Atlanta police officers arrested suspects driving a Tesla loaded with stolen Amazon packages
By: Atlanta police arrested two men caught in a Tesla Model 3 accused of stealing people’s Amazon packages.
On Oct. 24, at 6:30 a.m., police responded to a 911 call reporting a burglary at a business on the 900 block of Huff Road.
A caller told police that two men were stealing packages from the property and loading them into a red Tesla.
Two males matching the caller's descriptions were found in the Tesla wearing gloves, police said.
Police later identified the two men as 39-year-old Larry Byer and 38-year-old Don’ "El Leon" Hammonds.
The men were detained, and during a search of the vehicle, officers recovered marijuana, meth, a firearm and reportedly stolen Amazon boxes with different names and addresses on them.
Police also recovered multiple credit cards and I.D. cards with different names on them, but none belonged to the two men.
Byer is charged with nine counts of theft by receiving stolen mail, possession of crystal meth, possession of marijuana, possession of tools for the commission of a crime, and burglary.
Hammonds is charged with nine counts of theft by receiving stolen mail, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession of marijuana, possession of tools for the commission of a crime, and burglary.
Both men were transported to the Fulton County Jail. Police say they returned the packages to their rightful owners.
"Some say we should ‘never judge a book by its cover’; we say, ‘never judge a thief by the car they drive,’" a spokesperson for the Atlanta Police Department wrote in a Facebook post.