38-year-old Ricky Holmes says it was around 3:15 a.m. when two men kicked down his front door on the 3700 block of North 16th Street, where police spent the morning investigating.
While the armed suspects stormed upstairs, Holmes slid out the window to the porch roof unnoticed and called 9-1-1. He says two masked men demanded that his 33-year-old girlfriend Latonya Ellis open the safe. They later pistol-whipped her.
Holmes tells us, "I was out on the front porch watching them the whole time as they in there. I'm standing up there calling the police."
The suspects took off running downstairs, but met police in the stairwell. That is when authorities say one of them pointed a loaded semi-automatic handgun at the officers. Both officers opened fire but didn't hit the suspects, and at least one of whom went running back upstairs.
"One of the guys, they take a shot at me through the window upstairs. When he noticed the police he dived out the window. I'm standing there with a knife in my hand so I'm going to do what comes natural."
And for Holmes, that meant fighting to overpower the 42-year-old suspect.
"He was asking me to stop stabbing him. I kept stabbing him and I kicked him off the roof," explained Holmes.
That suspect dropped his gun. He was found two blocks away hiding under a car. He was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Holmes' girlfriend was grazed in the side by a bullet, but he says the most important thing is that they survived.
Police are still searching for the second suspect.
Internal Affairs is investigating, as is the protocol for a police discharge.
