A Missouri City construction-site security guard spent the end of Independence Day tied up, helplessly watching as six robbers loaded $38,000 worth of construction materials onto a truck.
A Missouri City Police Department spokesman said the unidentified guard was on duty in a security trailer at the future site of Hometown At Missouri City apartment complex, when two motion detectors went off at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
The guard told police he went outside and began walking around the construction site, when a man stepped out from the side of a building and pointed a handgun at him. A second man, also branding a handgun, walked up from behind.
The two gunmen ordered the guard to the ground. He told police he feared for his life and complied. The men tied his hands behind his back, walked him to the side of a building and told him to sit with his back against it, the police spokesman said. They then tied his legs together with a cord.
At that point, the guard told police, a white “mini” flatbed truck pulled up and four more men got out. One of them picked up a piece of plastic debris from the ground and tied it across the guard’s face, partially obscuring his vision.
While one man watched over the guard, another climbed onto a nearby forklift, started it up and began loading pallets of building siding onto the flatbed truck. The security guard told police the men drove off with the load, then returned a half-hour later and loaded the flatbed again. They returned for new loads three or four times between 11:30 p.m. Saturday and 5 a.m. Sunday, when they completed their robbery.
The guard told police the man who had been watching him loosened the ties around his wrists, then jumped into the truck as it drove off. The guard was able to free himself, and called police.
He was only able to describe the robbers as six Hispanic men.
The robbers made off with a Toshiba satellite laptop computer valued at $800, which they took from the security trailer, and siding worth about $30,000, according to a police report.
