HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – Harris County Sheriff’s deputies are looking for two men who tried to force their way into a home with guns.
The homeowner and her mother were held at gunpoint. Now investigators are turning to surveillance video and the public for help in identifying the suspects.
The attempted robbery occured Saturday morning in a neighborhood near Beltway 8 and Wallisville Road in east Harris County.
“God was really with us that day,” said homeowner Viviana Maldonado.
Maldonaldo is a single mother of three now dealing with the aftermath of a frightening situation.
“Plain daylight... We had come in and parked in the driveway,” Maldonado said.
Maldonado and her boyfriend waited several minutes in their driveway before getting out to head inside her home. They did not realize two suspects in their mid-20s were waiting in a silver, two-door Ford Expedition just across the street.
“My cameras caught everything,” Maldonado said.
As they shut the house’s door, the surveillance video captures the moment two armed suspects started to bang and kick the door. Maldonado’s boyfriend tried to hold the door shut.
Her boyfriend used his arms and leg to push the door closed. However, a masked suspect was able to slip through, Maldonado said.
“One of them was able to come in and walk through the hall,” she said. “I was in the hallway and threw my mom inside the room, and I threw the phone at her and told her to call 911. The guy pointed the gun at me and at my mom, and he shot three times.”
The masked suspect’s gun didn’t fire, Maldonado said. The suspect ran out of the house.
Meanwhile, the other suspect in red clothing continued to kick the door after the other suspect got out, Maldonado said.
According to Maldonado, the suspect said, “Let me in or I’m going to kill you all. Let me in or I’m going to kill you all.” She said he repeated the statement about three times.
She said her boyfriend said: "Nobody is coming inside.”
The suspects are shown in the surveillance video to eventually take off. They did not take anything. They just left a broken door.
“I’m so blessed and so thankful that I’m still alive because they literally shot three times and [the gun] did not shoot,” Maldonado said.
She said she has no idea why the suspect chose her house. She hopes the suspects get caught so they do not do the same thing to someone else.
“If they did that to me, they could do it to anybody else, and I’m just a hard-working women who works hard for her kids,” Maldonado said.
Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies are asking anyone with information to give them a call.