Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Home alone, brothers thwart three burglars

They hid in a closet, called 911 during the ordeal.

By CARRIE WEIMAR
Published December 23, 2006

TAMPA - Huddled next to his brother in their mother's closet, 11-year-old Alex Padron frantically dialed 911.

Three strange men were attempting to break in the house, he breathlessly told the dispatcher. And he was home alone with his 13-year-old brother.

Suddenly, Alex heard a loud crash. Then footsteps.

"They got in! They got in!" he remembers yelling into the phone.

- - -

Thursday was the first day of holiday break for Armando and Alex, who attend St. Lawrence Catholic School in Tampa.

Their mother, Vivian, works for the Department of Children and Families. Their father, Armando, owns the Fourth of July Cafe in West Tampa.

The boys were in the living room of their house on Farwell Drive playing football on their PlayStation about 2 p.m. when the doorbell chimed. Twice.

They peered outside a bedroom window but didn't open the door because they didn't recognize the three men standing on their stoop.

Then the men went to the back door. Alex grabbed the phone and called his mom.

"Mommy, there's three guys and they're at the back door and they're trying to get in," he said.

Vivian Padron told Alex to call the police. Then she called her husband.

"It was the most horrifying feeling you can possibly imagine," she said.

- - -

Alex and Armando ran to their parents' room.

"I wanted to hide," Armando said later. "I didn't know what they had. Maybe they had a knife or a gun."

Alex feared for his safety. And for the big stack of presents underneath the tree.

"I thought they were going to steal everything and tie us up," he said.

When the burglars broke in through the bathroom window, they tripped the burglar alarm. They fled, and within two minutes, Tampa police arrived.

So did the boys' father.

He called for his sons, but they were afraid to leave the closet.

"We thought maybe the burglars knew our names," Armando said.

They finally emerged to find several patrol cars outside their house and a helicopter hovering overhead. Vivian Padron had also raced home.

"I don't even remember how I got there," she said.

Meanwhile, two suspects were loitering nearby, acting as if they were visiting the dentist's office around the corner. Alex pointed them out to his dad, who alerted police.

The third suspect was found in a nearby doctor's office. Alex identified him, too.

By evening, Michael Bagley, 18, Michael Acevedo, 20, and Jonathan Garriga, 19, were booked into the Orient Road Jail on burglary charges.

- - -

The boys were still a little jumpy Friday and insisted on accompanying their mother to a doctor's appointment down the block.

But there was a bright spot after their big scare: They got permission to open one early Christmas present. Each boy received another football video game.

They also have a souvenir of sorts from their encounter. They kept the change the burglars dropped on their bathroom floor.

Tampa police Sgt. Eric Diaz said the brothers should be commended for their quick thinking.

"What the boys did is exactly what we recommend," Diaz said. "Their actions were exceptional."

Their mother is proud, too.

"Thank goodness it ended the way it did," she said. "It was God's will."

Carrie Weimar can be reached at 813 226-3416 or cweimar@sptimes.com.

[Last modified December 23, 2006, 06:04:23]