At exactly 5:18 p.m. Monday evening, Doctor Shane Reno was at his clinic in East Bakersfield when he got a call about someone inside the home he was selling.
When he got there a witness told him they had called 911 around 3:45 p.m. reporting an intruder in the home, but Reno decided to search around the home on his own.
“First I looked in the window, shown a flashlight in there and yelled for anyone that was there to come out. And no one responded, so taking the key I went around to the front of the house...and unlocked the door and went in and I could see two bedrooms fairly plainly that there was no one in them,” aid Reno.
But after checking one of the bathrooms Reno says he found the man and with his gun drawn got him to come out peacefully, sitting him just outside the front door.
“At that point I had holstered my weapon and just kept my hand on it ready and I just kept telling him 'keep your hands where I can see them, don't touch your pockets, don't touch your anything,” said Reno.
At the same time he got the man out, Reno says he again called the sheriff's department telling them he had the person detained, but didn't tell them he had the man at gun point.
Then after waiting for more than 30 minutes and still no deputy, he messaged a friend for help…who at the time was near Arvin.
“I almost beat the Sheriff there, he had this guy at gun point for a while. It just kind of reminds you the problems that the Sheriff's department is having. They're spread too thin right now and it's just going to get worse,” said Reno’s friend Gene Thome.
At 6:40 p.m. that night deputies finally got there and took over the situation.
I felt bad that there wrere so few deputies to be able to handle this situation and then I felt even more for them when I saw Sheriff Youngblood on the news last night talking about th budget cuts,” said Reno.
