STOCKTON, Calif. — A Stockton family is reeling after their home was broken into and burglarized minutes after they left.
"This is very traumatizing, and now our family, we don’t even want to step out of the house anymore,” a family member said.
The family spoke with ABC10, but requested anonymity due to the break-in. A family member told ABC10 that her mother had left the house with the kids minutes before the break-in to pick her up from work Monday evening.
While making another stop on the way back home, they got a notification from their doorbell camera that someone rang the doorbell. At first, she said they didn't see anything, but then, another camera angle showed masked men with guns stealing from their home.
“We didn’t know what to do when we saw that. We have two little kids living in our home,” she told ABC10. "We didn’t know what to do, so we called the cops. They told us not to go home.”
Officer David Scott, spokesperson for Stockton Police Department, said officers responded not long after getting the call just before 8:30 p.m. They set up a perimeter, thinking the suspects could still be inside the home and armed.
Ultimately, they learned the suspects had taken off before they arrived. The family was then allowed to go back home.
“Everything was just all messy, the window was broken, there was glass everywhere,” the family member told ABC10.
Nobody was inside when the crime happened.
The family member told ABC10 that the thieves took some purses, jewelry and her mother's wedding ring.
While everyone is safe, it was a harrowing and traumatizing ordeal.
“My sister doesn’t even want to go in the garage or anything, she’s like ‘I don’t want to go in the garage. I’m scared. What if they come back?'” she said.
The family is calling on anybody who knows anything to speak up.
Scott said there are about four or five suspects in total, including a getaway car. Three of them were caught on camera, with at least a couple of them armed. Scott said they took off in an older model black sedan.
Anyone with information on the burglary is asked to contact Stockton Police Department.
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