Gaston County home invasion suspect likely a ‘desperate’ neighbor, police say
GASTONIA, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Police say a man seen in a video was targeting cars in a Gaston County neighborhood, breaking into a home and holding a family at gunpoint.
Gaston County Police don’t believe the victims knew the suspect. Investigators say the incident March 3 seems to be a random crime, but what the suspect is accused of stealing appears to be targeted.
‘Desperate’ neighbor?
A peaceful community may have fallen prey to one of its own neighbors.
“Pretty friendly people around here,” said Derek Jordan, who lives in a neighborhood close to Brindle Street off York Highway.
“Who knows what the person’s motive was, but it seems they were pretty desperate,” said Jordan.
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Police believe the suspect may live nearby, but they don’t believe his victims knew him.
“They said, ‘You not heard what happened?’” said Bienvenido Alegria, a local pastor who was a victim. “He said, ‘OK, but three minutes ago, kept coming. He said, ‘Nobody move.’”
Alegria was sleeping when he says the man broke into his house, pointed a gun at his roommates’ heads and stole the pastor’s power tools out of his truck.
“We’re scared, maybe we move from here,” Alegria said.
Police believe the same suspect was caught on camera just hours before, rummaging through another neighbor’s car, stealing iPhones, and pulling a cart down the road.
“I’m not sleeping really good these days because I think about it, they don’t catch him,” said Ramiro Martinez, whose wife’s car was broken into. “He could come back, you never know what will happen.”
Where are the tools?
The crimes have neighbors worried, especially for their children.
“That’s really aggressive holding a family at gunpoint, when hear about crimes like that you just kind of wonder where’s this person’s humanity?” asked Jordan.
Police did not give specifics on this case but say in general power tools are easy to resale and hard to trace because victims often don’t keep track of their serial numbers for those items.
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