WTH: Couple Held At Gunpoint At New Home When Neighbors Assume They’re Robbers

April 23rd, 2012 - By Brande Victorian

Source:Newsone.com

In more, people taking justice into their own hands news, a Georgia couple didn’t exactly get a friendly welcome to the neighborhood when they went over to change the locks on a foreclosed home they had just closed on. In fact, they were held at gunpoint by their new neighbors and even arrested by police.

When Jean Kalonji and his wife, Angelica, who grew up in the Congo, started working on the locks at their new home in Newton County, as their real estate agent suggested, an armed man and another person who appeared to be the man’s son confronted them.

“He say to put the hands up and get out from the house otherwise he would shoot us,” Jean said.

His wife said they put their hands up and were told to get over by the wall while the neighbors called the Sheriff’s office and told them two people were breaking into the home and that they didn’t believe their story that they had just purchased the house. When police arrived, the Kalonji’s didn’t have their closing papers with them so they were arrested, hauled off to jail, and charged with loitering and prowling.

Though they’ve since been released, Jean said the experience brought back painful memories of his upbringing.

“There, they put me down with the gun to my head, and come here, the same,” he told WSBTV.com

It doesn’t appear authorities have been very apologetic about the situation either. Newton County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Mark Mitchell simply said they are investigating everything that happened.

“We’re kind of on the ground floor to this as far as looking into it exactly what occurred, why it occurred.”

I’m pretty sure they don’t have to look far beyond the couple’s ethnicity to find that answer.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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  • mj1978

    A foreclosed house which means most likely it was empty. No imminent danger to anyone in or around the property. A neighbor comes and pulls a gun on a suspected robber (the couple) THAT WASN’T on his personal property. The neighbor should have ONLY called the police and give a full description of the couple. Sorry, as a law enforcement official, the neighbor had no right to hold anyone by gunpoint and it is called unlawful detainment. This incident could have been handled by the cops at the scene with a simple call to contact the realtor for verification. If the realtor couldn’t be contacted at the scene, the couple should have been brought in for questioning (not arrested). I don’t know what the laws are in GA, but I’m sure you can’t go around holding people up for what you may think is a burglary. This is why the neighbors should have been arrested. This incident like it or not is motivated by people who try to be vigilantes and not play their positions as citizens. I hope these folks have since walked away from that home, live elsewhere, and sued the neighbors for emotional distress.

  • JustSaying

    We bring race into everything. Its pitiful.

  • Lucygoosey66

     if you’re buying a foreclosure, have your papers available, that’s not hard. all of unlawful activity occurs in/around foreclosures. had they had there info, i bet there would have been an apology, that’s usually the flow.

  • Lucygoosey66

    Carry your papers, we’re trying to get the illegals to do the same thing, there’ no different. we want to know who you are and why you doing what you are doing. stop trippin’ and no one will get hurt!

  • Kathicks01

    Does any realize how terrifying it is to be held at gunpoint????  An apology is not sufficient!…This couple should an WILL most likely sue the sh$t out of ALL parties involved!  Including the police department for false arrest.

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