An Oklahoma man got more than he bargained for when he decided to break into Smith’s Auto Body on Nov. 25 – shop owner Dennis Dee Smith wouldn’t let the man get away without a fight.
Smith told the Sequoyah County Times that a silent alarm went off at his business around 9 p.m. Nov. 25, so he drove there to check it out. When he entered his Sallisaw, Okla., shop, he saw a tall, shadowy figure wandering around.
“My heart skipped a beat,” he told the newspaper. “A man holding a little flashlight was roaming around in the dark. When the man noticed I was standing there, he darted toward me.”
Smith was standing near the shop’s lone exit.
“He tried to pass me, but he never made it,” Smith said.
On his way out, the man started throwing punches, according to Smith, and Smith fought back. Though mismatched by height – the alleged burglar is around 6 feet tall, and Smith is a little over 5 feet – Smith said he got on top of the man and tried to pin him to the floor, but the man continued squirming and trying to punch Smith.
“I was trying to protect myself. This man was huge,” Smith told the newspaper.
According to police, Smith grabbed a medium-sized log that was laying on the floor nearby and struck the man over the head several times to stop the man from fighting back. The man was left with severe wounds on his face.
Smith’s wife phoned for help, and police and paramedics arrived to break up the fight and treat the alleged burglar. Smith told the newspaper that the man had several vehicle titles in his pocket and that he was probably going to steal the vehicles from the shop.
The man has been charged with second-degree burglary.
“I’m hoping he learned his lesson this time,” Smith said. “I was protecting myself and my business.”
More information:
• MUST-SEE photos of the burglar’s face before the fight and after the fight in the Sequoyah County Times
