Heavily Armed Gunmen Continue to Raid Homes on Texas Border

HARLINGEN, Texas—For the second time this week multiple heavily armed gunmen stormed into a house in a Texas border city, holding people at gunpoint and assaulting their victims.

The most recent home invasion took place Wednesday night in Harlingen, where four gunmen wearing black clothing and ski-masks raided a house looking for large quantities of cash. The gunmen made off with a cash-filled safe and assaulted another person as they carjacked a vehicle on their way out, information released by Harlingen Police revealed.

This home invasion comes just two days after as Breitbart Texas reported, a large team of heavily armed gunmen raided a home in the neighboring border city of La Feria which prompted authorities to deploy their SWAT teams as they carried out a massive manhunt that placed several schools on lockdown.

As police officers responded to the home invasion in Harlingen, they spotted a dark Chevrolet Tahoe and a red Hummer that the suspected gunmen used to leave the area. One officer tried to stop the dark SUV, but the driver sped off in an attempt to get away. The suspects inside the vehicle threw out various firearms, cell phones, ski masks, and other items as they tried to elude capture but ended up crashing into two parked vehicles. Three suspects jumped out of the SUV and tried to run away but police ended up arresting them.

Authorities also recovered a safe which had approximately $20,000 in cash, however, the homeowner claimed the money wasn’t his. Harlingen Police detectives tracked the suspected gunman that fled in the red Hummer and and were able to arrest him on additional charges tied to yet another armed robbery earlier this month.

Harlingen police detectives are working with their counterparts in other agencies to see if the gunmen from this robbery are tied to the group of gunmen that carried out a similar home invasion in the neighboring border city of La Feria, Sergeant Dave Osborne said to Breitbart Texas.

Breitbart Texas spoke with Osborne about the home invasion and about the massive response by his department that allowed for the rapid arrest of the gunman that had initially managed to get away and also for about the ongoing investigation to capture other suspects. Harlingen police has teamed up with federal, state and local agencies in an effort to identify and arrest other individuals tied tot the home invasion.

This reported asked Sgt. Osborne if there was any connection between the home invasion in Harlingen and the one from two days before in the neighboring city of La Feria which resulted in a massive manhunt by law enforcement. 

“That is a possibility that we are looking into,” Osborne said to Breitbart Texas. “This type of crime is not very common in the area. The possibility of various gunmen are going into places looking for money is not something wee see often.  we are working with investigators in other departments to determine if there is a connection. If these suspects are tied to the other cases they will definitely be charged for those.”

As Breitbart Texas has reported in the past, home invasions have plagued areas around the Texas border, particularly in Hidalgo County, where teams of gunmen storm into houses that they suspect are being used to store large amounts of cash or recently smuggled drug shipments.

The home invasions tend to deal primarily within individuals tied to illicit activity, however, at times innocent people have been victimized as gunmen storm the wrong house.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.