Kids call 911 from under bed, hiding from intruders
By Katie Fretland
World-Herald Staff Writer
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Two Omaha children home alone during a break-in Friday afternoon hid under a bed and called 911, police said.
Eight-year-old Nathan was watching SpongeBob SquarePants in the living room, beside the family's Yorkie, Max, when two young men came to the door and knocked repeatedly.
His 15-year-old sister, Nicole, knew not to open the door to strangers, and instead told her brother to hide in her bedroom, she said in an interview.
Nicole heard the men walk around the house to a basement window and break it. An alarm went off. She called her mom, then 911, while hiding under her bed with her brother.
"We stayed in my room and shut the door," Nicole said.
At some point, the men fled.
Both children said they were scared.
"I was shaking," Nicole said, while the little boy nodded. Officers at the scene praised the children for calling 911.
"Your kids are so smart," an officer told the children's mother, Lynda, as she walked into the house from work. "They didn't panic. They locked themselves in and stayed on the phone. They did an incredible job."
The mother said this is the third time in two years someone has broken into her north Omaha house. She suspects that teenagers are responsible, because the first time, pizza rolls, frozen chicken and soda were stolen, along with video games.
She and her boyfriend hope to move once they save enough money.
While her children were on the phone with 911 dispatchers, the mother spoke to a neighbor by phone. That neighbor said police were entering the house with guns drawn.
"As a mother, that was the worst (feeling)," she said.
But, she said, she was "so proud" that her children knew how to stay safe.
