5 suspects allegedly follow woman to Bellevue home, rob her at gunpoint

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Bellevue police are investigating after a woman who works at a casino was followed home and robbed at gunpoint.

The brutal home invasion appears to have been a planned attack. The woman’s adult son was also asleep when the robbers stormed into the apartment in Bellevue’s Factoria section along Southeast 40th Place.

Jason Hoang was at home at the time of the robbery around 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday and says he was held at gunpoint along with his mother.

“I just woke up and they pointed a gun at my face,” he recalled.

Jason says he woke up to a nightmarish situation when armed men stormed his apartment after following his mother home from her job at a casino.

“She just got out of the car and then they just point guns at her and stuff,” he said.

Doorbell camera footage from a ground unit at the Sunset Village apartments video appears to show the men accosting Jason’s mother and then going up to their unit, where they took money and watches from the apartment.

Jason said they appeared to him to be heavily armed with what appeared to be AK-style rifles.

Video footage also appears to show the suspects running away after the crime, and Jason says he was so rattled that he couldn’t call even 911.

“My neighbor did because I was pretty shocked,” he said.

Ashely Salazar lives downstairs from Jason and heard what was happening.

“I got woken up from the commotion upstairs and I started texting and asking him, ‘Are you OK?’” she said. “What’s going on sounds crazy up there.”

Salazar shared the videos with KIRO 7 from her doorbell camera and consoled her neighbor this morning as he went to work.

“I saw all these guys running from the apartment and then he called me and said, ‘I just got robbed,’ so then I was like, ‘I’m calling the cops right now,’” she said.

When KIRO 7′s crew arrived, police were searching the area around the apartments as well as the apartment itself. Bellevue police said five men in two SUVs followed Jason’s mother home to rob her, and Jason’s mother told them another coworker of hers may have been targeted in a similar fashion.

Salazar says the crime is out of character for her area of Factoria.

“I’ve lived here 13 years and we’ve had car prowling, someone had their bike stolen a couple months ago, but that’s about it – nothing like this,” she said.

Neither Jason nor Bellevue police could offer descriptions of the vehicles or the suspects. Jason told us he was still too shocked to even think about what they were wearing, but said all of the suspects were masked.

He did say that police responded quickly.

Now, Bellevue police are hoping the public can help them catch the home invaders.

©2024 Cox Media Group