Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

PROVIDENCE -- The peace of a generally safe middle- and upper-class section of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood was disrupted this morning when a home invasion occurred at 16 Cathedral Ave., the police said.

Two men armed with handguns and with their faces covered by ski or cloth masks forced their way into the house at about 9 a.m. when a woman answered their knock at the door or their ringing of the doorbell, according to Maj. Thomas F. Oates III, commander of the police Investigative Division.

"We believe that this house was definitely targeted," Oates said. "We're not in a position to say what we base that on. This was not a random attack."

Crime in that area occurs "not very often and certainly not of this severity," Oates said.

The owner of the house, David Dimig, 28, heard the woman scream and came running down a hallway, at which time he was punched, knocked to the floor and kicked by one of the intruders, according to Oates.

The robbers demanded money and made other demands that Oates would not disclose. They took Dimig and the woman, whom Oates would not identify except to call her an acquaintance of Dimig's, downstairs to a basement apartment occupied by Nicholas Corradino, 25, who had been sleeping.

One robber held them at bay while the other ransacked the house and stole an undisclosed sum of cash and other items that Oates refused to describe.

The victims said they finally were herded into a closet and told to stay inside or they would be shot.

The suspects fled in a van, which had been parked outside the house, and which the police found with its motor running one street over, on Brentwood Avenue. The van, which had been reported stolen in Providence Thursday, was towed to the police station as evidence.

Rescue workers treated Dimig for scrapes at the scene.

-- Journal Staff Writer Gregory Smith

 Tags  Mount Pleasant Providence RI

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