3 Accused Of Burglarizing Oklahoma County Law Enforcement Vehicles

Three suspects are in the Oklahoma County Jail, accused of breaking into patrol cars to steal weapons and badges. 

The thieves targeted law enforcement officers around Oklahoma County, including one of the sheriff’s own. The first break-in happened in late July and investigators quickly noticed a pattern. 

Midwest City and Choctaw police officers, a U.S. Marshal and a sheriff's deputy became victims, as guns, badges, bulletproof vests and more disappeared from their cars.

“One of the cases, the individual went in and actually cut through the shotgun rack to get the shotgun of a law enforcement officer,” said Mark Myers, spokesman for the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office.

The smoking gun came in the form of a photo of Destiny Webster, holding one of the weapons.

“In some of these cases,” Myers said, “people brag about that stuff like, ‘hey, I broke into this officer’s car and have this shotgun’ almost like it’s a trophy, but that also helps lead to their capture.”

Webster initially told investigators the items were with a rival gang, but eventually directed them to the correct Edmond address, where they discovered Shawn Maclean and Dennis Nichols, plus a treasure trove of stolen goods.

Myers said, “The specific group that these folks are associated with are folks we’ve had issues with in the past, a lot of times stems around burglaries, breaking into homes.”

Sheriff's deputies believe Nichols was the burglary ring leader, as they recovered a plethora of property belonging to civilians, in addition to all of the items reported stolen from law enforcement.

“It is pretty fortunate to not only be able to do that sort of investigation and make arrests,” Myers said, “but to get those items, those law enforcement items off the streets and out of the hands of these criminals.”

The sheriff’s office is expecting to release more details about the additional string of burglaries later this week.