Suspect caught sleeping in neighbor’s yard

PEORIA — A west Phoenix neighborhood got a rude awakening Sunday morning when an armed robbery suspect was found sleeping in a yard, apparently tired out from his run from police.

Sara, a 2-year-old Chihuahua and her brother Sammy sounded the first alarm.

“All of the sudden they were barking like crazy,” said David Briggs, a neighbor who saw the suspect.

It was around 6 a.m. when David Briggs let them outside, but these three weren’t the only ones in the backyard.

“I kind of looked around the corner and [saw] that sucker jumping the fence there,” said David Briggs. “When he jumped the fence, he jumped the back of the fence and they nabbed him out here on the road; five cop cars surrounded him.”

April Briggs said hours earlier she heard a police chopper overhead.

They were looking for 20-year-old Justin Risner.

Risner allegedly used a gun to rob a Circle K on 7th Avenue near the Loop 101 around 4:15 a.m.

Police said at 4:30 he held up the AM/PM on 35th Avenue and Peoria Road, also at gunpoint, and fled.

Phoenix police said the suspect ran out of his car in the area of 35th Avenue and Cholla Street and into a nearby neighborhood,

“The neighbor this morning told him that he had been laying in his yard and he was looking out the window and saw him and called the cops,” said April Briggs.

“I’ve lived here 30 years and nothing like that has ever happened, nothing,” said David Briggs.

Briggs and his daughter are breathing a sigh of relief that the crook has been caught and grateful their little guard dogs were on alert when he came their way.

Story written by Anita Roman of MyFoxPhoenix.com