Irving neighbors help take down burglary suspect

IRVING, Texas - Surveillance video captured the moments a couple of neighbors tackled and pinned down an armed man after he broke into cars on their street in Irving.

When Keaton Sanderson heard someone at the door late last Thursday night, he couldn't have predicted what would unfold next, leading him to draw his own weapon and rush to the aid of a neighbor.

“It happened so quick,” he said. “In my eyes, it's almost like you dreamed it. But it actually happened.”

It started with a knock and a stranger asking Sanderson for money.

“I thought it was maybe just a mistaken house, and he was just drunk or something,” he recalled. “I just thought he was going to mosey on and no big deal.”

Surveillance video at Sanderson's house showed a man stumble away. The video is grainy. But from his porch, Sanderson says he could see a gun in the man's hand.

“That's when I yelled at my wife to get the baby to the back room and call 911,” he said.

Sanderson watched the man knock on a door across the street and then get into a neighbor's car. It was then that his neighbor, Daffney Meloon, stepped out of her house and thought she was opening the door for her fiancé, who'd forgotten his keys.

“I was still half asleep, thinking he was looking for his keys,” she recalled. “And I went out there to tell him I have his keys and why didn't you take them and get onto him. And this man stood up, and I knew I was in trouble.”

Video then showed Meloon's fiancé pull up. With two neighbors in danger, Sanderson decided to intervene.

“The next thing, my fiancé was out of the car,” Meloon recalled. “Keaton was yelling, ‘He's got a gun! Get back!’”

The men pinned down the suspect as police closed in. Irving officers arrested 29-year-old Jesse Carrillo. Police say his weapon was a BB gun but looked real in the heat of the moment.

“I'm sure somebody can sit down and critique it a little bit,” Sanderson said. “But at the time, that's what happened, and that's where I was going with it. “I didn’t know what else I could do at that point.”

Sanderson never fired a shot. And looking back, he says he wouldn't do anything different as he took a risk for a neighbor in harm's way.

“He's a hero because there's no telling what would have happened if he hadn't have come out,” Meloon said.

Carrillo was arrested on burglary of a vehicle, criminal mischief and public intoxication charges. He does have a criminal background that includes burglary, assault and family violence charges.