Tyler Smith was playing with his two labs Willie and Braxton in his front yard on Reed Avenue near Cass Street when he heard a police helicopter buzzing his neighborhood in the late afternoon on Wednesday, May 7.
As the helicopter flew overhead, an officer repeatedly broadcast the description of a burglary suspect patrol units were looking for: white male, 21 years old, green shorts, no shirt and bleeding from a cut on his face.
“I couldn’t believe they were looking for him by my house,” Smith said. “We were kind of joking, my roommate and I, what if he ran by our house, what would we do?”
Smith went back to playing with his dogs when a shirtless man in green shorts ran past his house. It took a moment for things to register. In a community filled with joggers, Smith’s first reaction was the man was another guy out for a run. Then he noticed the cut on the man’s face.
“I went over and tried to approach him to get him to stop, but he didn’t want to stop. I said, ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ and grabbed him in a headlock,” Smith said.
The man started to struggle and the stocky Smith took him to the ground.
“I just held him down and the library security guard called police. The police helicopter came overhead and I just sat on him for about five minutes until police arrived.”
While waiting for the police to arrive, Smith said the man, later identified as 28-year-old Matthew Scott from Arizona, was “out of it,” saying, “Hey, Bob, if you would have talked to me this morning, I wouldn’t have done this.”
The chase began when Darin Wilkinson, owner of PB Tax Services, entered his locked business at 1001 Garnet Ave. and found a man inside rummaging through a desk.
“I opened the door to my office and this guy was behind my desk shoving money into his pocket,” Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson said the suspect either pried or kicked open a side door to get inside.
“When I opened the door, he said, ‘Oh, whoa, the door was opened and I just walked in to see who was here,’ but he was shoving money in his pocket. There were about 40 one-dollar bills he was trying to shove in his pants pocket and they wouldn’t fit. He was having quite a time.”
Wilkinson said he called 9-1-1 and while he was on the phone, the burglar attacked him.
Wilkinson wouldn’t say how the suspect was cut but implied his attacker got the worst of it before he fled out the door.
“When I was chasing him, I was pointing to him and there were all kinds of people in the street and everyone had their cell phones and just watching the guy walk. He had no shirt on, he was trying to hold his pants up because they were ripped and his face was bleeding,” he said.
Wilkinson said he chased for a few blocks, and although he couldn’t keep up, he said pedestrians and bystanders were on their cell phones with the police trying to follow the suspect when he ran past Smith’s house.
A police spokesman said Scott is charged with second-degree burglary. According to the sheriff’s department’s website, Scott remains in custody at George Bailey Detention Center
It wasn’t the first time 28-year-old Smith chased down a suspect on his block. Last summer, Smith said he witnessed a man steal his neighbor’s bike.
“This guy, who was really drunk, came down the street and jumped on the bike. I saw him doing it, but I didn’t think anything of it because I thought it could have been his bike. Then my neighbors came out and said, ‘Hey, stop that guy. That’s my bike,'” Smith said.
“I ran over after him and he tried pedaling down the street. But since he had too much to drink, he couldn’t really get going. I ran over and just tackled him off the bike. All of the neighbors were in awe of that because it was like a big football smash and then I grabbed him.”
A group neighbors came out and surrounded the bike thief until the police arrived.
“You could tell that he wanted to get away,” Smith said. “There were six of us from the neighborhood surrounding him. He had flip-flops on and a backpack. He kicked his flip flops off when we weren’t looking and ran across the library over to Thomas and he made it to Thomas and Dawes.
Smith, who works in the lender insurance industry, said after spending five years in the Navy, he enjoys running to stay in shape. When the bike thief bolted, Smith took off after him.
“After he got about half a block, I started yelling, ‘You’ll never outrun me. You might as well stop. It’s not going to happen. I run marathons. You’re not gonna make it.’ Then he just stopped and gave up.”
Smith tackled the bike thief for the second time, knocking him into a patch of ivy.
“He was struggling a lot, but I just sat on him and put his arm behind his back so he’d stop moving around,” Smith said. “We bound him up with some tape and a towel until the police got there.”