Homeowner Bluffs, Captures Intruder

Homeowner says he helped suspect after Hurricane Katrina

A Fort Worth homeowner who arrived home to find a burglar walking out of his house bluffed that he had a gun, ordered the suspect to the ground and tied him up with a belt until police arrived.

Ronald Finch said he raced home from work in his cement truck after neighbors called and told him his burglar alarm was going off.

"When I got here, I saw a guy coming out the front door of my house," Finch said.

It happened just before 3:30 p.m. Friday in the 2600 block of Castanada Circle in east Fort Worth just south of Interstate 30.

A 911 operator reported hearing Finch tell the man, "If you move, I am going to shoot you."

Finch admits he did some quick thinking and fast-talking when the two came face-to-face.

"He scared me, but I knew it was going to be him or me," he said. "I knew I was going to get control of him or he was going to get control of me."

The homeowner said he held his hand behind his back and acted like he had a gun. It was really a stick.

"I told him to put his hands behind his back and close his eyes," he said. "And the reason I wanted him to close his eyes was I didn't want him to know if I had a gun."

Once the burglar was on the ground, Finch said he used his belt to tie the man's hands.

Several police officers arrived and arrested the man.

It was only then that Finch realized the burglar was a Hurricane Katrina evacuee whom he allowed to stay in his house for two weeks in 2005.

"That's the last time I ever saw him," Finch said.

And there's another strange twist.

Neighbor Hubert Woodard said he looked over his backyard fence when he heard Finch's alarm sounding and saw the man near the broken window.

But he wasn't acting like a burglar.

"He was whistling and everything," Woodard said.

He had a broom in his hand and acted like he belonged, the neighbor said.

"He was sweeping the glass up," he said. "He wasn't nervous or anything. He was cool."

The only thing the man had a chance to steal was a can of soda, Finch said.

"Now I'm laughing about it but, at the time, it wasn't funny at all," he said. "Happy ending for everyone but him."

Fort Worth police spokesman Daniel Segura said the department would not release the suspect's name until after he is formally charged.

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