A bold, late morning break-in in Redford ended when the home’s owner scared the thief off.
Now she is warning others to be alert.
By 9:30 in the morning Michelle Allen has usually been awake for hours, but on this day she was still in bed - which may have set off a scary chain of events.
“Had this door not of slammed, I wouldn’t have even woke up,” she says.
The new screen on Allen’s Redford Township home may have been her saving grace, when she heard it Wednesday morning, she thought it was her teenage son.
“So, I yelled my son’s name, what the heck are you doing home so early? and at that point I heard, crash,” she says. “So I jumped up from my bedroom, which is just two doors down at the end of the hallway and by the time I got here, I saw a gentleman, I can’t tell you anything except he was wearing jeans and a white hooded sweatshirt, hood over, hop my neighbors fence and run toward Plymouth Road.”
She believes the man who brazenly broke in by prying the handle thought no one was home - the crash? Tools that were quickly dropped on the would-be-burglars way out.
“Once I realized there was a person in my house and I was here, all the situations played.. what could have happened, I could’ve been held hostage, I could’ve been shot,” she says. “I want people to know: be careful. lock your doors. You shouldn’t have to lock your doors in your own house but maybe now you should because people are getting a little more brave, they don’t care who they hurt.”
Redford police say the man likely knocked first.
For those that hear knocks on your own door, police say intentionally do what Michelle unintentionally did and ask who is there, use a man’s name, instead of just quietly waiting for someone to leave.
It could be a deterrent to stop a break-in or worse.
