Photo: Facebook
Thankfully, no one was hurt.
By Dan O'Reilly — Written on Apr 27, 2022
Parents often fear what might happen to their children when they aren’t around, playing up the dangers of the world around them.
For one pair of Texas parents, that fear came true when they were forced to watch through their home security as their child was in mortal danger.
Parents saw their house being robbed and their daughter held at gunpoint through their security camera.
A video was posted by the mother of the teenage daughter who was home when two armed men broke in and held her at gunpoint.
The scary one-minute and 15-second long video begin with the daughter, a male friend, and a second girl, which the woman revealed was her husband's niece, face down on the ground, being monitored by one of the robbers.
The other robber forcefully picks the niece up onto her feet, saying, “Get up! Get up!” before leading her through a door, leaving the other robber and the other two victims behind.
The robbers appeared to be heavily armed, it’s difficult to tell due to the low quality of the video, but the men looked to be holding assault rifles.
The robber monitoring the daughter and her friend continued to walk around while pointing his weapon at them one-handed.
The parents argued with the robbers through the security camera.
A voice can be heard around 30 seconds into the video, “Hey, who’s in my house? I got you on camera!”
The voice belongs to the father of the girl that was being held upright in front of his eyes. The mother was also watching, and yelled, “The cops are on their way!” at the intruders, no doubt hoping to drive them out of the house and away from their hostages.
After a short back and forth, the second intruder returns with the niece and several stolen items.
The two robbers walk out of the frame and, with one last threat, “Don’t pick your f***ing head up or I’ll pop your ass,” the men seem to leave the house. The video then ends with the unknown female getting up off of the floor.
The robbers and the unknown female may have been known to the victims.
The incident occurred in Pasadena, Texas on April 20, 2022, and police have since said that there was no further threat to the community and that they have “reason to believe the girl [the niece] in the video was involved.”
It is still unclear exactly what the relationship between the family of the victims, the robbers, and the niece was, but it is suspected that the niece actually helped the robbers get into the house by asking the daughter to let them in.
According to the mother, “She told my daughter she needed clothes from my garage. After she came in the two guys rushed my daughter with guns and told her to go inside where I was able to capture it with my Ring app.”
Dan O'Reilly is a writer who covers news, politics, and social justice. Follow him on Twitter.