Fear and anger. Those were the dominant emotions of the 200 or so members of Live Oak’s Hispanic community attending a meeting with local police at John Hale Park Monday night. The meeting was held to address the string of home invasion robberies that have targeted the Hispanic community since December. The number of such crimes now stands at 24.

“I’m angry,” Debra Mya-Duran told the Democrat. “My children were sleeping in their own rooms, but now they’re sleeping with me.”

Mya-Duran has 10-year-old twin boys.

“I’m too scared to let them out, they see people coming down the road and they run into the house,” she added. “It’s not easy.”

One woman, a victim of a home invasion robbery herself, wished to remain anonymous.

“We got people with families and now those people are having to carry guns in their house. It’s not right and people are scared,” she said.

Lisa Duran said she fears the worst.

“The only thing that’s going to stop this is somebody’s going to die,” she said.

Brenda Rosado said she believes it’s time for police to adopt new tactics.

“I feel it needs to come to a stop,” said Rosado. “I think they (police) need to enforce a curfew, that way if they do see people out and about they can check them.”

LOPD Chief Buddy Williams told the crowd that the language barrier is a major hindrance in the investigation and asked for bilingual volunteers to stay in contact with the Hispanic community on behalf of police.

“Hopefully we can bring a resolution to the problems we got going on. The problem in the past with reporting is the communication barrier,” he said.

One person at the meeting volunteered her time and said she would do what she can to help.

“These people are taking advantage of citizens that are working hard,” Ana Martinez said after the meeting. “We need to stop that. I’m very happy with the police and sheriff because they’re taking initiative.”

Williams said it is common in the Hispanic community to let crimes go unreported for fear of immigration authorities. But Williams said the residents’ legal status is not LOPD’s focus.

“Being illegal or legal is not a concern of the LOPD,” said Williams. “We got to gain your trust and the only way to do that is through meetings like tonight.”

Suwannee County Sheriff Tony Cameron agreed.

“The victim of a crime is a victim, it doesn’t matter if they are legal or illegal,” Cameron told the crowd.

Williams said one reason Hispanics have been targeted is a tendency to keep large sums of cash in their homes.

Representatives from the local branch of Bank of America told those assembled they could open accounts there despite their immigration status. Another speaker mentioned a Visa debit card that can be purchased at local stores and loaded with cash for a nominal fee.

Local businessman Steve Mendez demonstrated a wooden device that can be placed between a door and a wall, making it harder for the door to be kicked in, as is the case with most of the reported home invasions.

Williams told the room that the investigation is ongoing and will follow up with information they may receive from two 16-year-old males arrested Saturday. Williams said the pair may have ties to the invasions. (See story, this page.)

Quarterly meetings will be held to update the Hispanic community on the status of the investigation, said Williams.

“This is the first step in us trying to work together,” he said.