On Monday, KXAS dispatched reporter Omar Villafranca and photojournalist Larry Herrera to report on a recent robbery in suburban Dallas in which a man held up a woman by gunpoint at an ATM. While the two prepared a live shot near the ATM for the NBC-affiliate’s 10 p.m. newscast, they unexpectedly became witnesses to another robbery.
The first robbery happened on Sunday evening and Dallas police circulated a description of the suspect. As Villafranca and Herrera prepared their report, they spotted a man who fit the police description. Villafranca, who wrote about the incident in a KXAS blog post, said that he joked with his producer about the man since chances were so slim that the suspect would be returning to the scene of his crime the very next day. But that’s exactly what happened.
The man, later identified as 20-year-old Brandon Leribeus, approached the driver of an SUV as KXAS cameras rolled. Herrera spotted Leribeus pulling something out of his pocket as he snuck up on the driver. Villafranca called 9-1-1 and police quickly arrived, eventually running down Leribeus in a nearby parking lot.
After the arrest, Villafranca tweeted, “I’m still shaking.”