Security cameras are meant to catch things that you’d otherwise miss, and every once in a while they manage to capture a really unexpected moment. Take for example the footage captured by the Ring security camera set up by the Dungan family of Salinas, California. The little device caught a man licking their doorbell.
The incident started at 5 a.m., when an unidentified man showed up on camera in front of the Dungan residence, according to an account from the family provided to local CBS station KION. The homeowners weren’t inside the house at the time but received a notification on their phone from the security camera that there was activity at the front door. As it turns out, the notification was triggered by a man repeatedly licking the doorbell of their home.
That would be weird enough on its own, but somehow things only got weirder from there. The man, who police identified at 33-year-old Roberto Daniel Arroyo, continued licking the doorbell for more than three hours. The children of the Dungan family were inside the house at the time but apparently had no interaction with the man. Arroyo also appeared to relieve himself in the front yard, as if he hadn’t already done enough to violate the property.
The situation was certainly strange and freaked out some of the neighbors around the complex (the man allegedly also went to one of the neighboring homes, though it’s not clear if he also licked the doorbell there or not), and it did draw some official interest. It could be argued that the man did no harm to the homes or to any residents, beyond making the Dungan family need to break out some disinfectant for the doorbell before they have guests over. “You kind of laugh about it afterwards because technically he didn’t do anything,” Dungan said in an interview with KION.
Officers from the Salina Police Department have taken a different view, however, and a case against Aroyyo has been passed on to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office, according to a report from Gizmodo. He faces charges of theft, prowling, and violation of his probation.
