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Police: Costumed guy wasn't looking to party

Posted at 2:08 PM, Aug 09, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-09 17:28:13-04

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio -- If a guy in a safety vest and pink hard hat showed up at your door carrying a plunger, you'd probably think there was a costume party nearby.

Or maybe that he was a second-rate stripper.

Except this guy had a pistol in the other hand, and, according to a police report, he tried to push his way into a woman's apartment Monday.

Shaquita Davis told police she was asleep at her home in the Liberty Manor Apartments when he heard somebody pounding at her door.

As she came downstairs, she caught a glimpse of him through a transom window.

Davis said the man was banging at her front door at the Liberty Manor Apartments. Photo by Jay Warren | WCPO

"I could see like the person had a construction hat on," she said. "I couldn't see a face or anything, but it seemed like a construction hat, so I went to open the door."

That's when she found he had a gun, and she started screaming.

"I was screaming 'No! No! No!' and trying my hardest to push the door back to push it closed," Davis said.

According to the police report, Davis' brother heard her, yelled and started coming downstairs.

"I was upstairs watching TV, and I heard my sister scream," Aahmes Smith said. "I actually thought she fell, so I ran outside, down here to check on her, and she was slamming the door shut."

With that, the gunman ran off.

A neighbor spotted two people running but couldn't give a good description of the gunman's accomplice, she told police.

Another neighbor told police she saw two men wearing safety vests get out of a car; both were wearing surgical masks, she said, and one had the plunger. Only one of the men came back to the car, she said, and she thought there was a woman in the car, too.

Davis said she didn't open the door all the way because she wasn't fully dressed for work. She fears if she had, the situation could have turned out much differently.

"Then he would really would have been able to just rush in," she said. "And to find out he wasn't alone? That means his buddy was probably hiding around the corner, ready to rush in once he got in the door."

Middletown police haven't found the men or the car.