Dougherty Gang captured

GlobalPost

After running from the law for a week, a sister and two brothers who the media dubbed “the Dougherty Gang” have been captured in Pueblo County, Colo.

Over the past week, the FBI had put the fugitive siblings' photographs on hundreds of billboards throughout the Southeast, USA Today reports. The three had fled north Florida after shooting at a police officer and robbing a bank.

"The tip that led to their arrest came from the public," FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett told USA Today. After their car was recognized at a campsite in Pueblo County, police identified them at a Colorado Wal-Mart and then a convenience store near Colorado Springs.

The siblings attempted to outrun the police, but state troopers set up “stop sticks,” quills that puncture tires, on Interstate 25, which cause the siblings' car to crash into a guardrail, flipping over. The three tried to run away from the scene, but the police caught them, shooting the sister in the arm.

Ryan Edward Dougherty, 21, Dylan Dougherty Stanley, 26, and Lee Grace E. Dougherty, 29, had started their crime spree in north Florida on Aug. 2.

A day earlier, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had convicted Ryan Dougherty of sending explicit messages to an 11-year-old, and sentenced him to two years of electronic monitoring via an ankle bracelet. Police said he cut the ankle bracelet off the Aug. 2, and soon afterwards, sped through a residential neighborhood in Zephyrhills, Fla., in a car with his brother and sister.

When police officer Kevin Widner attempted to stop the car, the passengers fired at least 20 shots at him. After a five-mile chase, they shot out the tire of Widner’s vehicle and fled. It is believed that, several hours later, the three siblings, wearing masks and toting an AK-47 assault rifle and a machine pistol, then robbed a bank in Valdosta, Ga, Reuters reports.

Police deputies say they found a stockpile of weapons in and around the car. "In plain sight, we had a Mack 11 Machine Pistol, two AK-47's, and a handgun," Colorado’s Director of Public Safety Jim Davis told ABC Action News.

"We won," Pasco County, Fla., Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a press conference on Wednesday, Reuters reports. "It's absolutely a huge relief. These three were dangerous people.”
 

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