A young father of two in Naperville confronted a bold peeping Tom on his family's balcony early Saturday morning and tossed the intruder over the railing.
"I ran over to him as fast as I could and just grabbed him and pushed him as hard as I could," said the apartment tenant, who declined to be identified out of concern for his family's safety.
The unwanted visitor fell at least 10 feet from the secocnd-floor balcony and "landed on his back on some rocks" outside the 12-unit apartment building, the tenant said. The suspect then ran from the scene on foot, leaving an impression of his buttocks in the ground where he landed.
The tenant, 29, has lived in the two-bedroom apartment with his girlfriend and his two sons, ages 4 and 16 months, since Sept. 2008. The man and woman are both teachers at a Naperville day care center.
During a telephone interview Monday, he said his cousin and their girlfriends had gone out Friday night to attend a band performance in West Chicago. His sons were left in the care of a baby-sitter.
The adults returned home just after 1 a.m. Saturday, the tenant said. His cousin was visiting from out of town and staying at the apartment, and the men and their girlfriends "were all just hanging out and watching movies" after returning from the concert, he said.
The tenant said he eventually went out for a walk that lasted about 10 minutes. He came back to the apartment and then went out onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette, and was startled to find a man there gazing toward the parking lot.
"I said, 'Who ... are you? Who ... are you?" the tenant said. When the intruder did not reply, the tenant said he reacted instinctively out of fear for himself, his friends and children, and heaved the man over the balcony railing.
The tenant said he did not know how the suspect got onto the balcony, He could only describe the intruder as a Hispanic man in his early or mid-20s.
"I ran outside to chase him, but he was gone" by the time he got there, the tenant said.
The man said he did not immediately call police to the scene and instead spent time calming himself, his cousin and their girlfriends. Police took the report later that day.
The balcony is 12 feet long and has a property storage area at one end. The tenant said he had installed a padlock on the locker earlier in the evening.
"My light [inside the apartment] was the only light on" at that hour, which might have drawn the suspect's attention, the tenant said. He said he surmised the intruder was a peeping Tom, but "who knows if that's even what he was doing?"
The tenant added he was now "thinking strongly of getting up and going" away from the neighborhood for the well-being of his family.
"I just want to move," the man said. "I don't feel safe."
