A Staten Island, New York, homeowner raced back to his house to confront an alleged burglar after his phone alerted him to activity on his doorbell camera.
"I checked out the motion alert and saw that there was a gentleman in front of my house," the homeowner, Christian Schlager, told SILive in a report Sunday. "I’m watching him live, checking my door handle and make his way into my backyard."
Schlager said he was on his way to Brooklyn when he received the alert on his phone, prompting him to call police to report the suspected break in of his home. However, the homeowner did not wait for police to arrive, instead returning to his home to confront the suspected burglar.
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When Schlager arrived at his home, he found the thief, identified as 39-year-old Seth Flint, had gained entry to his house through the back door and was packing up a bag of the homeowner's belongings.
"When I got back to the house I saw this gentleman in my backyard, holding my bag that was inside of my laundry area," Schlager said. "I (confronted) him in the backyard."
That confrontation quickly escalated, with Schlager and Flint getting into a physical altercation in the yard. The homeowner says he gained the "upper hand" in the fight "pretty quickly," causing Flint to flee the property.
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Schlager said he escaped the fight relatively unhurt, but is suffering some wrist pain as a result of the altercation that he plans to have checked by a doctor.
Responding police were able to track down Flint not far from the home and bring him into custody.
"The police arrived and caught him on foot about two blocks away from where it all occurred," Schlager said.
Flint faces charges of burglary and has a court date set for July 24, according to the report, but Schlager said two accomplices he believes were there to act as lookouts were not charged by police.
"The police said they couldn’t do anything about it because they technically never entered my property," he said.
The homeowner also had a warning for those that would consider breaking into people's property.
"He broke into the wrong home," Schlager said.
