Ding dong ditch with masked culprits in Cape Coral

If you woke up to a loud boom at your door and saw a masked person standing there at 1:30 a.m., what would you think?

A Cape Coral homeowner woke up to a person in a ski mask kicking at their door and immediately thought it was a home invasion.

“My initial reaction was to protect my family at all costs,” said the homeowner. “I immediately armed myself and ran out the door to find out what was going on. I didn’t know if they were going to break into my car or not.”

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When he got outside, the homeowner said he realized the culprits were teenagers who were probably playing a prank.

“I counted four juveniles,” the homeowner said. “When I confronted them, I told them to wait for the cops. They ran off.”

While the threat was not real, the fear he and his family felt in that situation was real.

Neighbors described the street as tightly knit with no recorded issues. They hope the incident doesn’t happen again.

“I hope that they catch the kids who did it just to scare them enough to not continue doing it, for their safety and the homeowner’s safety,” said neighbor Nicole Askew.

The homeowner told WINK News that this was the second incident reported to the Cape Coral Police over the past few days.

The homeowner also mentioned that the kids allegedly started a fire on a pile of brush that ended up dying out after he exited his home.