Photos have shown the terrifying moment a woman climbed on the roof to hide from an intruder who was just a few feet behind her.
Back in September 2014, Melora Rivera was left in utter shock after an intruder kicked down her front door in Venice, California.
Rivera was in bed at the time of the incident and all the commotion led to her jumping out of her safe place and onto the roof.
She managed to crawl out of the window and away from the oncoming intruder.
Melora Rivera told CBS News: “He managed to break one of these panels and reach in to unlock the door. Once I saw him in the house, I knew that we both couldn’t be there. I knew that I didn’t want to have a confrontation with him of any sort, you know, not knowing what his intention was.”
The woman climbed on the roof (TonyVera)
On her way to the roof, Rivera was able to grab her phone and call 911 as the intruder, who was later named as Christian Hicks, allegedly pursued her.
After she had got through to a dispatcher on the other side, Rivera thought the best plan of action was to hide under an eave – and that certainly worked well for her.
However, that didn’t mean it wasn’t a scary experience for the woman based in California.
She added: “The drop is, I would guess, more than 20 feet. So there was no safely jumping off the roof or coming down from the roof at that point.
“It was my biggest fear was that he was going to be forced by the cops to come hide in basically the same place I was hiding.”
Local authorities have since said police were able to get to Rivera less than two minutes after they’d been dispatched, meaning she got out of danger fairly quickly.
Alexandria Thompson witnessed the whole commotion, as Rivera was helped off the roof by the fire brigade who were also called out to the scene.
The intruder broke into the woman’s while she was asleep (Venice 311)
Also speaking to CBS, the bystander said: “I saw this guy this morning in handcuffs. I’ve seen him in my yard. I called the police.”
Hicks was originally detained but police was forced to let him go after the individual who called the cops in the first place declined to identify him in person.
Rivera has since spoken out about homelessness in the local area and how she feels that needs to be tackled to prevent similar situations from occurring.
“I think it’s very obvious for most of us who live around here, when someone seems to be suffering from a mental illness, and to continue to let these people walk around without offering them assistance, to protect them and us,” she added.
A woman who heard ‘animal noises’ for months was shocked to discover the truth of what was living under her house.
For weeks, an elderly woman from California was creeped out by noises she had been hearing for weeks in her El Sereno neighborhood home.
The woman and her family had initially dismissed the nighttime noise as typical disturbances from dogs and cats in the area, which made her concerns lessen.
However, as those noises appeared louder, she called authorities.
To everyone’s amazement, they found a naked man in the crawlspace, a place he seemed to have been living in for a long period of time.
Ricardo Silva, the son-in-law of the 93-year-old homeowner, said: “It was usually late at night, and we just chucked it off to animals being under the house. The noises were kind of like knocking. It was kind of like, as my wife was walking, they were kind of knocking back from under the house so she says, you know something’s wrong.”
It wasn’t simple to remove the man from underneath the house as he refused to leave the area.
Police spent many hours trying to convince the man to crawl out, but that did not work.
The man was found in this crawlspace (NBC)
Officials even tried to scare the man with police dogs, though he was very much unfazed by the deployment.
The man was eventually moved after police loaded tear gas into the crawlspace.
He has since been identified as 27-year-old Issac Betancour, with police believing he lived under the house for a period of six months.
“He refused to leave. He wasn’t scared of the dogs, and the first two attempts at gas didn’t fish him out,” Silva added.
“It’s a bizarre thing, but it’s not probably uncommon, you know, in this day and age, people are looking for shelter.”
Betancour was subsequently detained and also sent for medical checks at a nearby hospital, according to CBS.
To prevent similar incidents from happening again in the future, the family is planning to block access to the crawlspace, which is two-foot high.
The chilling final words of a young man who was reportedly ‘shot in the head’ by his own father while protecting his pregnant fiancée have been revealed.
Kevin Ward had stopped by his father’s home in High Ridge on Christmas Eve when the pair reportedly became embroiled in a heated argument which resulted in a fatal gunshot to the head, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
The 26-year-old and his pregnant fiancée, Kaitlyn, were due to celebrate Christmas at Kevin’s mom’s house, Katherine Ward, but decided to briefly visit his father, Harold Luster, having made the trip home from St. Louis.
Kevin Ward died of a fatal gunshot wound to the head (KSDK News/YouTube)
However, Kevin tragically didn’t make it to his mom’s for the holidays.
The incident reportedly unfolded as Kevin and Harold argued over cheating allegations relating to Katherine – and the 61-year-old allegedly initially pulled a gun out on Kaitlyn.
The Kansas City Star reports that Harold suspected Kaitlyn had been ‘withholding information’ and said to the fiancee, ‘do you wanna get shot?’
From there, the situation escalated. Kevin told her ‘to run and call 911 if something happened’ as he stepped in and tried to calm the situation.
Harold Luster has been charged with murder (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook)
CCTV footage from a neighbor’s home shows a flash went off and a victim falling to the ground with an apparent injury to the head.
When police and emergency services arrived at the scene, Kevin was found deceased with his hands in his pockets.
