A Texas mother grabbed a man she saw peeking out of her 15-year-old son’s bedroom window, helping police officers to leash, police said this week.
Her mother’s defensive moves were so good that local police joked that the Houston Texans could use her as a linebacker.
“My children are my life and [I was] just making sure to protect them, ”mother Phyllis Pena told Click2Houston.com about the fall, which was captured on the camera by incoming police.
Pena was returning from the store to her home in Lake Jackson at 7 am on January 31, when she found a man in her backyard, peering out of her girl’s bedroom window.
The girl was not in the room at the time; even so, Pena’s maternal instincts kicked hard.
When she called the police, the suspect started running away – but then turned around and went straight to his mother.
“The first instinct was just to make sure he didn’t go ahead,” she later explained about her split-second decision to block and attack the alleged peeper, identified by police officers as Zane Hawkins, 19.
Pena jumped on Hawkins – and then her daughter, an apparent chip off the block, teamed up with her mother to hold the teenager until the police could reach her.
She told the station that her children knew Hawkins, but they didn’t know him personally.
“The policeman punched me in the fist and said, ‘Hey, I heard the Texans are looking for a new linebacker,'” Pena told the station, referring to the team an hour north of Houston.
“It is not very common for us to have someone who really intervenes, puts himself in danger to help in the arrest of someone”, the sergeant. Roy Welch, of the Lake Jackson police, told the police station.
Hawkins faces charges of controlled substance possession, evasion from prison and resistance to arrest, Welch said.