California family chases burglar out of home
MILPITAS, Calif. -- A shocking home invasion in California in the middle of the night while a family was sleeping ended with a teenage son becoming a hero.
Milpitas police say there's been a recent increase in daytime burglaries, but what happened overnight is quite rare.
Dion Velasquez, 18, is a techie working at Applied Materials. It's not his brain, but his brawn that would be any prowler's worst nightmare.
"I play football, I wrestle, baseball, basketball, jujitsu," said Dion.
The 6'2" 250 pound athlete woke up early Friday morning to screams inside the Milpitas townhome near the Great Mall he shares with his two sisters, mom and her fiance. A man somehow got up to the second story balcony and entered the sliding glass door to his mom's bedroom.
Dion's mom and her fiance jumped at the man -- pushing him away and telling him to get out, the man told her it was a mistake and took off down the stairs and out the door. That's when Dion's instincts kicked in.
"Playing football you just see red trying to get the ball. And as soon as I heard my mom screaming -- my parents are in trouble. The first thing that comes to mind is get them out of trouble. So I saw the guy and just started chasing," said Dion.
A Milpitas police sergeant just so happened to be across the street on a traffic stop when he heard the commotion.
"He looked over he saw a male subject chasing another male subject saying someone had just broken into their home," said Milpitas Police Lt. Raj Maharaj.
"I was so close to tackling the guy but the officer said get down or I'm going to shoot -- so I kind of like backed off," said Dion.
The man was arrested, the Velasquez family safe and a mom -- proud of her son.
"He's my hero, my protection. I would have felt sorry if my son would have caught him but the cops caught him first," said Veronica. Police say the man was arrested for residential burglary. Dion says an officer told him the man could face an additional drug charge.
