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Armed woman spooks would-be burglars

Adam Lawson
alawason@gastongazette.com
Sabrina Flowe holds her handgun that she showed to two men who broke into her home Tuesday morning, Sept. 26, 2017, on Rhyne Street in Stanley, North Carolina. After she showed the two men that she had a gun, they fled. [Mike Hensdill/The Gaston Gazette]

Two intruders who made their way into a Stanley house Tuesday were quickly spooked back outside by the barrel of a .40-caliber pistol.

Sabrina Flowe was by herself at her Rhyne Street home until the men entered through her patio and laundry room just after 10:30 a.m. They were trying to enter through a main door to get into a kitchen when, as Flowe says, she "stopped them."

"I showed it to them," Flowe said. "I didn't have to point it at them or anything. Just hold it up and let them see I had a gun and they were gone."

The lanky mother of two's children were at school and daycare at the time of the incident. But Flowe says she responded as if they were right there with her.

Fear wasn't on her mind, only preparation. And a lifetime around firearms readied her for the moment her gun was truly needed.

"You always prepare for it," she said. "You hope it won't ever happen. But you want to be prepared for it in case."

Even if she wasn't armed with a loaded weapon, Flowe says her motherly instincts would've made do in the circumstances.

"I would've found something," she said. "A kitchen knife or something. They're not going to come in my house."

The 27 year old described one of the suspects as a 6-foot-2 black man with a scar on the left side of his neck. She didn't get a good look at the second intruder.

Police arrived to the scene shortly afterward, but both men got away. Flowe doesn't know why they'd target her — she's only lived in the house around a year — but thinks they may have been looking for the previous tenant.

The incident didn't scare Flowe. Her gun and the police department's presence a mile up the road gives her comfort, she said.

And if the suspect returns, she says she'll be ready.

"If they do, I'll still be waiting with the same gun," she said.

You can reach Adam Lawson at 704-869-1842 or Twitter.com/GazetteLawson.