RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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A Houston-area property owner says she was unfairly punished after taking matters into her own hands when repeated calls about trespassing went unheeded and she found herself temporarily detained by police .
Anastasia Malavanso, 74, told Chron she brought an unloaded gun to her property in the 1800 block of Montrose on Aug. 12 after receiving a call about three men sleeping outside the vacant building. Malavanso said she called 311 while driving there, but police still hadn't arrived when she decided to confront the men herself.
"I brought an unloaded gun. It did not have a magazine in it, but I needed something," Malavanso said. "I'm 74 years old. I can't fight these people."
When asked what she hoped to accomplish, Malavanso's answer was straightforward.
"Just to get them off my property," she said.
The property has been in Malavanso's family since the 1940s and was most recently home to a nail salon. For the last 18 months, the building has been vacant, and she says she's repeatedly called police over people trespassing, sleeping on the property or vandalizing it.
"They use my gas, they use my water, and they use my electricity. I've had to lock everything up. I've gone through this 10 times," Malavanso said.
She also described previous encounters that left her wary about confronting people around the property.
"In the past, I've been hit by a car that required me to have two surgeries. I've been spit on," she recalled. "I've been urinated on by the homeless."
On Aug. 12, Malavanso said she got out of her vehicle, pointed the unloaded gun at one of the men and told him he had two minutes to gather his belongings and leave. She said one man became "very belligerent" and began approaching her before seeing the gun, while the other two left.
Malavanso said officers ordered her to the ground, but she told them she couldn't comply because of a previous knee replacement. She said an officer instead pushed her against the building and handcuffed her.
"They picked me up, still handcuffed, and threw me in the back of their SUV," Malavanso said. "It was 90-plus degrees in there. They kept me in there for an hour—an hour and a half."
According to Malavanso, officers told her she was being detained for questioning rather than arrested. She said she was eventually released without being charged.
"Why are they treating me as the criminal? I'm not the criminal," Malavanso said. "I have a right to protect my property."
Texas law does allow people to defend themselves and, under certain circumstances, their property, but those protections aren't unlimited. According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun violence prevention advocacy and legal organization, Texas' Stand Your Ground law removes the duty to retreat before using deadly force if a person is in a place they have a right to be, isn't engaged in criminal activity and didn't provoke the person against whom the force is used. Texas law also separately addresses when deadly force may be used to protect property.
Whether those protections would apply to Malavanso's actions has not been determined. She was not arrested or charged in connection with the Aug. 12 encounter.
Chron obtained the incident report from the Aug. 12 encounter and asked HPD for additional information about Malavanso's detention and her allegations about officers' response. The department directed Chron to file an open records request for further details.
Across the street, an employee at Eagle Express Dry Cleaning shared video with Chron showing a man smashing the building's front-door glass four days after Malavanso's encounter with police.
The employee asked not to be identified by name but described the business's own problems with people vandalizing the property or making threats.
The employee said that in May, a man waved a knife outside the front door and police arrived hours after he had already left.
"What are we going to do?" the employee told Chron.
Malavanso said her biggest frustration now isn't even with the people she's repeatedly asked to leave her property.
"I'm very angry, and I'm more angry at the police than I am at those homeless people," she said.
She now hopes to bring her concerns before Houston City Council during public comment next week and said she wants more enforcement around the property.
"They do nothing," Malavanso said. "What am I supposed to do?"
For Malavanso, the experience has left her questioning why she feels responsible for handling the problem herself in the first place.
"I'm 74. I shouldn't be doing this," she said. "I pay my taxes. I'm a law-abiding citizen, and I should not be doing this."
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