A man tried to force his way into Jeff Jones's Lake Highlands home around 1:20 a.m. on Friday, October 30, ringing the doorbell over and over before kicking the door and punching through the glass window, leaving blood on the porch. Jones slept through the whole thing — his son, watching the doorbell footage remotely, had to call and text him awake.
Doorbell Footage Captures the Attempt in Real Time
The doorbell camera recorded the suspect ringing the bell multiple times, according to FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth. He then kicked the door repeatedly before punching through the glass, shattering it and leaving blood behind. Nothing was taken from the home, but Jones filed a police report, and Dallas Police said they are treating the incident as a burglary regardless.
Jones told the station the experience was traumatizing, describing the moment the man kicked the door and broke the glass as deeply unsettling. He has lived in the neighborhood for roughly 20 to 24 years and said he now plans to install fencing around his house. He also said he hopes neighbors will start looking out for one another more closely.
A Second Homeowner Reports a Similar Encounter the Same Night
A second Lake Highlands homeowner told FOX 4 he believed the same person had banged on and kicked his door earlier that Friday night. He said he yelled at the man to leave and called police, but officers reportedly did not arrive until 7 a.m., hours after the overnight confrontation.
After Jones posted the footage online, he told FOX 4 that multiple neighbors contacted him about the suspect. Some said the man had targeted homes in the area before, including in an incident six months earlier; one neighbor said he had been doing this for years. Jones said he hoped a distinctive facial tattoo or marking visible in the footage would help police identify the man.
Police Clear One Suspect, Investigation Continues
Dallas Police identified a potential suspect that Friday but determined he was not responsible for the break-in attempt, the station reported. No arrest has been made, and police continue to investigate the incident.
Jones said it feels like incidents like this are happening more often in the neighborhood than they did a decade ago. District 10's year-end figures offer a mixed picture: data presented to the Dallas City Council Public Safety Committee and reported by Lake Highlands Advocate show violent crime fell 12% citywide in 2025, while the district's murder count dropped from 13 to six. Business burglaries in the district fell from 370 in 2024 to 305 in 2025, even as some aggravated-assault categories rose.
That followed a different trend the year before: the same publication's reporting on 2024 data showed home and business burglaries both increased in District 10, with business burglaries climbing to 349 cases from 279 in 2023, even as overall violent crime fell. The Dallas Police Department said at the time it had not identified a pattern in the district's burglaries.
What recent District 10 figures do—and don't—show
According to Lake Highlands Advocate, citing data shared in Council Member Kathy Stewart’s newsletter, total offenses against persons in District 10 fell from 106 to 93 in the comparable periods of Jan. 1 through March 24, 2025 and 2026. Aggravated assaults declined in both categories: firearm-related cases fell 20%, and non-firearm cases fell 18.4%. These are partial-year figures for offenses against persons, not a 2023–25 series of residential burglaries; they do not show attempted versus completed burglaries or distinguish residential from business offenses.
Not the First Time a Kicked-In Door Has Made Headlines in Lake Highlands
Forced entries aren't unheard of in the neighborhood. In a 2017 case reported by Dallas Morning News, a Lake Highlands resident was woken before 5 a.m. by a man ringing his doorbell and knocking, and after the man returned and kicked in the door, the resident shot him. The intruder fled but was later found and taken to a hospital, while the resident was unharmed. That case predates this week's incidents by nearly a decade and involves a different address, but it underscores that late-night door-kicking attempts have cropped up in the area before.
Jones told FOX 4 he is waiting for police to identify the man described by neighbors as a repeat presence in the area. Dallas Police say the investigation remains open.
