Stetson Hills division of the Colorado Springs Police Department said on Feb. 2 police got multiple calls in the Banning Lewis Ranch neighborhood had been broken into while people were home and asleep.

“This was very rare,” Garcia said. “That’s what caught our attention right at the very beginning.”

Garcia said officers found evidence lying in the middle of the street.

“Credit cards belonging to victims,” Garcia said.

Home surveillance systems captured three unidentified men in a white car.

Just four days and about 13 miles away in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood the same scenarios happen.

Garcia said the group cut screens, forced open windows and patio doors, and surveillance video once again caught the culprits.

“A lot of it was the cheap Ring doorbells that they have,” Garcia said. “We did get stuff from good surveillance systems where they’re the LED, high definition.”

That video helped investigators connect Ronald Thomas, Showne Jackson, Josiah Etheridge and Chanyce Moore to 24 different cases in Colorado Springs and El Paso County.

“There are probably some that we didn’t even know about, as we have one victim who didn’t realize the property was stolen until we recovered it,” Garcia said.

After they were caught, Garcia said burglaries dropped by about 60 percent in CSPD’s Stetson Hills and Falcon divisions.

“Small group of people that just wreaked havoc for a little over a month,” Garcia said.