Police Track Down Man in Bizarre Doorbell Licking Security Video

The man caught on video licking a doorbell as he loitered on a family porch in the middle of the night in California has been tracked down by police, but has not been arrested.

The owners of the house in Salinas, California, were away during the incident on Jan. 4. Alerted by an automated security system, they later unearthed security footage of the man as he drifted in and out of shot on their porch for three hours, at one point licking the intercom as he stared at the camera, as their adult children slept inside.

Salinas Police Department later identified the man featured in the video as Roberto Daniel Arroyo, 33, a homeless man who was already on probation, according to local reports.

Arroyo is unlikely to face charges for the doorbell licking itself—reported by some outlets as lasting three hours—but may be charged with two misdemeanors: prowling and petty theft.

“This weirdo showed up at our front porch last night about 2am,” the homeowners wrote in a public post accompanying the video, posted to Ring.com, the website of the company that hosts their security alert system.

“He continued taunting our household until 5:00 am,” they wrote. “This individual is quite disturbing. In other videos, it is hard to see if he was peeing or doing some other perverted stuff.” 

Some news reports appear to have confused the total length of time Arroyo spent coming and going on the porch—three hours—with the actual length of time he spent licking the button.

The video showed him licking the button for a brief amount of time, Miguel Cabrera, Salinas Police public information officer told the Californian.

Homeowner David Dungan, 67, said that they first saw the video Saturday morning after they returned home from out of town.

“This guy’s getting some sick jollies off of something,” he told the Californian.

Bleaching the Doorknobs

Dungan’s wife, Sylvia Dungan, said that she was alerted to the activity on her porch by a system that monitors comings and goings by the front door.

“I thought, boy there’s a lot of traffic,” Sylvia Dungan told KION. “I go, 5:00 in the morning? My son doesn’t get home till 6:00 a.m.... well then who the heck is that?”

She said at the end of the day no real harm was done.

“You kind of laugh about it afterwards because technically he didn’t do anything,” she said.

Police said that at one point in the video, he lay down in front of the door for 20 minutes.

“He was there for a while,” Cabrera told the Los Angeles Times. “He curls in front of the front area of the residence … like he’s taking a nap.”

Police were easily able to identify him from the high-resolution footage.

According to the LA Times, Arroyo is already on probation.

A police officer spotted Arroyo the following day, reported the LA Times, and questioned him.

But Arroyo was not arrested since the potential charges of petty theft and prowling are misdemeanors, police told KION. The case has now been forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s office for review and prosecution.

The petty theft charge is over an electric extension cord which was later found at their neighbor’s house.

“It’s probably the weirdest [case] I’ve heard in many years,” Cabrera said.

According to local reports, the couple made sure to clean the porch and bleached the doorknobs of the house.