[chris]

A 14-year-old boy alone at his family's Hollywood, Florida, home held off a burglar for nine minutes on a Saturday night in late May 2014, staying on the phone with a 911 dispatcher until police arrested 22-year-old McDowell Sherwood inside, according to Hollywood police and an arrest report.

Police said someone smashed through a back window near McKinley Street and 56th Avenue while the boy's parents were in Miami helping his older brother move out of college. The boy retreated through the house, sent a text message to let his parents know what was happening, and dialed 911.

"He broke a window and I'm home alone, I'm 14," the boy told the dispatcher, according to a recording later released by police. He said he could hear the intruder pounding on a door and trying to turn a knob before he ended up in the front room, telling the dispatcher, "I'm in the front room with a shoe horn as a weapon."

Officers arrived and found Sherwood inside the house armed with a knife, according to an arrest affidavit. The affidavit said Sherwood cut a window screen and broke the glass to get inside, and that a red suitcase packed with electronics and clothing was found on the floor near the front door.

The boy heard the officers arrive and told the dispatcher, "I see an officer, I see an officer," before he was able to leave the house safely. No one was hurt in the break-in.

Sherwood was booked on burglary charges and remained in the Broward County jail on a $75,000 bond as of early June 2014, unable to post it, police said. He told investigators he was having money problems and "had to do it," adding that he knew he would end up doing time. A relative of Sherwood's, who declined to give her name, told reporters afterward that she was sorry for what happened and said he was not a bad person but had gone off medication he needed. "He never would have hurt anybody but he does need help," she said.