Denver Police District 4 officers arrived within three minutes of a call reporting a burglary in progress at a business on South Jason Street on August 12, only to see two suspect vehicles fleeing the area as they pulled up. One vehicle was stopped near West Mississippi Avenue and South Inca Street, but three suspects bailed out and ran on foot, setting off a search that would end with two of them stuck on a rooftop and a fire department bucket truck called in to get them down.
That account comes from the Denver Police Department, which posted the details of the August 12 incident under the headline “Drones, Bucket Trucks and a Burglary, Oh My!” According to the department, officers set up a perimeter after the suspects scattered and requested help from the department’s drone unit to locate them.
Aerial Search Pins Down Rooftop Hideout
The drone helped officers spot two of the three suspects hiding on a roof in the 1100 block of South Jason Street, per the department’s account. Officers then took those two suspects into custody, while Denver Fire provided a bucket truck to help get personnel safely up to the roof. A third suspect was located below the roof, and officers said they used the drone’s speaker system to issue commands to the suspects during the standoff.
All three suspects were arrested on investigation of burglary charges, the department said. The vehicle involved was impounded, and officers later found a firearm underneath it. Under Colorado’s mandatory vehicle gun storage law, House Bill 24-1348, handguns left in unattended vehicles must be stored in a locked, hard-sided container out of view or in a locked trunk, a requirement in effect since January 1, 2025, according to a statement the Denver Police Department posted regarding firearm storage. As with any arrest, the suspects are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
What the Charges Could Mean
Under Colorado Revised Statutes § 18-4-203, knowingly breaking into a commercial structure with intent to commit a crime amounts to second-degree burglary, a Class 4 felony that can carry up to six years in state prison and fines as high as $500,000, according to Justia Law. That statute treats commercial burglaries more leniently than break-ins of residential dwellings, which carry harsher Class 3 felony penalties. It remains unclear which specific business on South Jason Street was targeted, and whether the Denver District Attorney’s Office has filed formal charges against the three arrested individuals.
A Familiar Tactic for District 4
This was not the first time District 4 officers have leaned on aerial technology to track down a fleeing burglary suspect. On January 7, the same district deployed a thermal-camera drone to locate a commercial burglary suspect hiding in a marshy drainage basin near South Wadsworth Boulevard, the department noted in a Facebook post. District 4 covers 14 statistical neighborhoods across southwest Denver, including industrial and commercial corridors along South Jason Street in the Overland neighborhood near West Mississippi Avenue, bordering Englewood and Lakewood…