Famous felons may have hit Cd'A

By STEVE CAMERON

Staff writer

COEUR d’ALENE — It’s possible organized crime just took a stab at doing business in Coeur d’Alene.

Detectives Jared Reneau and Alan Winstead of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department explained on Wednesday that last week’s attempted carjacking at Goodies Conoco on Appleway might not have been the one-off, spontaneous crime it first appeared to be.

“We’re looking into the possibility that the two suspects in that case are members of a national organization called the Felony Lane Gang,” Reneau said.

“Dwight Higgins (one of the pair arrested) has admitted an affiliation with the gang in the past, but claims he’s not involved now. And so far, the other suspect (Victoria Calloway) denies being part of the gang.

“However, we have some evidence that seems to connect them to the Felony Lane Gang. We’re working on that as we move forward.”

Higgins and Calloway are both residents of Florida, and the Felony Lane Gang — named for the bank drive-up lane farthest from the teller’s window — originated in Broward County near Miami.

The gang is not just a few Floridians trying to make a score while on vacation, either.

“There’s now a Facebook page dedicated to stopping the Felony Lane Gang by adding information and locations — anything to warn the public and help law enforcement,” Winstead said.

“Our information is that there are hundreds of people involved, at various levels, and they’ve committed crimes literally all over the country. There are the bosses back home, taking their cut of things, and others out on the road just about everywhere.

“It’s definitely very organized. A couple of these gang members, or perhaps three or four, will come to a town and really scout it out — looking for parking lots with very little activity or security.

“Then they come back in one car, find an empty vehicle with some items of value, use a window punch to gain entry, and then a second car comes by and they steal the contents of the car.

“They can do it very, very quickly.”

The two detectives agreed most gang members’ No. 1 target is normally a woman’s purse, and members of the public leave purses visible in their car far more often than you’d expect.

The crimes don’t stop there, however.

Whenever the thieves find a checkbook, they’ll write checks to the victim in another state, then use the “felony lane” at a bank drive-through in yet a third state — making the transaction look legitimate by depositing some money in the victim’s account, but keeping a good share for themselves.

“They will sometimes find a local person to deposit the check,” Winstead said. “They’ll get somebody who looks a little like the victim — and they keep wigs available to make it even more realistic.”

The bank fraud portion of the crimes is extremely hard to detect and sort out, the detectives agreed, to the point that occasionally the victim won’t even know money has been taken from his or her account.

“Generally, these gang members try to keep a low profile and commit crimes where no people are involved,” Reneau said. “That makes them harder to track, especially when they involve two or three different jurisdictions.

“They also keep to these low-profile crimes because sentences are considerably lighter if they happen to get caught doing a car burglary than if they’re robbing someone — taking money or goods by force.”

So what happened at Goodies Conoco?

Why would Higgins and Calloway risk approaching the car occupied by Frances Olson?

“That really is pretty rare for the Felony Lane Gang,” Winstead said. “We believe, at this point, that they were on the run and somewhat desperate. They needed a car.

“They were being pursued by officers, and they may have just gone after the first obvious target they saw.”

There were a number of thefts from parked cars here in November, and officers got a good description of the suspects’ car from that spree. When the same car was spotted last week, a pursuit was on — pushing the suspects to apparent panic.

“To give you an idea of how efficient these people can be,” Winstead said, “one of the cases in November was a woman who was making a stop for just a couple of minutes at a daycare center.

“When she came straight back to the car, her purse was gone.”

Coeur d’Alene police hope these arrests will put it in criminals’ minds that this is a savvy law enforcement community, and it’s best to stay away.

But Reneau and Winstead also cautioned citizens never to take anything for granted.

“Keep items out of sight, even in a locked car,” Reneau said. “We hope we never see the Felony Lane Gang again, but nothing is guaranteed so residents should do their best to dissuade theft and other crimes.”

Meanwhile, Higgins and Calloway remain in custody here — a long way from Florida.