MINNEAPOLIS
John and Linda St. George and their 4-year-old grandson were playing video games and watching TV on Tuesday night when there was a knock at the door. When Linda answered, three masked men forced their way into the St. Paul house and forced the family onto the floor at gunpoint.
"They knocked her down and came in with a gun," said John, who ran out from a nearby room when his wife screamed for help.
Let's waste her, John recalled one of the men saying as he pointed a gun at her head.
John was forced to lie down in the hallway, his grandson clutched in his arms.
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"Are they going to kill us?" the boy asked his grandfather.
"I don't know," John answered.
The three men demanded valuables and threatened to kill the victims, according to a police report. John said the men wore masks. He couldn't describe them well because he was lying on the ground during the 30- to 45-minute ordeal, which began about 8:30 p.m. It's unclear how many of the men had guns.
"We thought they were going to kill us," John said.
No one has been arrested in the case, but police are following several leads, spokesman John Keating said.
"It's an incident that the department is taking very seriously," Keating said. "This is not an incident we see a lot of."
Authorities don't believe the robbery in the 1300 block of E. 6th Street on the city's East Side was random. It also does not appear to be linked to other robberies.
John St. George said he thinks the masked men were looking for drugs and money that they thought his daughter's friend may have left at the house.
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One of the men stood behind John and kept watch as the others ransacked the home and repeatedly threatened, kicked and stepped on his wife's torso and head while barking demands for valuables, he said.
Every time Linda moved her head, the men threatened her.
"Get your head down," they said. The men also threatened to cut her and break her bones.
"They tore the whole house up, except for the kids' bedroom," John said.
John directed the men to a safe where he kept about $3,000 in cash and some gold coins. The men eventually quit searching the home, but not before demanding a ring from John and gold earrings and four rings that Linda was wearing.
The three also took a $1,000 big-screen TV and a PlayStation. Before they left, they tied up Linda with a dog leash and John with electrical cords, his grandson still in his arms.
John eventually wiggled free and untied his wife before running to a neighbor's house for help.
The couple, who have lived in the home for 30 years, were still shaken Thursday.
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"I just hope they get the guys, because we can't sleep," John said.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
