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A Scary Home Invasion on Westminster

A Scary Home Invasion on Westminster

A burglar made his way into a house on Westminster Road, tied up a college student who was sleeping in, and robbed the house, a neighborhood leader said.

Glenn Wolin, who heads the Beverley Square West security patrol committee, said a black male about twenty years old climbed through an open window in the house on Westminster Road near Slocum Place around 11 a.m. Tuesday.

The story began Monday morning, he said, when the homeowners heard their doorbell ring, followed by a loud slap on the door. When they came downstairs, no one was there -- but it's now seen as an attempt to see if anyone was home, and if an alarm system was in place.

The next morning, their teenage daughter, who was home from college, was home when the burglar arrived. Rather than fleeing, he "tied her up," Wolin said, and proceeded to rob the house of "laptops and cellphones and so forth."

Though burglaries happen occasionally in the neighborhood, "it’s very rare that there’s any human confrontations," he said.

"The fact that when he saw her he didn’t get the hell out of there is what makes it so scary," Wolin said.

His advice: "If anyone rings the doorbell, particularly if you hear a knock or a sound and you go out and there’s nobody there, call the police immediately."

He also suggested installing small, inexpensive window alarms.

Police spent much of the day Tuesday at the house, and are still investigating, he said.

An NYPD spokeswoman said they had no record of the incident, and an Community Affairs official at the 70th Precinct said she would look into it but didn't call back.

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