As two carjacking suspects attempted to evade police, Elizabeth Gust made sure they didn't get away.
Gust is a dispatcher for the Minnesota State Patrol, and on Jan. 17 she used traffic cameras while sitting at a desk in the Minnesota Department of Transportation's Regional Traffic Management Center in Roseville to track the suspects' every move as they rolled along Interstate 94 in St. Paul.
And she called out their locations to law enforcement in pursuit, alerting them when the crooks took an exit or changed roads.
Ramsey County sheriff's deputies eventually stopped the stolen Audi in the 1700 block of Maryland Avenue and took 18-year-old Kashawn Wertman and 19-year-old Nautica Argue into custody. The two were later charged with 31 felony counts, ranging from aggravated robbery to theft in connection with a carjacking spree in 15 cities over three metro counties.
Gust's efforts won high praise from Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.
"We could not have done this without you," he said. "You were absolutely amazing on those cameras and thank you very much from the sheriff's office and everyone else. This is a bad guy we arrested today. He's got eight or more carjackings."
For Gust, it was all just another day at the office.
"It feels really nice to be recognized," Gust said. "Dispatchers do amazing things. There are a lot of resources we can use to track vehicles. We help as many people as we can."
