Porterdale resident Robert Canoles said he has no second thoughts about interrupting what he thought was a robbery in progress Thursday night at his neighbor's house -- though he is now facing criminal charges just days after deputies lauded his armed response.

Canoles said he and his teenage son, Branden, heard noises from the once-foreclosed home next door, vacant for seven months. They grabbed their AR-15s and snuck up behind a man and woman fiddling with the front door lock.

Jean-Joseph Kalonji, 61, and his 57-year-old wife, Angelica, following their real estate agent's advice, had driven to Porterdale to change the locks on the home their son Bruno Kalonji had just purchased. They found themselves prisoners of two men they didn't know clutching semi-automatic rifles.

"Shut up or I'll shoot," Canoles allegedly told the couple after they tried to explain that their son now owned the modest home sitting on 11 acres. Canoles asked to see the closing paperwork, which the Kalonjis didn't have.

For roughly 10 minutes, the Kalonjis -- who moved to the U.S. from Zaire in the late 1990s to escape persecution from the brutal Mobutu regime -- stood nervously, arms lifted over their heads, backs turned to the gunmen.

http://www.ajc.com/news/newton-county-neighbors-charged-1424231.html