Two of three suspects have been arrested after an attempted motor vehicle theft was disrupted by an Arlington resident and his son last week.
An Arlington neighborhood was woken up by the sound of gunfire at approximately 2 a.m. on December 20 when a shootout broke out between alleged car thieves and a resident defending his property. After being alerted by his Ring camera, Greg Willis, who rents a house in the 6100 block of Vancil Drive, spotted three individuals inside his son’s car.
Willis and his son went outside and began following the suspects, at least one of whom turned and fired at them. Ducking behind a neighbor’s truck, Willis returned fire in what he said resembled a scene straight out of the Wild West.
“I could have been shot, or they could have been shot. … It was a lot of bullets ringing out,” he told NBC 5 DFW.
One of Willis’ neighbors, Jenny Nguyen, concurred.
“I hear the gun, like boom boom, like two or three times,” recalled Nguyen. “Really loud. Really, really loud.”
No one was injured during the shooting. The three suspects fled, and Willis called the police.
Officers from the Arlington Police Department arrived on the scene and began hunting for the alleged thieves. They ultimately discovered two of the three individuals — 19-year-old Keaundre Lemon and 18-year-old Ahmad Bland — hiding inside a shed. Police also reportedly recovered a firearm.
Both teens were arrested for criminal trespass; however, Bland faces additional charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Willis said that his neighborhood was already on edge since thieves targeted a neighbor’s car over the summer. He suggested that the latest incident would only prolong the sleepless nights.
“I still haven’t been to sleep,” he remarked, per NBC 5.
Vehicle-related crimes have soared across the metroplex this past year, from car break-ins to motor vehicle theft. Amid this increase in property crime, there have been several cases in which residents have confronted the criminals, sometimes with fatal consequences.
For instance, Marco Antonio Ramirez, 24, was reportedly killed in East Dallas when he tried to confront the individuals who had allegedly stolen his father’s truck last November, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
In Dallas, 13,056 car break-ins and 18,305 motor vehicle thefts have been reported as of December 21, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard. There have been year-over-year increases of 4.3% and 40.3% in those crime categories, respectively.
Downtown Dallas logs considerably more motor vehicle thefts when compared to Fort Worth’s city center, which is reportedly patrolled by a special police unit working alongside private security officers.
The Dallas Police Department has been laboring under a staffing shortage, with only around 3,000 officers in the field despite a City report calling for closer to 4,000.
