HUMBLE, Texas – A Harris County couple luckily avoided serious injury when a trio of armed men forced their way into a home in the Kenswick subdivision Tuesday morning.
Officials with the Precinct 4 Constable's Office say one man approached the homeowner as he opened his garage door to let his dog out.
The homeowner is a city of Houston Public Works employee and asked not to be identified. He told Local 2 he first spotted a man wearing a hoodie walking on the sidewalk in front of his home on Beigewood near Burnt Ash.
"It was raining outside so it seemed normal for the guy to have a hoodie on," the homeowner said. "Then he walked up and pulled out a gun and told me to put the phone down. So, as I turned around to put the phone down I looked back around and there were two other gentlemen who walked up with assault rifles."
The man said one of the men then hit him in the face with a pistol before all three forced their way into the house. The man's fiancée was asleep in the bedroom.
"Gun pointing, 'Get up, shut up, don't do nothing, get up,'" the woman recalled the men shouting as they entered the bedroom.
The homeowner and his fiancée say they have no idea why they were targeted.
"They kept saying about, 'I know you have money, I know you have money because you have nice vehicles; you 'shining,'" the man said the gunmen told him. "Meaning about rims and tires and stuff on cars but like I told them, 'We work every day, we're working people.'"
Lt. David Escobar says the men stole a rifle, a handgun and three TVs from the home. Escobar said the men tried to steal a fourth TV, but it wouldn't fit in their getaway car so they dropped it outside the front door of the home. Escobar says investigators believe a fourth person was driving that car, which is described as an older model green Ford Taurus sedan.
Escobar did not want to go into specifics, but says the robbers left behind "evidence" that should help investigators figure out their identities.
A Precinct 4 deputy constable did find the homeowner's wallet tossed in the street about a mile from the house.
"I'm grateful that we walked away with our lives. My kids weren't here. I'm grateful," the woman said.
Investigators said they gunmen are only described as black males in their late teens, early 20s.