Members of a juvenile auto theft gang continued their assault on Baltimore County yesterday by stealing five cars within 30 minutes -- including two cars out of the same driveway.
Later, two of the thieves escaped after a violent confrontation with an undercover police detective who cornered them in West Baltimore. The officer fired a shot at them after the driver rammed his unmarked car.
In yesterday's thefts, police said, a carload of gang members cruised neighborhoods in the Greengate and Twinridge communities shortly after 6 a.m. and targeted vehicles with their engines running outside of the victims' residences.
In one case, police said a 1993 Chevrolet Camaro Z-28 sports car and a 1995 Oldsmobile Aurora were stolen from the driveway of a home in Twinridge. The sports car was recovered later in the day.
Two blocks to the west, in the Greengate community, police said a young thief laughed at a woman who screamed at him when she discovered him opening the door of her car. He jumped into the vehicle and drove off, police said.
Both victims, police said, were easy marks for the gang because they left their cars warming up with the engines running.
"Seeing the smoking exhaust pipe with no one in the car is the tip these gang members are looking for," said Cpl. Kevin Novak, a county police spokesman.
While officers search for the gang that has repeatedly hit Owings Mills, Towson and the neighborhoods off Greenspring Avenue near the Beltway, detectives are piecing together a profile of an operation that they say is very sophisticated, considering the age of its members.
Lt. Michael J. DiPaula Jr., commander of the county Auto Theft Unit, said the young criminals have informal recruiting and training programs and grow bolder with each successful theft.
"They know we are looking hard at them," Lieutenant DiPaula said yesterday. "Last summer they knew we were searching for their leaders, and they sat down during interrogation and told us what we were doing. . . . It was a little spooky.
"But they are recruiting new members -- people we wouldn't recognize -- and they have a training program, a ride-along if you will, where the more experienced gang members teach the new how to break into a car and start it without a key. The younger teens look at joining the gang as status."
Police know from interviewing informers and arrested gang members that their base of operation is the Walbrook Junction section of Baltimore and that the gang has 10 to 15 members.
"We call the gang members homeless, but they are not the typical homeless person we see in our mind," Lieutenant DiPaula said. "They are rootless people with no fixed address, and we don't know where to begin looking for them. They are typically more aggressive, and that concerns us, both for the safety of citizens and our officers who encounter them."
They young thieves target luxury-class cars in the county and, as they did yesterday, sometimes steal five or more a day.
Through Oct. 31 -- the latest date for which statistics are available -- more than 5,500 vehicles have been stolen countywide. In the Garrison precinct, which covers Owings Mills and the Green Spring Valley, nearly 1,200 vehicles were stolen -- 22 percent of the county's total.
Police said they arrested 108 suspected car thieves countywide this year between June 27 and Oct. 20. Among that number were the two leaders of the car gang, 15 and 16, who were incarcerated at the Charles H. Hickey School but escaped.
What increasingly concerns county and city police is the growing boldness of the gang and its propensity for violence.
The latest incident occurred yesterday at 8:30 a.m. when two undercover county officers were prowling West Baltimore in an unmarked cruiser, looking for the five cars that had been stolen earlier. They saw a stolen Acura in the 2600 block of W. North Ave. and the thieves saw them.
Detective Thomas Lau reported that the youth in the passenger's seat pointed a handgun at the cruiser. When he heard a bang, he said, he fired his own handgun at the Acura, shattering the rear window. The Acura rammed the police car and then sped off.