A pair of Cape Coral men were caught on camera playing ding dong ditch in the middle of the night. While this may have been all fun and games for the men, the homeowners aren't laughing and neither are police.
The childish neighborhood prank has been around for ages. It woke up Michael Enright and his wife at 3:30 a.m.
“My dogs were going nuts, I’ve hot a four month old baby, and my wife is a school teacher so she didn’t go to bed until 2:00 a.m. because she was getting things ready for the first day of school,” Enright said.”
The goal of the prank is to ring the door bell or knock, run, and not get caught. The two guys were caught on camera thanks to surveillance equipment above the doorbell equipped with a motion sensor.
Enright says he hasn’t seen the men in the video before but believes they may be in their mid-twenties. He did contact Cape Coral concerned the two men may have caused trouble in his neighborhood the same night.
“I was like holy cow! I can’t believe these guys actually did this,” he said.
Corporal Phil Mullen with Cape Coral Police says after conducting a search zone for the neighborhood, there were no car burglaries or crimes reported last night when the surveillance video was captured.
Police say the risk in pranks like ding dong ditch in the late hours is that pranksters don’t know whose doorbell they’re ringing.
“Some people are willing to defend their property with firearms or whatever means necessary. Even though we try to educate people they can’t just shoot someone for being on their property, it’s happened,” Cpl Mullen said.
If pranksters are caught police could issue a trespassing warning and if they set foot on the property again, they may be arrested.
"Most people aren't running around in the streets to strangers' houses at three in the morning. There could be criminal intent there so that's a possibility but that's a pretty thin line," Cpl. Mullen said.
