all right uh I'm Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Walter and I'm going to lay out what happened here last night that involved a crash as you can see the crash scene is behind me so at about 3 20 this morning the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office received a call of a vehicle burglary at 29.98 58th Avenue North and unincorporated in St Petersburg so that's the area just to the west and south of where we are now the caller had seen somebody breaking into a car in his driveway he had it on video deputies canine and the helicopter responded and identified the suspect and were in the process of taking that person into custody that burglary is not related to this except for the fact it's the reason why deputies in the helicopter were in the area as a helicopter was in the area and they were providing OverWatch from above so the deputy's taking the person into custody they saw three males on the south side of 62nd Avenue North walking eastbound is those three males were walking eastbound they look suspicious the helicopter Pilots got on the radio and asked for ground units to come and find out what they were doing so again we're now somewhere around 3 30 in the morning so as the ground units were on their way to check these guys out they continued eastbound they went past the residence in the area of 62nd Avenue North at 28th Street there was a 2016 Maserati that was parked in the driveway of the residence one of the males who is identified as keandrick k-e-o-n-d-r-i-c-k last name is Lang l-a-n-g and he's a black male with a date of birth of 22007. is that he walked up to the car and he used his shirt and he used a shirt to open the door handle of the car obviously he didn't want to put fingerprints on or DNA on the car so it was he was doing it stealthfully to open that car door handle as soon as you open the car door handle it's obviously he realized that the driver owner of the car when he parked the car last night left the car unlocked he left his keys in the car which is a challenge that we face all the time we talk about this all the time because people really need to lock their car doors and don't leave your keys in the car but they do and when these kids are out in the middle of the night and they're stealing cars and breaking into the cars that's what they're looking for and so that's what happened here is is that this guy got in the car car doors unlocked use a short to open the door handles and you saw the keys and started the car at that point the other two males that were with him and one of those is Mario m-a-r-i-o Bonilla b-o-n-i-l-l-a 15 year old black male date of birth 122506. the other one is Malachi m-a-l-a-c-h-i last name is Daniels a 16 year old black male and date of birth is three six of zero six so they get under the car Bonita is the right front passenger Daniels is seated in the back seat and again Lang is driving so they pull out from the driveway with no lights on on the car they go over the grass area over the curb and out onto 62nd Avenue North and they're going eastbound on 62nd Avenue North so it's that way to my right your left from the area down to the west of where we are and at that point the helicopter is up above season and the deputies arrived in the area and as the deputies arrive in the area they see the car one Deputy is behind them one's on the side of them they get up close to them and they turn on their overhead lights at that point the car rapidly accelerates the speeds are estimated to get up to about 80 miles an hour and I believe this is a 35 mile an hour road out here Deputy Sergeant immediately gets on the radio because we don't chase we don't pursue for stolen cars and told them to terminate they immediately turned off their overhead lights and they slowed their speeds down to about 30 miles an hour they were not pursuing the lights weren't on and the car continued the helicopters up above the helicopters calling it out as they continue to high rate of speed with no lights on eastbound on 62nd Avenue North so back here over my left shoulder to your right is they lost it the driver of the car lost control of the car and again that was oh keondra Lang um and again these are young kids they're inexperienced drivers no driver's licenses driving it 3 30 in the morning 80 miles an hour and the car starts fishtailing all over the road he had no control over the car at that point the car runs up over the curb runs across the sign of the business behind me the car flips as I said Bonilla was the front passenger Daniels was in the back seat the deputies arrived on the scene and the deputies that were behind the car who initially tried to stop it by turning their lights off and then disengaged were James and I'll spell his last name it's s-e-v-o-s-t-j-a-n-o-v and a K-9 Deputy Kellen zenandri z-a-n-a-n-d-r-i-e those are the first two deputies arrived here on the scene went up to the car uh tried to run to raid but realized quickly that Bonilla is deceased and he died here at the scene Daniels is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries not expected to make it and Lang is in a hospital with critical injuries but for right now what they're telling us his injuries are not life threatening none of these kids have criminal histories to speak of one of them has a misdemeanor arrest from back in June the three of them though on September 11th so less than a month ago at four o'clock in the morning We're stopped by a Kenneth City police officer at 47th Street and 61st Avenue North so just to the west of where we are now and just to the South off 62nd Avenue and they were stopped by the Kansas City police officer sound familiar at four o'clock in the morning all wearing black clothes hoodies faces covered Walking in a residential area the kind of City police officer did what we call an fir or a field interview report and called the