MMA veteran Melvin Manhoef has spoken out about an alarming incident that saw him chasing down and apprehending three would-be burglars who were targeting his home near Amsterdam, Holland recently.
The 45-year-old Manhoef explained to mmafighting.com that it all began when he left his home last Saturday to promote his upcoming retirement fight against Yoel Romero at Bellator 280 in Paris.
Security cameras revealed one of the burglars looking inside his home and then returning later in the day with a car, but being scared off when a light in the house went on.
By Monday Manhoef was back home, but while he and his wife were out of the house neighbours phoned to warn him that the burglars had made another appearance.
Manhoef quickly made his way there, but the burglars were nowhere to be seen, so he decided to wait and see if they would return, and sure enough they did.
“I pulled my car in front of them, and I was watching them,” Manhoef recalled. “They saw me, and they were looking at me, and they took a slight turn and went away. After that, I was chasing them.
“I chased them, and then I crashed into them on the back side, and I couldn’t stop them because they were still going fast. And then I go to the side, and I hit them from the side. So they go into the, how do you call it, the side of the road, and the car was, like, turning and slipping. And we crashed.
“So I crashed, I crashed the whole car, and then the car stopped in the middle of the road, like horizontal, in the middle of the road. And I jumped out of the car and I said, ‘Come over here,’ because they had their burglar stuff to go in the house. I said, ‘Open the window,’ and I smashed the window in, and I pulled the guy out, opened the door, and put the guy on the ground. I was yelling, I was going like crazy. Everybody put their hands and knees on the ground. Some people were helping, they came out of their houses, and they called 911. In a few minutes, they were there.”
Manhoef is not sure what legal troubles he may now find himself in due to the incident, but has made it clear that regardless of what happens he’d do it again if he had to in order to protect his home and loved ones.
“If they’re going to burgle in and my wife is there, they tie my wife or my kid up, I couldn’t forgive myself,” Manhoef said. “My instinct was, you cannot come around my family. This is like, rule No. 1. Don’t touch my family. If you do that, yeah, you’re going to pay for it.”
“If I have to face charges, it is what it is. I did something wrong because I hit the car, but I hit it with a purpose, because I know they were in my house.”
