SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — San Diego Police Department released on Monday the Mission Hill prowler, Alex Diaz, 31, has been arrested.
While at dinner in Mission Hills on Wednesday night, Eric Karnezis says he kept receiving security alerts that there was activity at his back door.
"I look at the video, and I see this guy walk up with a machete and my fruit picker to my door and starts trying to get in,” said Karnezis.
Karnezis says he raced back to his home near Robyn's Egg Trail just after 7 p.m. fearing a prowler may have broken into a back room where his 70-year-old mother, who is recovering from breast cancer, is staying.
His Ring camera shows a shirtless man carrying his fruit-picker in one hand and a machete in the other at his mother's door.
"I'm running down these steps and side-stepping quietly,” Karnezis said.
Karnezis checked on his mother, called police, then checked his backyard.
"He was hiding here in these bushes looking up into the windows of my guest house. That's when he lunged out and attacked me,” Karnezis said.
Karnezis says he wrestled with the man for 10 minutes to get the machete from him. In the struggle, Karnezis says the man murmured odd things to him.
"He said people are missing, there are things happening in Hillcrest, I need to find my friends,” said Karnezis.
Karnezis cut the man's hand with the machete, and he was bleeding before he got away.
"He jumped the fence right there, and disappeared off into the distance,” said Karnezis.
Two San Diego Police officers showed up and took a report.
"They shined their flashlights into the canyon, and say 'Oh yeah, he got away,' but didn’t send a canine or helicopter to look for him,” said Karnezis.
Karnezis posted his Ring Cam video on Nextdoor, where over 160 neighbors have commented.
Jennifer T. wrote, "If you look on the Citizen App, the guy with the machete has been reported several times since March 6.”
Karnezis turned over the man's weapon, hat and drug paraphernalia left behind to police.
"It didn't seem to me like I was wrestling a homeless guy, it seemed to me like I was wrestling a criminal. He was clean enough and built enough where I don't believe he was homeless, I mean he had on some blue jeans and tennis shoes, and he had on a bunch of beads and didn’t really stink,” said Karnezis.
Karnezis hopes the prowler is caught soon.
"It's about my neighbors, it's about another old lady, who is going to be behind the door that this guy is at with a machete,” said Karnezis.
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