Alleged ‘Felony Lane Gang’ members arrested after routine traffic stop in Lenexa
A Lenexa officer and his police dog turned a “routine” traffic stop into an arrest of four out-of-state travelers thought to be part of a roaming network of thieves known as the Felony Lane Gang.
Two men and two women from the Little Rock, Ark., area were booked into the Johnson County jail last week.
Police across the Kansas City area have been cracking down on a pattern of so-called Felony Lane crimes in which thieves break into cars and steal purses outside fitness clubs. The stolen items are often used for identity theft.
Alexis Adams, 20, Lincoln Brison, 24, and Raven Freeman, 20, all of Little Rock, face charges of identity theft and are being held on $100,000 bond. Dejon Dokes, 25, of Sherwood, Ark., is charged with misdemeanor drug possession and has a $5,000 bond.
Lenexa Police Sgt. Ryan Sumner and his police dog Leo pulled the four people over last week for a traffic violation near 96th Terrace and Lenexa Drive.
Sumner recognized that their vehicle matched the description of a car involved in a Felony Lane-style crime the day before outside a fitness club.
The officer was “on high alert,” because of that crime, said Lenexa Master Police Officer Danny Chavez, a department spokesman.
Sumner turned a stop “on some boring ol’ traffic violations” into a bigger arrest, the Police Department posted on its Facebook page.
“We bring good investigative skills to EVERY traffic stop,” the post said.
The Felony Lane Gang crimes originated in Florida and began spreading — or being copied — throughout the nation, including the Kansas City area.
The name comes from the signature tactic of using the outside lane of a bank’s drive-through area, farthest from the tellers, to conduct their illegal transactions such as cashing forged checks.
The perpetrators typically watch for women who leave their cars in a parking lot and walk into fitness clubs, day care centers or parks without their purses. They break into the cars, steal cash and credit cards from the purses, and commit more crimes.
And then they move on to another city.
Police often alert the public to these crimes because they are preventable, Chavez said. The criminals troll areas where women typically don’t want to take their purses with them — the gym, quick dashes into day care centers, or walking in a park.
“If you just throw (your purse) on the floorboard or put a jacket over it, it’s not as secure as you think it is,” Chavez said. “They only need 30 seconds . . . They’re smashing windows.”
Typically, people committing Felony Lane-style crimes only stay in one place two or three days, Chavez said. It makes them harder to track. So police have to collaborate across city limits and state lines.
Police are always asking for help, too, he said.
“If you see someone trolling through parking lots at those places (like fitness clubs) with out-of-state plates,” Chavez said, “you might want to give us a call.”