parents of some of them and those kids were up to these three and three boys they took their photographs they documented it got parents to come pick them up so based on that and this is these kids were on that bad path of what we see with these kids time and again is they're out in the middle of the night they're looking for cars to break into they're looking for cars to steal and these are again crimes of opportunity and they're looking for unlocked Cars and Cars that have the keys in them and that's what they found here and they got in the car and took off and you know this is what happens when you're inexperienced driver you're at 3 30 in the morning driving 80 miles an hour and you lose it and unfortunately one has lost his wife the other one looks like he's going to lose his life and the other one has some pretty serious injuries now this entire thing is captured on video it's captured on video from the helicopter overhead it's captured on video from the dash cameras that the deputies have there's audio traffic from the radio I'm telling you what I know now based upon reviewing the video out here at the scene statements from the deputies and the investigation as we know it we also know and you all know that these are fluid investigations especially in the earliest ages things are subject to change and I'm just telling you what I know as I know it now it could change as things unfold and we do further interviews and do the investigation over the next day or so we have a I would ordinarily release this video probably tomorrow and do a press conference tomorrow to release the video uh we have a funeral tomorrow for a deputy it was killed in the line of duty Deputy Hartwick so I probably won't hold a press conference and release a video tomorrow we'll probably do it on Tuesday and run through it we'll release a helicopter video all the audio you can hear it and release the dash camera video and probably do that on on Tuesday two of the kids go to Northeast High one goes to sorry the other way around two go to St P High one goes to Northeast High um it's really about it uh again very sad situation but it's something we see unfortunately time and again and half scene time and again in this County where these kids are going out in the middle of the night and doing this and you know you all remember I'm sure a lot of you is going to ask about it if I don't raise it but we had this situation years ago with the three girls in the pond we've had uh the three boys up at Tampa Road in 19 a couple years ago that were killed in a stolen car same type of situation and you know just ask people you know and and you know be clear about this is that people shouldn't leave their car doors unlocked and leave their keys in the car but it's their property that's what they choose to do they are you know not quote doing anything wrong what's wrong is these kids are out in the middle of the night being opportunistic and stealing people's cars and driving 80 miles an hour and not having a driver's license not knowing what they do and unfortunately one has died another one is most likely going to die and the other one has got some pretty serious injuries so any questions you don't have [Music] well preliminarily from talking to the parents and again this is just you know pulmonary at this point but it looks like the kids were home and that they snuck out and the parents just didn't know uh we've talked to the parents and they last saw him at home when they went to bed and they said that they were home so this is not a situation uh where we've seen it in the past this is not the situation that we've seen in the past where the kids were on their own they weren't being intended to cared for ETC uh that the parents weren't involved that's some of those other incidents this one it appears that the parents were actively involved and the kids were home and they thought their kids were in bed asleep so you can only imagine the angst you know those parents when in the last 45 minutes when we knocked on their door and told them that you know one of their sons is deceased and the other one is probably going to be deceased and they said that they had noticed some concerning behavior and they were trying to work through it one of the parents had moved the kids recently from one school to another 15 to 16 year old kids you know 15 16 year old kids you know you got to have some issues with them but the parents in these cases from what we can tell we're involved and obviously but mortified they broke Chase with it and helicopter continues to follow so again you can kind of speak a bit a little bit about what that is she would see what they do sure you know if they stop someplace and so you know what we'll do with the helicopter the helicopters obviously uh they don't have the helicopters up there it's flying high enough and the helicopter just watches and when we have those situations where we've tried to stop it they accelerate we disengage and again the deputies were when this this crashes at 10th Street 62nd Avenue behind me the deputies were probably back around 16th Street when the crash happened maybe a little bit to the east of 16th Street so they were a good ways off again they had shut down all their Emergency Equipment they were doing about 30 miles an hour and I can tell that because I've watched the video with the speeds on the video so they were not pursuing and um helicopter will stay up over overhead and see where they go a lot of times what they'll do is that when we see this is that when law enforcement has tried to stop them they'll then go down a side street they'll dump the car and bail out and run and go hide and that's where we use K9 we get on foot and we'll try and find them or they'll go someplace and they'll park the car especially here in Saint Pete they'll go into alleys they'll go behind residences they'll park the car and dump