Home Invasion – Terror Remains Long After Attack
May 10, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Alysha Rivas is only 19, but she takes pills to help her sleep.
Nighttime is no longer restful for her. She dreams of men following her, kidnapping her, shooting her.
“I hate to be alone. I get freaked out when someone knocks on the door unexpectedly,” she said.
Her persistent anxiety and fear started when two armed young men burst into her family’s home on June 26, 2006. The attackers went into her room, pointed a gun at her and demanded drugs and money as she shielded her 5-year-old sister.
“I can’t forget about it,” Rivas said. “I can’t move on.”
She and her family are unwilling members of a growing group in the Tucson area: home-invasion survivors.
Police are unsure whether home invasions are increasing in the Tucson area. But they suspect the crimes are spreading beyond the criminal circles where they began as a way of stealing drug loads or money from traffickers. The numbers are still very small, but more and more it seems, innocent residents are being attacked, leaving them with a deep sense of insecurity and anxiety after their sanctuaries — their homes — are so violently violated.
A wave of home invasions led the Tucson Police Department to form a home-invasion unit last year. While most of the cases the police have investigated involved drug trafficking, about one-fourth could not be explained that way, police Sgt. Fabian Pacheco said.
And even in the homes of criminals, there may be innocent victims — children or spouses who didn’t willingly participate in the drug trade.
James Springs was a 71-year-old marijuana dealer when his East Side home was invaded on Jan. 11, 2008. His son, who has cerebral palsy, walked into the robbery on his two canes and was shot by the invaders.
Then there are the people outside the criminal realm, such as the Rivas family, whose members have found themselves targeted, sometimes by mistake, sometimes intentionally.
Alysha Rivas was 16 when her home, near South Cardinal Avenue and West Los Reales Road, was attacked. That night she was awake in the early-morning hours, watching TV while her sister slept, when two men kicked in the door of her room, the first bedroom they came to.
“I immediately began crying,” Alysha said.
Her father, Joe Rivas, heard the ruckus and emerged from his room to see the intruders. Rivas was ordered to the ground.
