Gun-Toting Home Invaders Bust Down Doors, Go for Mom's Purse. But Her Son Is Much Better Armed.

The knock at Sofia Velador's door came just after 9 a.m. Tuesday.

A woman was at the home's entrance asking to use a phone since her car broke down with her son in it, Las Vegas Now reported.

Tiffany Carter, a.k.a. Tarnesha Harris (Image source: Las Vegas Police)

Police said a 12-year-old boy tried closing the door as he left to get a phone, but the woman at the door forced her way in, grabbed the boy — who tried to run — and put him in a headlock.

That's when a man armed with a gun ran inside the home and kicked down the locked bedroom door of 23-year-old Jesus Javier Sanchez.

The 12-year-old boy told police he then heard shots fired.

But it was Sanchez, who retrieved a firearm of his own, who was shooting and chasing the now-wounded home invader right out of the house.

But that didn't deter the woman — later identified as 29-year-old Tiffany Carter, a.k.a. Tarnesha Harris — who had already forced her way inside the house.

After the 12-year-old boy yelled for help, police said his mother Sofia Velador emerged from her bedroom — and that's when Harris got inside the bedroom and came out with Velador's purse.

But as she made a break for the door, more shots rang out. The 12-year-old boy said he saw his brother pulling the purse away from Harris, who soon was crawling from the house to a gold-colored car. Both suspects then fled the scene.

When Las Vegas officers arrived, they saw Sanchez standing in the yard with an AK-47, and he immediately dropped the rifle and followed the officer's commands, police said.

Police found bullet holes in the house along with a black semiautomatic handgun; they found another gun on Sanchez's bed which they they determined belonged to him and which he used on the suspects. Afterward using the first gun, Sanchez grabbed the AK-47, police said.

Police also found a trail of blood from the house, down the driveway and ending at the street.

About a half hour after the shootings, police received a call from a hospital about two people who arrived at the emergency room with gunshot wounds — the same home-invading pair.

The man — who remains unidentified — was dead on arrival, police said; Harris was taken to a trauma center due to the severity of her injuries.

Velador and her sons, including 19-year-old Rogelio Sanchez, were OK after the incident, Las Vegas Now reported.

Harris was booked while still hospitalized on charges of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, robbery with a deadly weapon, kidnap with a deadly weapon, home invasion with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit to home invasion.

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