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Homeowner captures suspected thief

Geoff Mackenzie found out that when it comes to an intruder in your house, a baseball bat will beat a hammer most of the time. Mackenzie has lived on Mark Street with his two sons for the past 20 years.
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Geoff Mackenzie stands outside of his house on Dec. 14, 2011. (Jeff Labine, tbnewswatch.com)

Geoff Mackenzie found out that when it comes to an intruder in your house, a baseball bat will beat a hammer most of the time.

Mackenzie has lived on Mark Street with his two sons for the past 20 years. The retired ironworker said he never had any problems in the area except for a few items that were taken from his lawn. But within the last month, his house has been broken into three times.

Mackenzie said he suspected the same teenagers were responsible for the recent thefts and on Wednesday night, he came face-to-face with one of the suspected thieves.

“The guy has a weapon and I grabbed myself the closest thing I could find, which was a baseball bat, so now we’re both armed,” Mackenzie said.

“That can go badly really fast but when you’re in that situation you got to do something. I just couldn’t watch him walk out. If you don’t stop them they are going to come back. They came back twice. This is the third time. If I hadn’t grabbed that guy he would have been long gone. There would have been no evidence and I probably wouldn’t have been able to identify him. Just kids in hoodies.”

Mackenzie said he was upstairs watching a movie around 3 a.m. when he heard a noise downstairs.

He went to look and found someone in his living room. He said he grabbed him, took the hammer away and waited for the police to arrive.

He said he did what he believed he had to do to protect himself and his sons, who were sleeping upstairs at the time of the incident.

“I tried to get information out of the kid but he wasn’t very forthcoming,” he said. “He was pretty scared and he was apologizing but that don’t cut it at three in the morning when you got a hammer in your hand.”

Police arrived a few minutes later and arrested the 20-year-old Webequie First Nation man. The second suspect managed to escape.

Mackenzie said he suspected it was the same people involved in all three break ins because they broke in using the back basement door and took the same kind of items such as video games and other electronics.

Mackenzie said he’s never had a problem like this before and neither has his neighbours. He added that the break ins didn’t change his opinion of the neighbourhood.

“This is my home and I feel fine with staying here,” he said.

“In 20 years this hasn’t happen and then it’s three in a row. That leads me to believe that it’s the same clowns doing and hopefully they are off the street. I feel quite a bit safer now.”

 





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