Sammamish residents worried after neighbor chases would be burglar off his property
SAMMAMISH, WASH. - Homeowners in Sammamish have been on high alert for months now after one of their neighbor's home was broken into, valuables stolen.
Since, Joshua Duffy says they've continued to see an uptick. Two incidents reported over the weekend.
Duffy, has been living in the Trossachs community with his wife and daughter since 2018. They moved here to benefit their daughters' education, an elementary school is just within walking distance. He's since become president of their homeowners' association. He says they've never had any concerns of feared for their safety, until now.
He first heard rumblings of an attempted burglary Friday, March 3 around 7:45.
The residents were out of town, but their home security system caught two masked men walking through their backyard. Technology helping them scare them off, they screamed for them to get off their property as the lights came.
Fast-forward to Sunday, Duffy says he was having dinner with his family around 6 p.m.
When their doorbell rang. His neighbor frantically telling him, three men tried breaking into their homes.
"Someone just hopped over, two masked men are in your backyard one of them or two of them just hopped over our fence and tried to get in our house," Duffy says his neighbor explained.
Home surveillance shows his neighbor shouting and running after the masked men who jumped into a white car and sped off.
They called 911.
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Duffy says the most troubling part is knowing they were inside having dinner when they peaked inside and ran past them and into their neighbor's backyard.
"They saw us right there and if they went around the back of the house, it was just getting dark then, so they probably went around back, and we didn't see them," Duffy said.
The men, dressed in ski masks, long sleeves, gloves and dark pants walked up to his neighbor's home, peaking in; the family's young daughter was on the other side.
"It's terrifying," Duffy said. "I'm trying to convince myself it's true that if they were out to hurt us, they could have. "My hope is that it's a property related crime, they're looking to burglarize houses."
He believes their homes were being watched. Surveillance cameras show a white car without license plates driving up and down their neighborhood 30 minutes before the attempted break-ins.
"We’ve learned since that people actually saw them running away from the house, it was pretty brazen people were all over," Duffy said.
His concern is the uptick and how bold the men appear to be, targeting homes between 5:30 and 8 p.m. a similar coincidence to the situation homeowners in Redmond have been dealing with.
"Its pretty similar we asked the police if there's a relation, and they can’t say because of their investigation but it certainty seems like it," Duffy said.
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He is one of several neighbors who no longer feel safe in their own home.
Residents say officials were present at their latest HOA board meeting.
"He wasn't able to talk to the specifics, he gave us some tips on things we could do to improve home security but I think overall we didn't get as many answers as we had hoped to," Duffy said.
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He says neighbors are now in constant communication with each other keeping an eye on each other's property hoping to prevent being robbed of their safety.
FOX 13 reached out to the King County Sheriff Office inquiring if the cases are connected, something they're still looking into.
This is a developing story, we'll update as we learn more.