Prowler targets homeowners in Mesquite neighborhood

Residents of a Mesquite neighborhood are rattled after several reports of a prowler in the middle of the night.

Within the course of 30 minutes, at least four homeowners on Woodthorpe Drive reported hearing someone trying to bust down their door. Thankfully, the crook never made it inside. But folks are fearful since he's still out there.

Jeffrey Friedman got the scare of his life while surfing the web at his home in Mesquite a week ago.

“Three o'clock in the morning. All we heard was, ‘Bang! Bang!’ Like kicking, like they were trying to push the door in,” he recalled.

Friedman's wife and twin girls started to scream. He grabbed his trusty golf club. He said he ran downstairs, prepared to defend his family from whoever was pounding on the front door.

“Obviously, I was going to go outside,” he said. “Because I'm from New York, and that's what we do.”

His wife convinced him to call the cops instead.

“I just saw black shadows and black pants and black shirt, and they were gone quick,” Friedman recalled.

Friedman said the reinforced deadbolt kept the would-be burglar from kicking down the door.

Around the same time a couple of blocks away down on Granada Drive, a man inside another home heard a loud bang at the front door. He looked out his peep hole, saw it was a burglar, went into the backyard and fired a warning shot into the air, scaring the suspect away.

Friedman posted a warning on the neighborhood's Nextdoor page. Within minutes, at least two other neighbors responded to the post, saying the same thing just happened to them.

“God forbid someone should come back,” said Friedman. “This time, I'm gonna be ready. And I'm going to make sure I catch you.”

Friedman said he is having a high-tech security system installed in his home.

One of the victims said her security camera recorded a shadow at the front door. But since the sensor light was so bright, investigators weren’t able to make out who the person was.