Crime & Safety
Gwinnett Shoe-Snatching Case Solved Using LPRs
Police said license plate readers helped lead them to the arrest of an Alpharetta teen on robbery charges.
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Gwinnett Police said license plate reader technology helped detectives arrest a teenager for snatching shoes from strangers in December.
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The teen is believed to have used Facebook to line up a prospective sale of three pairs of shoes that he stole instead, Gwinnett Police spokesman Cpl. Jake Smith said in a news release.
Christopher Strong, 17, of Alpharetta, was arrested and charged with two counts of felony robbery. He was booked in the county jail on Feb. 9 and released two days later, according to jail records.
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Smith said the victims made arrangement for the sale via Facebook. When they met on Meadow Wood Court near Lawrenceville on Dec. 14, 2014, the teen allegedly took the shoes, threw them into a car to another occupant and drove off.
The Facebook account was immediately deleted, police said.
But the victims noted the license plate number on the black Volkswagen Jetta, and police tracked it to an Alpharetta address where the teen lives.
Strong matched the description of the suspect, and also the description of the suspect in a similar robbery in Roswell, so detectives called police there. The teen had been arrested by Roswell Police in 2014, Smith said.
The teen said he wasn’t any where near Gwinnett on the date of the robbery; he was out of state with family.
Smith said detectives surmised Strong would have passed through the City of Norcross going to and from the robbery scene, and asked Norcross PD to check its license reader system (LPR) to see if the Jetta’s license number turned up on the date of the crime.
It did.
“The suspect vehicle was recorded in the Norcross Police LPR system traveling toward the incident scene 30 minutes before the robbery,” Smith said. “It was recorded again traveling toward Alpharetta 30 minutes after the robbery. This information disproved the suspect’s alibi.”
Police charged Strong with two counts of robbery by sudden snatching. Additional charges are possible, Smith said.
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