Chief Cliff Cason honored Detective Ben Ridley (right) as the DPD's Officer of the Month for April
The Dalton Police Department recognized Detective Ben Ridley as its Officer of the Month for April after he was able to combine technology and old-fashioned legwork to solve a string of entering auto cases. Detective Ridley's work is also serving to help jurisdictions as far south as Henry County solve cases of their own which were perpetrated by the same person.
Dalton Police Chief Cliff Cason presented the honor to Detective Ridley at Tuesday morning's meeting of the Dalton Public Safety Commission. Chief Cason told the commission that Detective Ridley was assigned to follow-up on reports of a series of car break-ins from March in the parking lots of various Dalton Parks and Recreation Department facilities. In three of the four cases, the suspect smashed windows in parked cars to steal purses that had been left inside the cars. In the other case, the vehicle had been left unlocked.
"The cases generated quite a bit of buzz and phone calls to elected officials, the city administrator, and that sort of thing," Chief Cason said. "Detective Ridley was already on the ground and working on this case and putting the hours in to try to bring it to a successful conclusion."
The entering auto cases occurred on March 22. Chief Cason told the PSC that Detective Ridley was able to identify a suspect vehicle using surveillance cameras at one of the crime scenes. Over the next several days, Detective Ridley visited different businesses near the scene where he was able to use surveillance cameras to track the vehicle along a path to the Walnut Avenue interstate exit. The city's Flock camera system at the interstate exit was able to capture the vehicle's license plate number. From there, Detective Ridley was able to use the tag information to learn that the vehicle had been rented using a car sharing app. He was also able to pick the vehicle up on the Flock camera system as it entered Dalton earlier in the day on March 22.
Using that information, Detective Ridley then found more camera footage from area businesses of the vehicle until finally getting a picture of the suspect from an area gas station where he made a purchase. Using facial recognition software, Detective Ridley identified the suspect. Eventually, Detective Ridley was able to use the information he gathered to obtain warrants for 42-year old Anthony Sanchez Vaughn from the Atlanta metro area. Detective Ridley shared that information with a network of other police agencies in Georgia where the same suspect had also been active. At least six other police departments now have warrants for Vaughn's arrest.
"Detective Ridley aggressively investigated these cases," Chief Cason told the Public Safety Commission on Tuesday. "He went the extra mile of tracking the vehicle through the surveillance videos or else the suspect would not have been identified."
"Technology is a great thing when it works," said PSC Chairman Truman Whitfield. "It’s great to know that we can partner with that many different entities to come to a conclusion that works out well for everybody."