Ignacio Police are seeking leads in the April 23 home invasion, assault, and robbery of an elderly couple on Browning Avenue.
Victor Atencio, who will turn 86 later this month, said two men clad all in black kicked in the back door of his house at around 7:35 p.m. on the 23rd. His wife Dolores was in the kitchen. He was in their bedroom.
"She was sitting in a chair," he said. "They pushed her and she fell. She tried to get up (from the floor) and they kicked her. She hollered. I heard her, got off the bed. I knew she had fallen."
But as he went into the hall, he encountered the two invaders. One was tall and one was short, both dressed all in black with black hoods and masks. "They had these gloves that you put on when you are riding a bike down the road. All you could see was their eyes. They even had their guns covered with black rags," Atencio said.
The tall guy did all the talking, he said. "The tall guy said, 'You're the guy we want. I want your money.' I said, 'What money are you talking about?' He said, 'You got rentals. I know you got money.' I said, 'It goes straight to the bank. If you want it, you can get it from the bank.'
The tall one then said, "I'm going to kill you." Atencio said he responded, "I'm not afraid to die, but they are going to send you to Hell.' He said, 'If I don't kill you, I'll kill your wife.' I said, 'Then you'll have to kill me too.'"
Then the tall man tried to punch him in the face. He ducked and the blow landed above his forehead, causing a gash that later required seven stitches. "He knocked me down the first time he hit me. My legs gave up on me, but my mind didn't. I got up right away for as old as I am."
Atencio said the tall man tried again to punch him in the face. He raised his hand to block it and got two cuts on the back of his hand. "After the second time, he punched me in the head a couple times with the other hand. I felt my brain shaking, but I didn't get dizzy. Then he tried to hit me again, but he pushed me."
During all this, the shorter intruder was standing behind the tall one. Atencio said the "tall guy" ran to another bedrom just off the front room. "He kicked the door, went in there, found a little safe that I bought at Wal Mart. I had $300 to $500 in change in there, all my keys for the rentals, storage sheds. He took those."
The tall guy came out and both men left the house. "I was going to follow, but my wife said she couldn't get up. She was lying on the cold tiles for 15 or 20 minutes. She has asthma. I helped her up. She still had trouble standing... We called the cops and my boy," Tom Atencio, an Ignacio town trustee. "He took us to the hospital. My wife has big bruises on her hip and on her elbow." She will be 81 this month.
"My wife said (the short guy) told her if she got off the floor, he'd kill her," Atencio said.
Atencio said the evening before the invasion, a man with blondish-reddish hair came to their door and wanted to use the phone. They didn't know him, so they sent him away. "I didn't see him any more. The next day I asked the neighbor; he said it was two guys, one tall and one short." Atencio thinks they were the home invaders.
He described the tall man as about 6 feet tall, 230 to 240 pounds. The short man was 5'6" or 5'7".
"People like that, they need to be caught," he said. He wanted it in the newspaper, because if it wasn't, the invaders would feel free to do it again. He thinks they will do it again.
Ignacio Police Sgt. Wes Crume pretty much agreed.
"They (the Atencios) called us. We responded. There were no known suspects in the area at the time. They were wearing gloves, left no finger prints. They went right to the room where the safe is. They didn't take any of the guns, knives, the laptop on the counter. ... They knew what they were looking for. They didn't search any other portions of the house. ... It's not like it's a random crime. They knew what they were looking for and departed the premises post haste."
Crume said IPD notified other area law enforcement agencies and have done follow-up investigations, but as of May 6, the suspects hadn't been found, no one in the neighborhood has seen them, and there haven't been any similar incidents in the area. However, he mentioned the unsolved attack last month in broad daylight on a man using an ATM in downtown Durango.
He considered the men who came to Atencios' house the day before to be the invaders. He expressed great disappointment that several people saw them the day before but didn't call IPD to report anything suspicious and possibly avert the invasion, assault, and robbery.
He urged people, not just in Ignacio, to call law enforcement if they see something suspicious, so it can be checked out. People are a lot more likely to call in barking dog complaints, he lamented.
"Individuals like this are like bank robbers," Crume said. "They keep doing it until they get caught."
