When four masked teenagers surrounded Jheyco Borda outside his Oxon Hill, Maryland home on Wednesday afternoon, they had no way of knowing the man they were targeting had been trained by the United States Marine Corps to respond to exactly this kind of threat.
Borda, 35, was in the middle of working on his truck at around 4:30 p.m. when the group materialized around him. What started as a group of kids passing by quickly escalated into something far more dangerous.
The veteran told Telemundo44 he clocked the threat before it fully developed. “I saw six kids come by playing around… and out of my corner of my eye, they stepped in front of my car,” he said.
The moment the teens reached for their face masks, Borda’s instincts shifted into high gear. “I saw them put on a face mask. As soon as I figured that one out, I was like, something’s about to go down,” he recalled.
Seconds later, one of the teenagers produced a firearm and leveled it directly at Borda. Rather than panic, the Marine began calculating his next move.
The teens demanded both his vehicle and his phone. Borda stayed composed, telling them his truck was already running with the keys inside. He then surrendered his phone without a fight — and waited.
That patience paid off almost immediately. The moment the armed teen shifted his attention to the phone, Borda struck.
“I gave [my phone] to him. When he got distracted looking at my phone, that was the split second when I grabbed the gun out of his hand,” he told Telemundo44.
Surveillance footage documented the lunge — a single explosive movement that transformed Borda from victim to aggressor in the span of a heartbeat. The street erupted into chaos.
Backup arrived from an unexpected direction. Borda’s brother, who is preparing to join the United States Air Force, bolted outside and threw himself into the struggle to help strip the weapon away.
The dynamic shifted further when two of the remaining teens stepped back from the confrontation. A third, however, moved around the truck and rejoined the fight. It made no difference — the brothers held their ground.
Borda later told WUSA 9 that his response was not a conscious decision so much as a reflex forged through military service. “We are trained to fight or flight and it was my instinct in a split second,” he said.
He credited the Corps with drilling a mindset that proved essential in the moment. “Every split second counts a lot, and they teach us that in there,” Borda added.
At some point during the struggle, the firearm discharged. The round struck the side of Borda’s truck, leaving a visible hole. No one on the scene was injured.
With the fight over, both brothers kept the teenagers pinned until Prince George’s County Police Department officers reached the location.
All four suspects were taken into custody, according to Fox 5.
The Daily Mail indicated it contacted the Prince George’s County Police Department seeking further comment on the arrests.
