18-year-old holds down suspect: 'I trained a little bit to take action' | Crime

ORCHARDS, Wash. - An 18-year-old man helped capture a suspect after a break-in at an Orchards mobile home.

Around 10 p.m. on Friday, neighbors saw somebody trying to break into a home in their mobile home park. The suspect took off when he was spotted and neighbors gave chase.

18-year-old Ruben Alonso saw the commotion and then said 48-year-old Kurt Tajchman ran towards him.

“He was about to tackle me, I pushed him off,” Alonso said.

He said Tajchman then came at him again at him. Alonso started punching Tajchman before finally getting the older man in a headlock. He helped hold Tajchman down until sheriff’s deputies arrived.

“I trained a little bit to take action for whatever comes to mind, but thank God it wasn’t that bad of a situation,” Alonso said. “We did handle him.”

Alonso injured his wrist in the struggle.

“It was a pretty scary moment for all of us,” he said. “A lot of screaming, a lot of hollering, the neighbors down the street were crying.”

Clark County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested 48-year-old Kurt Tajchman after he was released from the hospital. He was charged with burglary after neighbors said he kicked down the door of a mobile home.

Tajchman lives at the mobile home park where the incident happened. Neighbors said he tried to grab a little girl inside the home he broke into, but no one knows why.

Alonso recognized Tajchman as his neighbor, but said he’s never acted like that before. Neighbors suspect he might have been on drugs.

“I had to do what needed to be done because he was a danger to our society, to our community,” Alonso said.