Ignacio police are seeking leads in the home invasion, assault and robbery of a couple on Browning Avenue.

Victor Atencio, 85, said two men dressed in black kicked in the back door of his house around 7:35 p.m. April 23. His wife, Dolores, who is 80, 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.

“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.’”

Victor suffered a gash on his head while ducking from one of the men’s punches. He received seven stitches. He said one of the men hit him again and pushed him. The same man took a safe from a bedroom.

“He kicked the door, went in there, found a little safe that I bought at Walmart. I had $300 to $500 in change in there, all my keys for the rentals, storage sheds. He took those,” Victor said.

After the men left the house, Victor said his son, Ignacio Town Trustee Tom Atencio, took his parents to the hospital.

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 anymore. 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 feet 6 or 7 inches.

Ignacio Police Sgt. Wes Crume said there were no known suspects in the area at the time.

“They were wearing gloves, left no fingerprints. 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.”

Do you have information about this crime?

Call the Ignacio Police Department at (970) 563-4206.

Call Crime Stoppers at 247-1112.