A brazen California burglar was seen on every step of an alleged home invasion Tuesday, captured in footage recorded by 16 surveillance cameras. Authorities now hope the footage will help them nab the person responsible.
San Jose resident Heidi Quezada said she was awaken by rustling outside of her home before 2 a.m. and used a phone app to look at some of the surveillance footage. Video shows the man checking out a window of the home, and popping a lock on a sliding door to get inside.
“I was just petrified,” she said.
Quezada called 911 and crouched in her closet. As the home’s alarm sounded, the burglar could be seen walking through the home, unfazed.
“I can hear him rattling around, and I’m telling 911, ‘He’s in the room next to me,’” Quezada said. “I was trying not to hyperventilate. I was trying to whisper and I was trying to tell them, ‘Please hurry.’”
Quezada says she was motivated to react after the man wiggled the doorknob to the master bedroom and pushed against the door, trying to get inside.
“I came out of the closet at that point and started banging on the door from the inside, yelling at him and saying, ‘Get out of here, the police are coming, they’re going to shoot you,’” she said.
The man fled after Quezada yelled, leaving the home and climbing over a fence. The intruder was seen on a neighbor’s surveillance cameras, escaping on a skateboard. By the time police arrived the intruder had gotten away. But with his face splashed across social media, authorities are hopeful that the burglar will soon be captured.