KENT, Wash. — A suspected burglar never stood a chance of escaping, thanks to some alert neighbors in Kent.
Two homes were broken into within minutes of each other Friday night near Meridian Glen Park around 9 p.m. Neighbors followed the burglar’s movements with their surveillance cameras and helped Kent police track him down.
People were home when the man allegedly broke in. In fact, five kids were in the first house. Two exchange students were in the second house.
This entire neighborhood was on its toes. Kent Police even broke through a fence to get to him.
“My phone started ringing and I got out,” John McKenzie said.
He was in the shower.
“And it was my student downstairs,” he said. “And she said someone had just opened her door and barged in and tried to attack her. She managed to push him back out the door.”
McKenzie ran downstairs to find him.
“And apparently, he went out my downstairs back door,” he said. “Yes, that’s my best guess.”
That’s when McKenzie noticed a gaggle of Kent police officers outside.
“There was another homeowner that was complaining that someone was entering his house,” he said.
Neighbors had begun tracking the man on their surveillance cameras.
“I was just heading to bed,” said a neighbor who did not want to be identified. “And my next-door neighbor called and said that a man was in their yard and came over the fence into our yard.”
Kent police tracked him down and took him into custody in the next neighborhood. But McKenzie’s neighbors weren’t done helping yet.
“We just found a random key, with the car fob just right on the grass,” said Okjung Conklin. “Like maybe a squirrel dropped it.”
“But my Mom still decided that she would tell somebody about it,” chimed in 6-year-old Olivia Conklin. “So, I walked around the neighborhood and was just clicking.”
Then one of the cars started going off.
“The Mazda right here, the alarm started going off,” McKenzie said.
They had found the McKenzies’ car keys the crook had apparently thrown away.
As for the suspect, he is a 27-year-old from Redmond. He was booked into the King County jail early Saturday morning. And Kent police say the credit for that belongs to these amazing neighbors.
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