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Shooting erupts during Port Richey home invasion robbery

 
Published June 12, 2014

PORT RICHEY — Authorities say four men broke into a Gawain Road home early Wednesday morning and told the homeowner they would kill his infant child if he didn't give up money and pills.

The child survived the ordeal which Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said was drug related and an ensuing gunfight.

Shooting erupted at about 4 a.m. in the home at 10917 Gawain Road when the homeowner and suspects exchanged fire. One of the suspects, Steven Reverdes, 33, was shot in the back, said Pasco County Sgt. James Sessa.

That's when the suspects fled.

Nocco said in a press conference Wednesday that Reverdes was bleeding and crawling away from the house when deputies arrived. He was taken to a hospital and arrested.

Dispatchers dropped an emergency call to the Sheriff's Office during the shooting, Pasco County spokesman Ed Caum said, but response time wasn't affected.

He said 911 dispatchers had already sent deputies to the house before the call was dropped.

While Reverdes was crawling away, the other suspects fled in a car. After a chase, they got away, Nocco said, but he added that around 9 a.m., two of the three men were arrested.

Michael Reverdes, 31, Joseph Rich, 23, and Steven Reverdes were all charged with armed home invasion. Nocco said they're still looking for the fourth suspect.

In all, the suspects took $1,600 in cash and an unknown amount of pills, for which the homeowner and a woman in the house had prescriptions, Sessa said.

Nocco stressed the suspects knew about the cash and pills before they broke in.

"This was a targeted house," he said. "This was not a random house."

Rich was waiting to go into Land O'Lakes jail Wednesday. Michael and Steven Reverdes would go, too, after they got out of the hospital, authorities said.

Michael Reverdes was taken to the hospital Wednesday after he tried swallowing the stolen pills. And Sessa said Steven Reverdes would survive his gunshot wound.

"I don't know how well," Sessa said. "But he'll live."