EAST POINT, Ga. — Young children were riding their bikes on a neighborhood street when a high-speed chase came flying past them. Now, a little boy's father is calling him a hero.
Ten-year-old Josiah Coryell captured the chase with his cellphone while also looking out for his sister.
"So I told my sister to stay on the side of the road, and she listened,” Josiah Coryell said.
But he wasn't the only one in the family in the role of protector Monday afternoon.
His dad, Jonathan Coryell, also stepped up. The man said he typically wouldn't have gotten involved, but the suspects put his kids in danger.
"I mean, my kids were in my house less than 10-feet away,” Jonathan Coryell said. "You don't really think in a moment like that."
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Jonathan Coryell came home to find the police search underway.
He checked on his neighbor who quickly realized that his backdoor was open.
"That's when he wanted to go get his gun. I said, 'Dude, he could literally be in there right now,'” Jonathan Coryell said.
Atlanta Police Department told Channel 2 Action News the suspect was one of two men who sledge-hammered their way into a Metro PCS store on Oak Street and stole 19 phones early Monday morning.
But police tracked a phone and tailed the suspects until they bailed out in Coryell’s neighborhood.
Coryell said he was armed and did what he could to get the suspect to stop. Police were everywhere.
"That was one of the reasons I fired. I don't want to shoot somebody, first of all. So, I shot into the ground, and I shot the second time knowing that police are going to hear this, and sure enough, that's when they all came to that area," Coryell said.
Both suspects were ultimately caught, and now a community is slowly getting back to normal.
"The way we handled it, no we wouldn't do anything differently. No," Jonathan Coryell said.
Investigators are working to confirm the suspects' identities and determine if there were any others involved in these crimes.
Cox Media Group
