The trio ambushed the teenager as he returned to his Memorial-area home, forced him inside and waited for the boy's father.
Neighbors are shaken after what police say happened inside the house -- about an hour of sheer terror as police say a father and son were robbed by gunmen, and one of them was left tied up.
"That's scary," said neighbor Garret Gordy. "They're really nice, I mean, super normal."
Gordy lives across the street and says he was asleep around 10pm Thursday, unaware of the terrifying ordeal going on inside his neighbor's house. Houston police said it began minutes after the 17-year-old who lives in the home walked through his front door.
"They forced their way in from one of the side doors," said HPD Officer Jeff Burke.
Police say it was three masked men in their mid-to-early 30s, all carrying semi-automatic weapons, who held up the teenager, forcing him through the house and then to a locked safe.
"That's horrible! I wish I would have known that was going on," Gordy said.
Alone with the armed robbers, police say the teen didn't know the combination to the locked safe, so the suspects waited in the house for more than half an hour until the teen's father, a wealthy business owner, arrived. They forced him to unlock the safe, and then, according to police, forced the son to tie his father up.
Gordy said, "That's really scary. I feel really bad about that."
"That's terrible," said neighbor Jim Lamb. "I don't know what to think."
Authorities say the three suspects stole more than $100,000 in jewelry, and then drove off in the teen's Mustang.
HPD was able to get a first-hand look at the hour-long ordeal, as surveillance cameras inside the home captured the whole thing.
No one was injured. The teen's stolen car is described as a white 2007 Mustang with a stripe across the hood, and Texas license plate BP1 Y113. If you see that car, you are asked to call police.
Authorities say that because the suspects had their faces covered, they have not been able to identify any of them yet. Neighbors reported other burglaries and break-ins in the area. When we asked police about those, they said that so far, they do not see a link to this incident.
