GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Two Gainesville teenagers are facing more than a dozen charges each after police caught them trying to steal a vehicle from a dealership, according to the Gainesville Police Department.
James Boykin, 18, and Jachuary Flowers, 19, are charged with eight counts of burglary, four counts of petty theft and one count each of grand theft auto, grand theft and criminal mischief property damage. Boykin is also charged with dealing in stolen property and providing false information to a pawn shop.
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Gainesville police said that a citizen called about 3:15 a.m. Thursday to report two men tampering with a rear gate at the Gaiensville Buick GMC dealership on Main Street.
An officer in the area responded just in time to see a vehicle smash into the rear gate of the dealership, trying to force it open.
The driver ran away into the property, and officers created a perimeter to track him down.
Flowers was later caught behind the alley of a business on North Main Street
An officer on the perimeter spotted a man running south on North Main Street and then west into a construction area. Officer Rob Rogers and his K-9 partner, Nero, tracked the second suspect to the Florida Pest Control and found Boykin hiding at the front of the business.
The witness identified both men.
Flowers had sunglasses and a power cord in his pocket that were found to be from a vehicle parked at Bill's Low Cost Transmission, police said.
At the dealership, the two men entered the service center, found the key box and used the keys to enter multiple vehicles in the fenced compound, police said.
They eventually used a set of keys on a Mitsubishi to ram the gate in an attempt to steal the vehicle, police said.
They also removed the tags from three different vehicles and and had them stacked next to a vehicle near the gate, police said.
Both teens are being held without bond in the Alachua County Jail.