DEA using billboards to catch Baltimore pharmacy thieves
BALTIMORE -- The DEA has posted surveillance photos of dozens of people suspected in Baltimore pharmacy burglaries on several highway billboards, reports CBS Baltimore.
Agents say 30 pharmacies were ransacked, and nearly 300,000 doses of drugs were stolen, during the April rioting that followed the death of Freddie Gray, a Baltimore man who suffered fatal injuries in police custody.
The feds' billboards rotate surveillance photos every other minute in an effort to identify 40 suspects, said DEA spokesperson Dean Ellerman. Few of the suspects have been identified, Ellerman told CBS Baltimore.
"We're trying to identify the people, number one, and number two, we're trying to get some information of the people who could identify other people," said Ellerman.
Some communities were left with almost no medication in the immediate aftermath of the riots, according to the DEA.
"Everyone came in that day, we really had no drugs to give them," the owner of one pharmacy told CBS Baltimore.