Retired violent crimes detective points shotgun at gang filming themselves trying to break into his Arizona home – after his special needs son, 20, who was bullied online gave them his address because he thought they were friends
- John Duhigg has nine cameras surrounding his property in Mesa and he received an alert about a disturbance outside at around 3am on September 2
- He saw one person trying to cover his camera while another started to bang on his garage and front steel doors before he walked outside with a shotgun
- Duhigg believes this is the same gang who were bullying his 20-year-old son, who has autism, online and picking on him ‘horribly’
A retired violent crimes detective pointed a shotgun at a gang of masked men who were filming themselves trying to break into his Arizona home.
John Duhigg has nine cameras surrounding his property in Mesa and he received an alert about a disturbance outside at around 3am on September 2.
He saw one person in the group trying to cover his camera while another started to bang on his garage and front steel doors before he walked outside with a shotgun and they ran away shouting racial slurs.
Duhigg believes this is the same gang who were bullying his 20-year-old special needs son online and picking on him ‘horribly’.
His son, who has autism, gave them his address because he thought they were friends and earlier that day they told him ‘we’re gonna to come to your house’.
A retired violent crimes detective pointed a shotgun at a gang of masked men who were filming themselves trying to break into his Arizona home
John Duhigg has nine cameras surrounding his property in Mesa and he received an alert about a disturbance outside at around 3am on September 2
Duhigg looked back at the surveillance footage and saw the group had been circling his property on three different occasions that night.
The first time was just before 1am when they arrived in a car opposite his home and footage shows four of them running out while one remained in the car. He said they threw a milkshake at his truck.
The masked gang then returned at 3am which is when Duhigg came out with his shotgun and they immediately ran away.
Duhigg is not sure they saw the weapon because they returned around 10 minutes later and trashed the outside of his home and left before the police turned up.
‘They were risking their lives doing this,’ he told AZ Family. ‘So I’m like, “This is really getting old”.
‘Nobody comes back for home invasions. That’s stupid. You just warned everybody. But there’s no accounting for stupidity.’
He believes one of them had a pistol due to the sound he heard.
Duhigg insists this was the same group who were cyber bullying his autistic son.
‘They were getting really bad because he has Autism and he’s a Latino, so they were picking on him horribly,’ he said.
Duhigg believes the same gang were cyber bullying his 20-year-old special needs son. He gave them his address because he thought they were friends and they told him ‘we’re gonna to come to your house’. Pictured: His autistic son with his 18-year-old sister who has Cerebral Palsy
Duhigg looked back at the surveillance footage and saw the group had been circling his property on three different occasions that night
The first time was just before 1am when they arrived in a car opposite his home and footage shows four of them running out while one remained in the car. He said they threw a milkshake at his truck
The masked gang then returned at 3am which is when Duhigg came out with his shotgun and they immediately ran away
‘And earlier that day, they had told him “We’re gonna come to your house”.’
He shares the property with his autistic son and 18-year-old daughter who is also special needs.
‘I have two special needs. My daughter has Cerebral Palsy,’ Duhigg said.
‘She’s 18, nonverbal. She can call for help if she needed to. And my son has Autism. He has very High-Functioning Autism, so he can interact with you for a while before he realizes that he’s a little bit different.
‘I need to make sure that they’re extra safe because they can’t really help themselves.’
The Mesa Police Department is investigating the incident and Duhigg plans to press charges and wants the gang to hand themselves in.
He is often asked why he has so many surveillance cameras on his property.
He said: ‘I get comments about it all the time, but I’m a retired violent crimes detective, and I’m not going to be a victim of anything.’