Harold has since been charged with first-degree murder and armed with criminal action.
He has been jailed without bond.
Now, court documents reveal the chilling final words Kevin uttered before he was fatally shot.
Speaking to his father, he reportedly said: “You’re not going to shoot her”, to which Harold allegedly replied: “You wanna get shot instead?”
Kaitlyn then claimed to see her soon-to-be father-in-law shoot a single shot at Kevin’s head before he collapsed to the ground.
Kevin’s heartbroken mother has since spoken out about the traumatic loss of her son in her appeal for justice.
Katherine Ward on KSDK News (KSDK News/YouTube)
“A senseless act took my baby away from me”, Katherine said to KSDK on Friday, before recounting some details of the altercation.
She continued: “[Harold] and another family member had been arguing prior, that did not have nothing to do with Kevin.
“He was already worked up over that incident.”
The mom also claimed Harold had called her during the heated argument and could hear her son saying: ‘Dad, why are you doing this? I don’t deserve this’, before he ended the call.
“Kevin died with a gunshot to his forehead and his hands tucked in his pockets”, she continued, “He was ultimately going to shoot Kevin’s fiancée and Kevin sacrificed himself, he was the hero that night.
“He would rather die than have her and that baby taken.”
Terrifying moment streamer is swatted in middle of parking lot
Kick streamer Fousey was live-streaming in the middle of a parking lot when he was surrounded by police
The terrifying moment a streamer was swatted in the middle of a parking lot was caught on camera.
Kick streamer and YouTuber Fousey, whose real name Yousef Saleh Erakat, is one of the most popular and recognised influencers on the platform.
However, those who tuned into his most recent broadcast were left a little shocked with they saw.
While he was sitting in a parking lot, Fousey was swatted – much to his surprise.
Swatting is a type of harassment that involves trying to trick police into sending a heavily armed raid to someone’s home.
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Content creator Fousey was swatted during a livestream (Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)
Often a SWAT team, they are typically sent to a scene where a crime is actually not taking place, according to the FBI.
The caller is often falsely reporting a serious violent crime such as a home invasion, a hostage situation or even a shooting.
The harasser making the call will often use a fake caller ID or a phone spoofing software to ensure their location is hidden.
In Fousey’s swatting incident, he was streaming at the time from a parking lot as several police officers showed up and shouted at him to open his windows.
The police officers even be heard threatening to shoot him if he didn’t comply.
Unintentionally, the content creator had started his car before realizing that policemen were standing very close to him.
“Put your hands up. If you reach for anything you will be shot,” the police officer can be heard saying.
“Put your window all the way down, put your hand out of the window.”
The streamer then tried to reason with the police officer insisting he was a live steamer making content and he had been a victim of a hoax call.
And after Fousey revealed he had a dog on his lap, the situation was not going to escalate any further.
The terrifying moment was captured on camera. (Fousey)
After police made sure the streamer was not up to no good and examined his vehicle, he was able to go back to his livestream.
This isn’t the first time Fousey has been swatted, as he had previously tweeted last year for people to ‘stop calling the police’ on him.
And while this story luckily didn’t end in tragedy, other swatting incidents have.
A man was shot and killed by a police officer in 2017 in Wichita, Kansas, in an incident that was later found to be a swatting occurrence.
According to a press release from United State’s Attorney’s Office in 2019, a man in California was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to causing the incident.
Heather Allen and her family were ambushed by the thieves at around 7:30pm, in broad daylight.
“I threw my hands up like, ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ and he just pulled me down,” Allen told WAPT.
While Allen and one of her sons were outside the car, her oldest son, daughter and two grandchildren remained inside the vehicle.
Allen added: “They kept hollering, ‘Give me the keys, give me the keys.’ My daughter was like, ‘My babies, my babies are in the car.’
“He jumps in the driver’s seat, I’m standing on the outside looking in, and he points a gun at my oldest boy’s face.”
Heather Allen recalled the incident. (WAPT)
Thankfully, Allen’s son made it out unharmed, while one of the suspects is seen on the video pulling the woman’s daughter out of the car.
Allen also managed to get her grandchildren out from the backseat, all the time while one of the suspects was still yelling for the keys.
The carjackers hadn’t managed to work out how to steal the car and with the threat continuing, Allen threw her car keys on the ground.
Instead, the suspects took off in Allen’s car, which was parked on the lawn.
While the whole of Allen’s family got out of the situation unscathed, her family is still reeling from the terrifying incident.
“I’m not sleeping. My oldest son, his anxiety is through the roof – he’s even scared. My daughter, she has shock, but they’re safe. They are in Batesville right now,” Allen revealed.
The family have only been living in the area for about three months, but now plan to move out of Jackson because of the attack.
The terrifying moment was captured on camera. (WAPT)
Thankfully, the Jackson Police Department (JPD) was able to track down her car just two blocks away from where the carjacking took place.
“The cop said that the car looks good, but it’s in the impound lot. I can’t get it until they investigate it for fingerprints,” Allen