the car and then we try and find them so the whole idea about having the helicopter up over overhead is is they're if they're driving fast it's not because of the police they're driving because that's what they do and we can keep an eye on them and really the hope is is that you know they they slow back down again and once the deputy is disengaged they didn't slow down they just kept going to high rate of speed they slow back down they get to where they're going we can find out we have a very very and anybody's got any questions about it I challenge you to go read it and compare it to others we probably have one of the most restrictive Pursuit policies of any agency in the state we don't engage in Pursuits because they're dangerous but we also have to do our job and we also have to engage people that are involved in criminal activities because that's what we do and that's what the public expects so when we engage them though is that it's a stolen cards property and in this case it's property that the owner can be honest with you he didn't care enough about it to lock the door take his keys so I don't want to see anybody put In Harm's Way put anybody in Peril over a piece of property that the owner didn't care enough about to protect himself but is that we're also going to do our job but the soonest possible moment when it looks like that there was a potential risk we're going to stop and disengage is what we do but we still want to try and solve the crime and take these people into custody and hold them accountable so that's the purpose of having a helicopter up and that method works and it works well and it's done as safely as we can do our jobs and to be effective in law enforcement because these kids they need to be taken off the street I mean it looks like again they were stopped a month ago trying to do the same thing how many times in the last month have they actually done it I don't answer that but if they did it a month ago this isn't only the second time they're out doing this I mean that's common sense I'll tell you that so they need to be held accountable for say that more often than not the car goes away that you that you're doing them using the helicopter I'd say it's 50 50. you know a lot of times what we're seeing lately is the home over the Howard Franklin they go to Tampa and once they go to Tampa with a helicopter we disengage so um I'd say it's about 50 50. as far as whether we catch them out a lot of times they'll bail and uh sometimes when you get a canine and we set up Brokers we find them on foot sometimes we know I'd say it's about 50. going on get the helicopter helicop Pilots saw this car being stolen nearby well I would call the food I called the deputies doing their job you know they were attentive of what was going on in the area they were watching uh and we didn't know whether these kids were related to the burgle remember we're there for a burgle recall uh one's in custody they're looking for other people in the area and it's not unusual that there are multiple people as you saw here that are involved in these crimes so the deputies is a folk they were doing their job and they were looking for suspicious activity anybody else that's in the area because all this is unfolding simultaneously it's all happened in the same moment so as they're seeing them take this guy into custody for breaking into the car they see these kids and they don't know whether these kids are related to that burger you guys been able to contact the owner of this car oh yes he's been here he saw his car it is 2016 silver I I guess it was uh Maserati right right we arrested that guy and it turns out the best we can tell right now this is that original burglary and the address I gave you on 58th Avenue North is unrelated to these kids the best we can tell it's unrelated I provide that for context as to why we're in the area what we were doing what the helicopter was doing and why it was there now of course you know we're still investigating it and the person was taken into custody and that other one uh is a black male in his 20s these are young kids so again he denies knowing them and I think from thus we can tell he's probably telling the truth about that but again we're so investigated it could be uh related but I don't think so at this point I know you said that the parents in this case you know were aware of it they were not negligent in in what they were doing if if a parent knows that their kid is potentially doing something not supposed to be doing what do you recommend they do to keep them off of that well you know resources that are available uh you know through Community Services through the schools if there's anything available uh you got to try and get them to help get them get them involved in activities keep their time structured but you know you can only do that you know this is kids that are going out sometime after midnight get out of the house uh you know one of the kids shared a room with a younger sibling and from what I understand from the deputies talking to the parents this morning is that the younger assembly didn't even know he left so you know you got a feel for these parents because they know that they got the issues you got with a 15 16 year old kids they're trying to do something about it uh trying to be aware of it and the kid sneaks out you know it's you know it's just bad but you know for the parents that are out there that are having challenges with their kids is that there are resources available there's helpless available but even even if you engage all that you know sometimes just bad things are going to happen right so you can plan on probably and again anything needs to be updated between now and then we'll send something out let you all know but the plan now will be not to have any further updates on this or do anything probably until Tuesday because of the funeral tomorrow thanks