By Melissa Pinion-Whitt
The San Bernardino County Sun
COLTON, Calif. — Alphaeus Johnson, police say, snuck into a house through an unlocked door, crept down a hallway Tuesday night and snatched the pieces of a dismantled gun from a bedroom table.
The burglar might have escaped undetected had it not been for Steve Cade, who saw the intruder out of the corner of his eye.
That’s about the time the burglar realized he’d just broken into the wrong house.
“I heard all the yelling,” said Marylin Cade, Steve Cade’s mother. "`Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me.’ This was coming from the perpetrator.”
Steve Cade, 45, a former San Bernardino police officer, scuffled with Johnson in the living room and kitchen. He and his 51-year-old brother, Mike, tried to hold the man down until the Sheriff’s Department got there, but Johnson broke free and bolted out the door.
The incident in the 11900 block of Reche Canyon Road began about 7 p.m., sometime after Steve Cade went to get something from his truck. Marylin Cade, 73, said she thinks her son accidentally forgot to lock the door when he came back inside.
Cade saw Johnson in the house after talking to his mother in her bedroom. He confronted the man by the front door, saw he was wearing a work name tag and snatched the tag, which had Johnson’s full name, as well as the dismantled gun. The burglar demanded Cade give him back the name tag.
When Cade refused, a fight erupted in the living room.
Marylin Cade yelled for her older son to come help. The fight continued. Johnson kept saying he had a gun, though the family never saw one, other than the dismantled one.
“Both of them were holding the guy down while I was trying to talk to the dispatcher and they were having trouble holding him down,” Marylin Cade said. “He was like a snake, wiggling all over the place.”
The man kicked Mike in the chest and left Steve with a knee injury, their mother said. The intruder ran out of the house, got in a car and sped away.
San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies identified Johnson as the burglar, sheriff’s officials said. Two hours later, Johnson, a 45-year-old San Bernardino man, surrendered to deputies near the corner of 16th Street and Mt. Vernon Avenue. He was arrested on suspicion of burglary and violating parole, according to booking records. Investigators believe he is responsible for other home burglaries in the area.
Marylin Cade said her sons moved in to take care of her because she is legally blind, though she can see peripherally. They also take care of Marylin Cade’s 91-year-old aunt, who also lives in the house.
“I can’t help but think if my aunt and I had been here alone what in the world would have happened,” she said. “It’s a question that will always be unanswered and it scares me to think of it.”
Copyright 2007 San Bernardino County Sun