I saw Lynn and his pilot buddy being interviewed on the NBC Today Show. They came across as a couple of good-old-boy Arkansas rednecks. The thieves were a couple of African-American gentlemen.
EYE IN THE SKY: MAN SPOTS HOME BURGLARY FROM PLANE
By Tom Powell
WREG-TV
August 30, 2011
JONESBORO, ARKANSAS -- Steven Lynn went for the first plane ride of his lifetime Friday. He and a couple of his friends went to check out area lakes to see if they were prime for fishing. When they finished scouting the water, Lynn asked the pilot to fly over his home so he could get aerial pictures.
He never captured the perfect shot, instead he says he spotted a burglary in progress on his property.
"The only thing that was going through my mind was how wild it was," he says.
Lynn says two burglars were loading up stuff like scrap metal and air conditioning units onto a trailer. He stopped snapping pictures and recording video so he could dial 911.
"I'm in the airplane, flew over my house, and seen people stealing stuff out of the yard," he told the dispatcher. "My uncle is there right now and I believe he can keep them there."
Deputies say the suspects ran from Lynn's uncle, then took off in a pickup truck. The pilot stayed with them overhead, tracking their every move. Lynn called out directions to the dispatcher.
"It really worked well," says Craighead County Deputy Sheriff Phillip Wheaton. He says thanks to Lynn's play-by-play from the sky, the suspected burglars Roosevelt Smith III and Joseph Peel were quickly captured. "It's a very unique thing. We've had farmers in crop dusters find vehicles in a field, but never a burglary that's in progress."
Lynn says the cliché fits in this case. He says he took his first flight in the right place at the right time. "I was lucky," he says with a smile.
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