A knife-wielding man was caught on terrifying doorbell camera footage repeatedly making stabbing motions outside stunned homeowners’ front doors, sending a neighbourhood into panic.
Rebecca Breen and her husband were watching TV around 8:30pm. Thursday in Arden, Sacramento, US, when their Ring camera suddenly began sending alerts that someone was at their front door, the New York Post reported.
“We heard a loud knock and we looked in the ring camera and we noticed that there was something very strange going on.”
The chilling footage showed a man brandishing a knife while appearing to repeatedly stab toward the home’s entrance, according to KCRA.
“It was terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying,” Breen added.
She immediately dialled 911.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Amar Gandhi said multiple frantic residents reported the armed prowler as deputies rushed to the scene within minutes.
“There were several residents calling, stuff is actually caught on Ring camera. So our deputies got there, got in the area actually, just within minutes. But by then he’d fled,” Gandhi said.
The sheriff’s office also deployed a helicopter in the search, but the suspect vanished before authorities could catch him.
Mattson was found and arrested on Saturday morning, the sheriff’s office said, and was released after being charged with criminal trespassing.
“It’s pretty scary stuff. He’s going out there literally thrashing on doors with knives. But fortunately, again, nobody hurt. People were very smart in the sense of lock the doors, stayed inside and called us,” explained Gandhi.
Breen doesn’t believe her family was specifically targeted.
“I do believe that we were a random target. I don’t think that we were specifically targeted, but I think it’s very scary because if it wasn’t us, it’s going to be someone else,” she said. “I mean, clearly he was not in his right frame of mind at all.”
Neighbours reported that private security never showed up, and several residents expressed frustration at how long it took law enforcement to reach out to homeowners after the frightening ordeal.
This story originally appeared on the New York Post and was republished with permission.
