CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Agua Dulce city marshal is sending out a stern warning that his office won't tolerate porch pirates this holiday season.
This after a man was seen on video stealing a Christmas package from a resident's front porch.
"It aggravates me because they are pretty brazen knowing we are around and they just don't care," said Agua Dulce City Marshal Joe Martinez.
While porch pirates are known to be difficult to catch, Martinez said he was able to identify the suspected thief from video footage from a doorbell cam.
"I got the text sent to me Saturday night and by Sunday morning we had already identified him," Martinez said.
Authorities identified the man as 34-year-old Mark Anthony Gonzalez from Alice, Texas.
"He's a career criminal. This is somebody who you don't want in your neighborhood. 50 arrests, 50 bookings in Jim Wells County -- that's a lot," Martinez said.
Gonzalez has had bookings that range from minor offenses to pretty serious ones.
"We have two outstanding warrants and we know where he is at. He doesn't want to come out, unfortunately these are class b misdemeanor warrants. We can't kick the door in, but we are going to catch him, he isn't going to go far, he can run but he can't hide," Martinez said.
Martinez added that this is the first porch pirate incident to be reported to his office, which has his team doing extra patrols through the neighborhoods. He is also asking residents to watch out for one another and be sure to report any theft.
"That makes me mad," Martinez said "We're a small community, we're not going to tolerate that I can tell you that right now. Make no mistake were going to throw the book at him and prosecute him to the full extent of the law."
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