Boy, 14, lets burglar know who’s in charge

If Michael Six decides to go into public service when he grows up, he could run as a modern-day Teddy Roosevelt.

You know the type. Michael speaks softly and carries a Louisville Slugger.

The shy 14-year-old from Mesa, Ariz., came to New York on Friday with his trusty bat to show TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira how he used the aluminum club against a burglar who was rummaging through his bedroom.

“I only hit him twice,” Michael said almost apologetically of the incident that played out Tuesday morning in the Phoenix suburb.

He demonstrated for Vieira how he whacked the burglar, later identified as Thomas Garza, a 30-year-old career criminal who was on parole at the time, twice across the back and shoulders.

On the 911 tape of the incident, Garza can be heard yelling “Please! Please! Please!” after being hit.

“He turned around, snatched the bat from my hands. Then he threatened to kill me,” Michael said.

Instead, Garza left the building, climbing through Michael’s bedroom window and fleeing to a neighboring yard where police, summoned by Michael’s 911 call, took him into custody. After being read his rights, police said, Garza admitted breaking into the Six home.

Michael’s parents, Randy and Ophelia Six, were both at work when he heard someone break into the family’s ranch-style house and start going through the rooms.

He called 911 on his cell phone, speaking calmly to the dispatcher as the burglar went through his parents’ room next to his.

The tape of the 911 call is eerily calm. “I was really scared,” he said afterward. “My adrenaline was running.” But on the tape, the terror is between the lines.

“My house is being robbed,” he tells the dispatcher.

“OK. Where are you?” the dispatcher says. “Are you inside or outside?”

“Inside,” he replies.

“And what's going on?”

“Someone broke into my house. I don't know … I'm in my room.”

TODAY Burglary suspect Thomas Garza

He retreated into his closet when the burglar came into his room, grabbing the bat he had used in his Little League days. The closet has no door, so he could see the intruder going through his things from the shadows. Meanwhile, he was still talking to the dispatcher.

“He’s breaking in,” he said.

“In your room?” the dispatcher replied.

“Yeah.”

“You need to get out the window.”

“I can't.”

By then, Garza was going through Michael’s backpack, and the ninth-grader at Kino Junior High School decided he had to do something.

As the dispatcher called his name — “Michael? Michael?” — the sounds of the struggle play out in the background, with the burglar’s cries and his expletive-punctuated threat.

Was he scared? Vieira asked.

“Pretty much frightening, yeah,” Michael said.

When Garza left the building, Michael climbed out his window behind him, saw the police arriving, and showed them where to go to find the suspect.

His parents, summoned by the 911 dispatcher, arrived shortly after, relieved to find their son unharmed. When everything had calmed down, they went out and got two big dogs as insurance against a repeat of the frightening episode.

So, Vieira asked Michael, what position did he play in baseball?

“Third base and a little bit of outfield,” he said.

“Were you a good hitter?”

“Average,” he said.

Garza, who’s being held in jail without bail, may beg to differ.

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