Woman Catches Burglars After Sleeping at Her North Miami Beach Bar

Bernadette Gonzales hid in a storage closet as two men broke into Spinnaker's Restaurant and Bar.

A North Miami Beach woman had enough of her restaurant being burglarized, so she went as far as sleeping in the bar to catch the crooks in the act.

Bernadette Gonzales, manager of Spinnaker's Restaurant and Bar in North Miami Beach, made a call from the restaurant's storage closet at 3 a.m. on March 5th saying someone had broken in.

"They're trying to break in right now," said Gonzales, as heard on the 911 tape. "I'm hiding. I'm hiding."

Gonzales spent the night to protect the bar after it had been burglarized the night before.

"Unbelievable. These people are crazy. I hope they catch these jerks," she said on the 911 call.

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Gonzales said she wanted to see who had been stealing from her, but North Miami Beach Police are warning to "be careful what you wish for."

"She decided to stay inside to try and catch them if they came back and they did," said Thomas Carney, Director of Police Services.

Two men, 33-year-old Nelson Nieves and 20-year-old John William Hatfield, were arrested seconds after the call. They were caught walking out the front door with flashlights, crowbar, and a two-way radio.

Gonzales saw the two after she got the okay to come out of the storage closet and recognized them as customers from earlier in the evening.

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