Exclusive: Double amputee bone cancer survivor who was victim of home invasion speaks out
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Police are searching for three men responsible for a home invasion involving a wheelchair-bound disabled man on the Milwaukee’s north side.
CBS 58 reporter Amanda Devoe spoke exclusively with the victim who has overcome cancer and lost both of his legs. He says even after surviving all of that he didn’t think he would make it out alive after the home invasion.
James Petty was leaving his apartment near Atkinson and Nash to get something to eat around 9 p.m. Tuesday night when three men walked up to him, pointed a gun to his head and forced him back inside the building.
“They took me in the house, put me behind the door and told me to stay there. One of them had a gun on me, the other two was cleaning my house out. They told me, when we get through with you, we’re going to kill you,” said Petty.
49-year-old Petty is a double amputee bone cancer survivor. He said one of the suspects held his hands down on his wheelchair arms while the other two stole as much stuff as they could, “My three TVs, my safe, $4,000 in my safe, my son’s gun, they stole some systems stuff that goes in my van.”
Petty says the men split up and took off in a Chevy Malibu and a minivan, both burgundy.
The victim is on disability and says it took years to get the things the men stole, “It’s hard to do things when you’re on disability because you gotta save up. It took me just about two years to get them TVs. It only took one day to get them taken.”
Despite the circumstances, Petty says he refuses to live in fear, “I’m only scared of one somebody and that’s the Lord. Them? They don’t bother me. I just don’t like what they did to me.”
Petty says he knows the suspects from the neighborhood but he only knows them by their street names.