Surveillance video captured the moment that a lawn worker used his string trimmer to knock an alleged thief from a getaway car after he and his accomplices tried to steal his lawn care equipment.
The Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office said in a post on Facebook that officers were called to the scene on Friday at Renmark Lane in Northwest Harris County.
The lawn worker was at a job when he noticed men stealing equipment from his vehicle down the street, according to Harris County Constable Precinct 3 Captain Daniel Garza.
“He observed a black Mercedes and a red Nissan Altima drive on the roadway,” Garza explained. “A suspect exited the red Nissan Altima and stole two backpack blowers out of his trailer and put him in the backseat and began to flee the scene.”
As they drove toward him, they tried to hit him with their vehicle. Instead, he hit the car with his string trimmer, causing one of the men to fall out of the car.
He began to strike the man with the trimmer, knocking him down several times.
At this point in the video, another man came into the frame to yell at the suspect to stay down, but he managed to stumble away. The car drove back, and he was able to get inside.
The worker said that there were five men involved in the robbery and one flashed a gun at him during the incident.
Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said that police were able to identify the suspect after he went to a hospital to seek treatment for his injures.
“The suspect, Jerell Alexander, received minor injuries from being struck and was later located at a local hospital,” Herman said.
Also, the video captured an accomplice yelling, “Come on, Jerell!”
Police arrested the 24-year-old and charged him with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Alexander had a previous conviction from 2019 of robbery with bodily injury. His bond was set at $50,000.
Police are trying to identify the four other suspects in the alleged robbery. They were all described as black males, and police believe they have images of the suspects from other security video.
Garza offered some tips on how people could help them capture thieves from these kinds of crimes.
“Take photographs of your equipment, log the serial numbers down and you can go a step further. Put a special marking that identifies them in a way that if you show numbers scratched off or damaged, you still have a marking that positively identifies your equipment,” Garza said.
“A lot of times, these suspects will go and try to resell this equipment to pawnshops or other crews,” he added, “and that way we’re able to track this equipment.”
Here’s the video of the interaction:
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