BILLINGS — "I want to leave. I can’t do this here."
Shimmeri Sarzosa has lived in Billings all her life, but Sunday night was a first. She was almost asleep just before 11:00 p.m. when she heard a knock on the door.
"I went to the door and I opened it, not even thinking," Sarzosa said, "and the guy cocked the gun and charged the door, and then slammed into it."
Security footage from the front of Sarzosa’s house shows what looks to be a man whispering to someone else just off screen. Sarzosa believes the man in the footage knocked on her door while the other charged her after she answered.
"He shouted, ‘Give me all your money,'" she said. "He had the gun at me, and I just grabbed his arm and started hitting him."
The man knocked Sarzosa over, but she said she knew she had to keep fighting.
"I have an instinct to always be on my toes, so when that happened, my immediate reaction is to fight," she said. "I ended up getting back up and going at him again, and at that point, I screamed as loud as I could, ‘Call the Cops! Get out!’”
Sarzosa says the two men had parked a car in her neighbor’s driveway and immediately took off in it after running from Sarzosa’s house. She says she didn’t recognize either one, but has a guess as to why they were there.
"I just got a new vehicle - it’s a little flashy. And then I had garage sales the last two days," she said. "I’m a professional re-seller - I sell things online and garage sales are a good way to make money on the weekends.
"You have cash-on-hand in garage sales, so they probably thought this might be an easy way to get money."
This incident was the worst in a nightmare weekend for Sarzosa.
"On Friday night, someone was inside my storage space in my house," she said.
She says they entered after breaking in to a neighboring home, which she says is currently unoccupied. She called police after finding another intruder Monday morning on that property.
"I’ve been there five years and I’ve never had issues," she said. "This drastic change is not something anyone should be living in."
That’s not just talk. After graduating from MSU-Billings with two degrees in November 2020, Sarzosa already has her next plan, as she looks for a sweeter way of life: "I plan on moving to Florida and doing doughnut shops."
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