FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) -
"I drug him out the car and he tried to stab me like six or seven times right here. I kept on punching him in his face and that's when he dropped," Miguel Cabrera said.
Cabrera heard the commotion coming from outside his window around 7 a.m. Tuesday.
"I was hearing someone, help, help," he said.
It was his neighbor, who minutes earlier, found 42-year-old Sean Pisciotti, high on drugs, trying to take off in his truck.
"When I walked out, I seen my neighbor trying to get someone out of his car and the guy that was on drugs was attacking him with a screwdriver," Cabrera said.
To get into the mobile home park, police say Pisciotti cut a hole through the fence and climbed through.
The truck was sitting feet away.
Lying on the seat, you can still see the screwdriver he used to try and turn the truck on.
But when the neighbors came after him, he turned and used that screwdriver on them.
You can still see the blood stains on the ground.
"We just put him on the ground. He was high off PCP or something. He was strong," Cabrera said.
It took five guys to get him down. Then they tied him up and waited for the cops to come.
Fresno police say this is the third time Pisciotti has been arrested just this month. He was booked on June 1st and the 16th for possession of meth.
And he was already on parole for stealing cars.
"He was arrested for possession of methamphetamine and released. He was arrested a second time and released. And we see the progression. As he gets back out, he comes back and commits those crimes and they're violent crimes. Again they're very lucky to be alive. The situation could've been drastically different if he would've had a knife," Sergeant Tim Tietjen, with the Fresno Police Department, said.
Despite cuts from the screwdriver, the truck's owner is ok. And his wife tells KMPH News he even went back to work after the assault.
By the time the truck's owner got to the truck, police say Pisciotti had already ripped out the stereo inside.
People taking back their neighborhoods is something we've seen a lot of lately.
But what would you do if you saw a crime happening right in front of you?
Fresno Police say, while it's commendable, they don't recommend that you interfere, unless your safety or the safety of someone else is at risk.
They say things like trucks, televisions and other valuables are just property and can be replaced.
The best thing to do, they say, is get as good of a description of the bad guy as you can, like unique physical features and license plate numbers. And, they say, call police immediately.
