By Dustin Brown
In the days since a gunman shot two men after storming into a Ridgewood family’s home early Sunday morning, the homeowners have decided to leave town.
“Now we’re just selling the house — we’re getting another house,” said Wanda Santos, 48. “Until they find the guy we’re just going to have cops in front of the house. They might just come in and start shooting everybody.”
The ordeal began around 3:40 a.m. when two men appeared at the front door of the house on Troutman St., just a block from the Brooklyn border, police said.
“These guys knocked on the door and they just came in and started shooting,” said Santos, who lives on the second floor with her mother and her nephew, 31-year-old Hector Torres.
The gunmen came in search of Torres, whom they knew, she said. Torres had been with two friends in a bedroom on the first floor, where Santos’ sister lives with her family, she added.
After Santos’ brother opened the door for the men, whom Torres knows, they threw him onto a sofa and ordered him to lie down, Santos said. They then entered the kitchen and began shooting at the closed bedroom door that separated not just the bedroom and the kitchen, but Torres and his friends from the gunmen.
Torres suffered a bullet wound to his thumb while his 19-year-old male friend was shot in the arm, police said. A teenage girl who was with them also suffered an injury to her hand, Santos said.
The assailants then dragged Torres out of the house and pushed him against a car, Santos said.
“They pulled him out and they put a gun in his mouth,” Santos said. “They tell him to stop f—ing around with them — their words. And then they took off.”
The victims were taken to Wyckoff Hospital in stable condition, police said, and Santos said her nephew’s thumb was saved by surgeons at the hospital.
Although the family has lived in the neighborhood for nine years, the incident has jarred their sense of security, prompting them to put the house on the market. Meanwhile, police are providing surveillance in front of the house until the suspect is caught, said Santos, who added that one of the assailants has harassed the family with a threatening phone call since Sunday.
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
