Uber Driver Helps Police Catch Three Alleged Armed Robbers With Secret 911 Call
The driver pretended he was talking to a friend during the three-hour drive.
— -- An Uber driver played a key role in helping police catch three alleged armed robbers in Georgia with a secret 911 call, police said.
Shawn McCastle picked up three men at a Waffle House in Conyers on Nov. 24 and was directed to take them to a Days Inn Hotel in Stone Mountain, McCastle told ABC News today.
McCastle said he knew something was a bit amiss when the men were all "sleepy" and "lethargic," but he took them to the hotel as they had asked.
"Once we got to the Days Inn, I noticed a large police presence and the man in the front seat directed me to move away from the hotel," McCastle said. "That was my second indicator that something was up."
The driver then took the men to the Krystal, a restaurant in the same town, where the front-seat passenger made a phone call, McCastle said.
"The third indicator was he was telling someone on the phone [police] were flipping up his room," McCastle said.
The next stop on the three-hour trip was a McDonald's, McCastle said, where he said he called 911 outside of the car while the front seat passenger went to the restroom and the other two passengers remained asleep in the back seat.
McCastle said he continued to speak with 911 during the next stop of their three-hour ride -- at a Kroger supermarket.
"Because the men's conversation was kind of negative and getting escalated, I started telling the 911 dispatcher exact streets I was located on so they could find me," McCastle said. "I was talking to the dispatcher like we were having a friendship conversation to keep from tipping them off."
The final destination was a house in Snellville, where police officers, police dogs and helicopters arrived shortly after, McCastle said.
One suspect was taken into custody at the scene while the other two fled into the woods behind the home but were eventually taken into custody, police said.
Police determined that they had robbed four men at the Days Inn Hotel and shot one of them, the Gwinnett County Police Department said in a statement. The suspects were identified as Richard Anthony McKoy, 19, Reggie Tequen Greene, 21, and Thomas Nikay Shatner, 21.
All three men were charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault and four counts of armed robbery, police said. Shatner is also charged with riot, participating in gang activity, robbery, battery and three counts of simple battery. It was not immediately clear whether they had retained attorneys or if they have pleaded to the charges.
Gwinnett County Police Department spokeswoman Michele Pihera told ABC News that McCastle was instrumental in catching the suspects.
"Without his phone call to 911, we may not have been able to identify and ultimately catch these suspects," she said.
McCastle said that although he "knew something was up" during their drive, he "wasn’t nervous at all."
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