(Updated) A police manhunt concluded with officers tracking down three teens who were fleeing them in Westville Monday night.
Cops from around the city swarmed into the neighborhood shortly before 9 p.m. after the three boys led officers in a car chase.
The boys were driving in the upper Westville area, by Fountain Street, in a green Honda, according to Sgt. Rose Turney. Turney said two patrol officers, Dwight Calderon and John Gaspar, noticed that the Honda matched the description of a car connected to a recent shooting in Beaver Hills.
The officers tried to stop the car. Instead the boys zoomed away.
The officers called for back-up. The boys drove to West Rock Avenue in lower Westville. Then they ditched the car and ran west, away from Edgewood Park.
At least nine officers from around town converged almost immediately on the neighborhood in search of the boys.
Paul Bass File Photo
Three Dwight/Kensignton area officers who came to the scene — one-time Independent “Cop of the week” David Zannelli (in file photo), Anthony Maio, and Carlos Conceicao — saw two of the boys emerge from behind a house at the corner of McKinley and Woodbridge. They stopped the teens.
““They were thinking about running again,” Zannelli said afterwards. “We told them to put their hands up.” The teens surrendered with no resistance, he said.
But one of the teens was still missing. The cops continued looking. The owner of the house on the corner thought she heard footsteps inside, so the officers spent a while checking out the building. The teen wasn’t there.
Paul Bass Photo
Nine cruisers at one point were parked by the intersection as officers continued combing yards. Then a state police officer arrived with a canine, who took a whiff of the Honda, then set off looking for suspect number three.
Sgt. Turney said the boys are 16 or under, and the driver had been operating the car illegally.
Later that evening, officers found the third boy on Marvel Road, according to top Westville cop Lt. Martin Tchakarides.