Beware of the unsolicited visitor in uniform...

Date: June 4, 2012
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_20798438/charges-st-paul-man-disguised-city-worker-tried

Beware of the unsolicited visitor in uniform, especially the ones asking for access to your home.

Wearing a hard hat and a construction vest, a man wanted for attempted murder knocked on a door in Coon Rapids this week and told the woman who answered he was there to check her home's water system, authorities say.

Once inside, 34-year-old Robert Sirron Owens instead reportedly pointed a handgun covered with a sock at the woman while another man he arrived with went upstairs, according to complaints filed Wednesday, June 6 in Anoka County court.

At the time of this invasion, Owens had an outstanding warrant for a murder of an acquaintance two years earlier.  It's not clear how Owens and his two accomplices were apprehended.

Which brings us to...

...A Safety Tip

A lot of people think that attackers dressed up in official looking uniforms are just an urban myth.  They are rare but, obviously, not unheard of.

If you have no reason to expect someone, then use a healthy dose of skepticism when dealing with them.  Keep them outside.  Verify independently that they are there for the offered reason.  Don't use a business card or phone number that they they provide to verify.  Let them wait outside with your door locked, look up the company phone number yourself and call for confirmation.

Sure it make take a few minutes longer than if you just blindly trust them.  And you might feel embarrassed about asking the visitor to wait.  But most professionals will be understanding.

Highland Park Invasion Rapist Sentenced to 20 Years

Date: August 26, 2011
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_20761034/minneapolis-man-charged-robbery-rape-highland-park-sentenced

In a follow up to, I believe, this this August 26, 2011 home invasion, one of the three invaders who was convicted for his role in the invasion received a healthy sentence this past week.

Kimanie Markeys Carter, 25, was one of three men accused of confronting the couple in their early 50s as they returned to their apartment in the 1700 block of Norfolk Avenue about 1 a.m., Aug. 26, according to a criminal complaint.

One man had a gun; the trio forced the couple into their apartment and searched for valuables, the complaint said. Two of the men took the husband to a bank and made him withdraw $500, the complaint said.

While that was happening, Carter stayed in the apartment and raped the wife, according to the complaint.

Carter didn't receive the sentence for the rape charge even though he admitted to doing it. The sentence was based on the burglary charge alone.

Carter pleaded guilty to two counts of kidnapping and one count of first-degree burglary involving an assault, in which he admitted raping the woman, Hudson said.

A rape charge and two first-degree aggravated robbery charges against him were dismissed.

But the 20-year sentence handed down by Judge Lezlie Ott Marek for the burglary charge was the statutory maximum representing a "huge upward departure" from the sentencing guideline of eight years and two months, Hudson said.

Ott said the harsher sentence was justified by the "particular cruelty" and the "more onerous than usual" nature of the crime.

Here's some more reading that includes details about accomplices Rattler and Hogan.