Latest southern Colorado news, weather and sports from FOX21 News

WALSENBURG, COLO. -- Law enforcement authorities are not the only ones responsible for tracking down and capturing the Dougherty trio.

Three Southern Colorado residents are being called "heroes" after they spotted, chased down, and tackled the Dougherty suspect who ran from the car.

David Vucetich, Shane Zibinski, and Dave Dallaguardia were all at the Walsengburg exit when the Dougherty suspects' car crashed.

A few minutes later, they saw one of the brothers run by, and that is when each of them took action.

"We were just standing there watching, and the next thing we know there is a guy coming at us, and I thought that guy is running from it all," Dave Dallaguardia said.

"I whipped the truck around and ran over there to cut him off, and I got him at a fence and he crawled through it and ran into the creek bed," David Vucetich said.

"Dave said hey 'I think we can take him,' and that is when he turned around and pointed his finger at us like he had a gun," Shane Zibinski said.

Once they realized he was not armed, Vucetich and Zibinski said they continued to chase after him.

Meantime, Dallaguardia was in his truck, keeping an eye on him from the road.

"I said 'give up and there will be no problems,' and then he turned his back on me and I proceeded to pull him down to the ground and we got into a scuffle," Vucetich said.

"I let dispatch know that we had him, and we started walking him back to the road, and that is when Dave met up with us too," Zibinski said.

The three said they did not know who the suspect was at first, but are glad they took action.

They said the situation could have been much worse.

"He got into some thick brush and we thought if he gets into that we are going to lose him and nobody is going to find him," Zibinski said.

"If we had not done what we did, even if we just had kept an eye on him, it would have been a manhunt," Dallaguardia said. "Once you get down in that bottom it is thick and nasty and full of willows, and once he got in there he could have run any which way."

Looking back the guys said it is a little unnerving to know they were chasing such a dangerous suspect.

In the end though they said they are not heroes, just ordinary citizens doing their part.

"I just feel like a normal guy who did a good deed, that is all," Vucetich said.

"All of law enforcement puts their lives on the line everyday, so just to help them out the best we can," Zibinski said.

"Just helping out I guess," Dallaguardia said.

FOX21 spoke with a friend of Shane Vucetich who said he drove the guys to DIA Wednesday night to catch a flight to New Jersey so they can make the rounds on the national morning news shows Thursday.