.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Home Invasions on the Rise

Notice how the events I’ve described previously in numerous times are occurring more often in USA as well. More violent home invasions, better organized and often taking advantage of intel, either because someone spoke too much or because of someone that accessed the property previously because of legit reasons such as maids, contractors, etc.
Similar to what we’ve seen here, the level of violence is clearly increasing, not only that, but some of the old “codes” have been lost. These days criminals don’t hesitate in torturing children, something that used to be disapproved in general by professional criminals.
Las week in the small town or Miramar in the province of Buenos Aires, a 10 year old was killed by two criminals that broke into his house. The child ran to hide under the bed but they soon caught him, beat him and hanged him.
Its for this reason that I insist so much on security. Times in USA and world wide are getting more dangerous each day.
FerFAL
Join the forum discussion on this post!

Tension follows rash of home invasions by masked attackers – Houston Chronicle‏


The crews of bad guys bash down doors in the night or early morning hours, wearing masks and carrying guns as they stalk their victims.
Such teams have attacked Houston-area homes at least four times in the past two weeks, most recently on Thanksgiving evening. Their attacks have left three people dead and a boy missing a finger.
“I’m not nervous. I’m waiting,” electrician Robert Young said Friday as he clutched a military-style assault rifle outside his home, a few doors down from the scene of the latest attack in the 12000 block of Dermott.
The normally quiet neighborhood is thick with pine trees, sprawling lots and concern about what might have motivated the attack.
“I have got my guns ready,” said Young, fresh back from Iraq, where he did electrical contracting.
Authorities said they’ve seen an increase in home invasions recently, although statistics were not available because of the holiday.

Attackers often target residents they think are either drug traffickers who stash cash in their homes, or immigrants, particularly from Asia or the Middle East, who run small, cash-based businesses.
“These guys are violent criminals,” said Franceska Perot, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “You see them now more prepared – ski masks, zip ties (handcuffs), firearms. They basically have a plan when they go into these homes.”
Usually the criminals have a tip from someone who is in the home or has been there.
The attackers are said to hope their victims are at home so they can intimidate them into handing over drugs or cash instead of wasting time tearing into walls or tossing furniture.
The ATF has arrested multiple teams of invaders, often specialists with reputations for helping disgruntled traffickers attack rivals or former partners.

Former Houston drug dealer Rogelio Gonzalez testified during a trial this year that robbers disguised as police officers barged into his residence and pistol- whipped him in front of his terrified family.
Home invasions occur regularly, and authorities concede they don’t know about all of them. In those where nobody is hurt and a drug dealer gets ripped off, nobody may call police. (Read the rest)

7 comments:

HoustonLocal said...

Also this week in Houston.

Two guys try to rob a denny's. The one customer inside has a concealed gun, shoots back. Robbers flee. Hits one of the robbers. And then riddles their getaway van with bullet holes.

blog.chron.com/newswatch/2011/11/gunmen-hold-shootout-at-a-denny’s-in-houston/

HoustonLocal said...

Correction, the tow truck driver who shot back missed the robbers.

Anonymous said...

Harris county is a hot bed for Karte! activity. The home invasions were not random. The victims were targeted for their activities or relations with certain groups of people in a neighboring country.

Stay safe my friend.

Anonymous said...

The article was exactly correct. Most home invasions are against drug pushers for the drugs or money in the home; against Asians and other immigrants who choose to keep large sums of money in their home or a handful of cases where a family member or friend is made aware of money or valuables in the home. There is no massive invasion of homes in the U.S. and especially the homes of normal families who have normal household items. Don't keep your gold or silver at home and don't let friends and visitors know what you do have.

Anonymous said...

Home invasions and kidnappings - it seems that these are always in the news most days in south Texas. I don't know if its the effects of a bad economy, increased border survelliance (causing drug smuggling arrests to go up), but the bad guys are getting pretty creative and seem willing to multi-task (anything for a buck). Local LEOs are getting together to try and come up with solutions, but I don't hold much hope for a solution.

Anonymous said...

Like so many Americans, I live in a suburb, in a tract, semi-custom house. That means the structure is fairly sound, but the little things - like the windows and doors, have not been installed in the best manner. Only expensive custom homes seem to have the little things done right.

Following a rash of burglaries, I had a company assess our security. One of the cheapest and best upgrades was to have the doors re-hung, this time running steel screws into the studs, not just into the door frames, upgrade the locks to commercial grade, add heavy striker plates affixed to studs, and upgrade all other related hardware. While not the security level of steel euro framed doors (about $4,000 for a typical double door entrance in a US home), we vastly upgraded the time involved for a home invader to make it through this first layer. Per my security consultant, the fire department and police can get in with a ram and two or three men, but it will take them a little while. Same for any bad guys. By that time I'll have an appropriate weapon pointed in the right direction. We also installed 3M 14 mil film on all the windows and sealed that film to the frames with Dow Corning 995 sealant. Likewise, one can get in through the glass, but it will take some time, and severe lacerations are likely. Finally, we added a CCTV system as a part of the doorbell/intercom system to better identify anyone at the door without having to open the door. And of course, a standard hard wired burglar alarm system with battery back up.

Just following the common sense rules that security is performed in layers. If most people did this the number of burglaries, let alone home invasions would drop. And in the grand scheme of things, a few thousand dollars for this level of prevention is priceless. All of my defensive weapons are useless without a passive defense to buy me time in the event of disaster.

Roger said...

How much was the 3m window security film?