Annette Beard
Cory Rusher is in jail.
All guns stolen from Castle Rental and Pawn are recovered.
Pea Ridge Police worked ceaselessly following every lead, cooperatively working with several other law enforcement agencies for a week. They trudged through the woods to a secret hiding place to locate the guns and ammunition that Rusher had purchased from a retail store in the area.
On July 18, one week after the burglary, Rusher was captured at a hotel in Joplin, Mo. Officers from multiple agencies worked together to develop leads on his location. Officers from Pea Ridge; Benton County Sheriff's Office; McDonald County, Mo., Sheriff's Office; Joplin, Mo., Police; probation parole; and the U.S. Marshal's Office joined the investigation.
"It involved a lot of agencies, multiple states, multiple jurisdictions," Pea Ridge Police Sgt. Detective Brandon Davis said. "It was one of our largest collaborative projects."
"We've been working it for a week. We kept working every lead we got," Pea Ridge Police Capt. Chris Olson said. "We ran it until it got cold, got regrouped and ran it again."
Olson said that getting back the stolen property was unusual.
"It's hard to find them but you don't usually just get the property back," Olson said.
Five guns, two of which were loaded, were recovered.
Officers located Rusher, but he refused to exit the room in which he had been staying. Because of this and because the case involved stolen firearms, the Joplin Police SWAT team was called in to assist further.
"We went to the room. We stacked up on it," Olson said, explaining that means the officers lined up behind a shield and approached the door. He said the nearby rooms were cleared after Rusher refused to exit the room, but was seen inside. "We believed he was still armed with firearms."
"SWAT team negotiators talked; the girl (Rusher's girlfriend, Keisha Whaley, 18) came out. She left the door open. He wouldn't come out," Olson said. Several rounds of a "chemical agent" were shot into the room before Rusher came out of the room.
"This is why these guys are here. They work hard. That's what I expect out of them," Pea Ridge Police Chief Ryan Walker said. "I think it's what the town expects of us. They give up a lot of family time to get the bad guy and the guns off the street."
"As a department," Olson said, "I think it's big that we really got very good working help from other agencies."
"We developed a good working relationship with McDonald County Sheriff's Office, Joplin Police and the U.S. Attorney's Office," Davis said.
"All the guns got recovered and nobody got hurt," Davis concluded.
General News on 07/27/2016