City Heights intruder eased out but not arrested

On April 25, at about 11:30 p.m., a man wearing long dark shorts, a white-black-and-gray striped tank top, and a black-colored baseball cap entered Cam Pascale's City Heights home — uninvited.

"This is where he came in," Pascale said to me, "and I'm positive the gate outside was shut."

She opened and closed the metal door that bears a sign that read "we don't call 911" and a depiction of a gun.

"I don't own a gun," Pascale continued. "[Now] I'm going to get a gun, definitely. This was the deciding factor. I will shoot in a second now. I am not going to hesitate, so don't come into my house."

On May 14, Pascale and I spoke inside her home, within walking distance from the Tower Bar on University Avenue, about four miles south of the I-8 and a mile east of the I-15.

She walked me through her home and showed me the two cameras that captured the "home invasion" that Sunday night.

"I'm coming out of my room, and he's like this," she explained as she dropped down to the floor in front of her daughter's room. (For this article, I changed her 14 year-old daughter's name to Stephanie.)

"Stephanie is sitting right there on her computer, and she's oblivious to what's happening while he's crouched down right here."

Stephanie's door is about 15 feet away from the front door. The kitchen separates Stephanie's and Pascale's rooms that are about 12 feet apart.

Pascale is depicted on video coming out of her bedroom; she stopped in her tracks a second or two after.

"What the fuck, who are you?" Pascale yelled at the intruder in the video. ".... why are you here?"

The trespasser approaches Pascale and blurts something inaudible, grabs his stomach, and bends over.

"Can you head out, please, head out of the house now," Pascale said to the intruder on the video, which she showed me on her cellphone.

"And I had a hammer right there [by Stephanie's door]," she explained to me, "and I'm thinking my taser's outside. All this stuff's going on in my head."

"When he was bent down, I saw he had something wrapped around his knee and thigh area."

"Like an electric gadget?" I asked her.

"Maybe," she replied, "it was up by his thigh under his shorts. It could've been a weapon, that's what Stephanie thought. My eyes aren't that great, hers are much better. I just wanted him outside of the house."

The living room camera then captured the intruder, who appears to be about 5 foot 7 inches and weighs around 145 pounds. He's holding his stomach as if he was injured or gesturing that he was hungry. He appears calm as he willingly approached the front door. "What's wrong," Pascale asked him a couple of times.

"He was like, 'they said I'd die, I just got released,'" Pascale recounted in our interview. "I see Stephanie pop around the corner, and I'm like 'Oh no' when I looked at her. I didn't know she had mace .... she was scared to [use] it, and I was like 'don't ever hesitate.'"

The video then ends. Pascale said she closed and locked the door and called 911. Another video, which contained part of her phone communication with the dispatcher, was posted on the NextDoor app.

"The lady next door came over the next day, and she's like 'I saw him sitting out on your chair outside,' and it had to be before the cops came here."

"How long did it take for the police to arrive?" I asked.

"Not too long, that's a good thing. I only saw one cop with a flashlight. We heard him talking outside .... so I walk out there, and the guy's upstairs, they found him at the duplex behind me. The cop is like, 'so you were just on her porch, right?' and I'm like 'no he wasn't, he was in my house,' and he was like, 'you go back inside.' Then ten minutes later, he [the policeman] never came back, and Stephanie said 'the cop car's gone.'"

"What happened to the perp?" I asked.

"I found out the cop took him and dropped him off at Home and Fairmont with no charges because apparently trespassing isn't [supposedly] a crime."

Home and Fairmont is about 1.5 miles south of the mother-and-daughter residence.

The following day, Pascale posted the incriminating videos on the NextDoor app for her City Heights and surrounding area neighbors to view. The post garnered hundreds of views and comments.

"Happened to me in Crown Point last year," responded Pascale's neighbor. "[I] left door unlocked by accident, woke up at 3 a.m. to someone in the house. He wouldn't leave .... [I] called cops standing 10 ft. away from him. They took him away, and no charges were filed. The cops knew him said he did it before, and they were going to get him help as if he was [the] victim. [I] tried to follow up with police, went nowhere."

Three others came forward on the thread and shared similar and recent trespassing stories. One dweller questioned why Pascale left her metal door open. Another neighbor mentioned something about a "no trespassing sign."

"The police told me that the [no trespassing] sign has to be very clear and very visible," Pascale said to me. "It's ludicrous. I told them that my sign does not say 'welcome,' it says 'we don't dial 911.' The police are like 'it doesn't matter unless the sign says 'no trespassing' and it has to be clear and visible for them."

On the police department's website, there's a section where San Diegans can apply for a Trespass Authorization/Letter of Agency Form.

"This form allows the San Diego Police Department to act as the agent for the owner of private property for purposes of enforcing laws against any person(s) found on the property without the owner's consent or without lawful purpose ..... In conjunction with this form, a sign must be posted on the property indicating: a Letter of Agency has been filed with the San Diego Police Department; the address of the property; the words "No Trespassing"; and who the property is managed by and/or who to call to report problems or concerns. The sign should be no less than 18"x24", ideally have a font legible from the nearest public street, and not be readily accessible to vandals. Signs should be evenly spaced throughout the surrounding property boundaries covered by the Letter of Agency."

"As far as they [the offenses] are not a crime, they are very much potential crimes. If the guy were coming in here to steal, he probably would've taken something and boom, been out. He came in for an intent ... what, are you going to wait until my daughter's raped [or] until I'm raped, or we're murdered? No! Then we call the cops. We can't really [call] from our deathbed.

"I understand the limits of the law. It's horrible, and I would definitely advocate with them [SDPD] to get those laws changed. It's who we elect, and we got to watch who we elect."