Home intruder busted by youth with smartphone
12-year-old calls police after waking up to a prowler in his room
Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, July 2, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A prowler was no match last week for a cool-headed 12-year-old with a new smartphone.
Stephen Messier, 12, shows the brand new smartphone he used to call the RCMP after waking up early last Thursday to find an intruder in his room. - Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photo |
Stephen Messier, who lives with his parents and three other siblings in the Gold City condominiums on Range Lake Road, woke up around 4 a.m. June 24 to find an intruder standing in his room.
Only four days earlier his parents Jason and Cheryl Messier decided to buy him a new iPhone that he kept on his bedroom nightstand.
"Our son woke up to find someone in his bedroom," said Cheryl. "Our calm, collected, level-headed child pretended to be sleeping. When he heard the guy wasn't in his room anymore, he picked up his brand spanking-new cellphone and called the cops."
Both parents thought the break-in was odd because their home is positioned in the middle of a row of houses. They believe the intruder got into the home by scaling a common, second-floor balcony and entering through an unlocked patio door.
"You wouldn't think someone would break in from your second storey, right?" said Cheryl.
"Nothing was stolen except our sense of security."
Stephen was fairly soft-spoken following the incident and said he was reluctant to announce what happened to his friends. He admitted he was "freaked out" when it happened and initially called the fire hall because he thought the RCMP dispatch number was 669-2222 (fire department), as opposed to 669-1111 (police). There is no formal 911 emergency phone service in the Northwest Territories.
"I did get mixed up between the police and the fire department," he said. "I realized then it was the wrong number. But I knew it because you see the number around town and I hear about it at our school."
The fire hall dispatcher told him to call the RCMP. Jason and Cheryl said police arrived within minutes.
After the police arrived and rang the doorbell the intruder, who was still in the house, tried to escape out the second-floor patio door and over the deck. The Messiers believed he landed on the roof of a plastic child playhouse they owned, which was damaged in the fall.
The police subsequently apprehended a suspect nearby.
"From people we have told, the number of people who refer to (our son) as a hero is astounding," said Jason.
The family has been living in the court for six years and this has changed their perspective on safety. From now on the second-floor patio door will be locked, said Jason. Still, they said they are keeping things in perspective.
"It is very clear that this was an opportunistic thing and was somebody randomly trying to get in," said Jason, adding the area is generally safe and that incidents are extremely rare.
"It is unnerving but it is a sense of pride that our 12-year-old knew what to do and was calm and level-headed and didn't panic," she said. "The dispatcher actually told me that she had never talked to a 12-year-old who could keep it together so well. It was because he did what he did and got the RCMP here that things turned out the way they did and not worse."
The Messiers say police told them the suspect is a minor who will appear in court on July 28.
The RCMP couldn't provide information on the charges the suspect is facing when reached for comment yesterday.
