Guns drawn, deputies breach woman's bathroom door to confront ... a Roomba
It's unclear whether charges were filed.
Authorities responding to a potential burglar at a woman's home in Oregon quickly found themselves confronting a suspect with a surprisingly clean record.
The woman called 911 on Tuesday to report that someone was in her bathroom with the door locked and that she could see shadows moving under the door.
Within minutes, multiple deputies from the Washington County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to the scene and surrounded the residence.
We breached the bathroom door and encountered a very thorough vacuuming job being done by a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.
Deputies could hear a "rustling" noise from inside the bathroom as they approached, according to the sheriff's office. They called for a K-9 unit to assist.
"My initial thought is that, 'OK now this we've got this person barricaded in the bathroom and now he's trying to get out through that small small bathroom window on the back of the house,'" Washington County Sheriff's Deputy Brian Rogers told ABC News on Wednesday. "So at that point I had another deputy go to the back of the house to keep an eye on the window to make sure he doesn't escape out the back."
Deputies made several verbal commands for the suspect to come out, but there was no response and the "rustling" noise intensified, according to the sheriff's office. So they forced their way into the bathroom with their guns drawn.
"We breached the bathroom door," a deputy was quoted as saying in the sheriff's office statement, "and encountered a very thorough vacuuming job being done by a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner."
"It was pure humor at that point," Rogers told ABC News. "Every one of us kind of raised their hands and said, 'Yes, that's a career first for me. I've never taken a vacuum cleaner down at gunpoint my entire career.'"
It's unclear whether any charges were filed.
'It was pure humor at that point.'
A spokesperson for iRobot, the Massachusetts-based technology company that makes the cleaning bot, told ABC News, "If cleaning dirt is a crime, Roomba is guilty as charged."
Rogers said the caller "appeared to be embarrassed" after they told them it was actually a vacuum cleaner.
"We assured them, 'Look, it's not a waste of time. If you think somebody is in your house. By all means call us let us come to our job,'" Rogers told ABC News. "And we'll figure out if it's an actual person -- or a vacuum cleaner."
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