A Dallas resident was forced to fire his gun to fend off an attempted home robbery over the weekend.
Ethan Rodriguez was in his apartment in southwestern Dallas when a man dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt arrived and identified himself as a maintenance man, CBS News Texas reported. Rodriguez told the news outlet that something felt “off” about the interaction.
“Every time a maintenance worker would come to our house to do maintenance work, they wouldn’t be wearing none of that,” Rodriguez said.
The suspect claimed to be checking air filters at 6 p.m. on a Saturday, which Rodriguez felt was odd. “So I told him no one was home and then I went back to playing my games … then a couple minutes later, at least a couple seconds later, I heard banging on the door.”
In a video recorded by Rodriguez’s doorbell camera, the man can be heard claiming he is there to check the air conditioner filters. Rodriguez tells the man that he will have to come back another time. The fake maintenance man can be seen walking away before quickly returning with a gun and another man. Both of the men start kicking at Rodriguez’s door, trying to break it down.
“Fearing for the safety of me and my brother, I fired at the door,” Rodriguez told CBS Texas.
Police said Rodriguez retrieved a firearm and fired 13 shots through the door. The man on the other side of the door with the gun returned fire.
Rodriguez described the incident as “very scary,” telling CBS Texas that he “could’ve died that day.”
Police identified Aaron Contreras, 30, as the man with the gun in the video, according to Fox News. He was arrested Saturday on warrants for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, deadly conduct, and attempted burglary of a habitation.
He is being held in Dallas County Jail on a $150,000 bond, according to jail records.
The incident occurred at an apartment complex on Gannon Lane in Council Member Zarin D. Gracey’s District 3.
As of August 24, there have been 3,877 reported burglaries within Dallas city limits, according to the City of Dallas Open Data crime overview dashboard.
The Dallas Police Department has been understaffed for years. There are currently only about 3,100 police officers in the department, roughly 900 shy of the 4,000 recommended by a City report. The shortage has been felt in Downtown Dallas, which regularly logs more crime than Fort Worth’s downtown area.
Although Fort Worth has struggled to maintain its own police staffing levels, it reportedly has a dedicated neighborhood police unit and private security guards downtown.