. Phoenix, NY -- Police are seeking a person they believe can help them solve a home invasion Thursday in Phoenix that forced residents to flee and schools to lock down. “It may not be the suspect, it’s just a person we want to talk to,” Phoenix Police Chief Rod Carr said this morning. Police continue to seek two...
Members of the Oswego County SWAT team return to their base after entering a home on Cherry Street in Phoenix Thursday.Phoenix, NY -- Police are seeking a person they believe can help them solve a home invasion Thursday in Phoenix that forced residents to flee and schools to lock down.
“It may not be the suspect, it’s just a person we want to talk to,” Phoenix Police Chief Rod Carr said this morning.
Police continue to seek two suspects who burst in on a 22-year-old man living at 106 Cherry St. and then fired shots at him as he ran to another house seeking safety.
Deputies from Onondaga and Oswego counties, the Phoenix police and New York State Police are working the case they believe may be connected to an earlier home invasion Thursday morning at the Casual Estates trailer park in Clay.
“It’s too early to tell if it’s related or not,” Carr said.
Police spent Thursday evening gathering and processing evidence from the Phoenix home invasion, he said.
They believe they know why two suspects targeted a 22-year-old resident of the apartment at 106 Cherry St., Phoenix, and how they know him, the chief said.
Carr would not release the victim's name or any details about the case.
At 12:31 p.m. Thursday, two men burst through the door of the second floor apartment on Cherry Street.
The suspects fired two shots with a silver handgun at the resident as he ran out of the apartment with an unloaded shotgun to a house in the area of Cherry and Spring Streets, Carr said.
The chief was around the corner from the home when the call came. His was the first car on the scene.
“I got my shotgun out when I saw that the door was kicked in,” the chief said.
He called for assistance from additional police agencies, for a lockdown at the Phoenix Central Schools and a helicopter to look for the suspects.
As he approached the building, Carr said he hollered for the first floor resident to come out.
“She was frozen solid. She was scared to death. I grabbed her by the arm, we were right in the line of fire, and we ran. We ran our legs off,” he said.
Scooting through side yards, Carr and the woman raced to the safety of a police car.
With the woman safely inside the car, Carr used a bull horn, to call 10 or 12 times, for the suspects to give up. There was no answer.
“We think we just missed them,” he said.