POMONA : Knife-Wielding Intruder Killed by Man, Police Say

A veteran U.S. Customs inspector shot and killed a knife-wielding neighbor who broke into his mobile home in Pomona early Tuesday morning, authorities said.

George Silva, a senior customs inspector at Terminal Island in Long Beach, fired one shot from his .38-caliber revolver at Alex W. Mastoras, 36, who had pried open a window in Silva’s mobile home and entered shortly after 1:30 a.m., authorities said.

The wounded man fled through the window, collapsed outside with a bullet wound to the upper torso and died at Pomona Valley Medical Center.

Residents of Big’s, the trailer park in the 1400 block of West Mission Boulevard where the shooting occurred, said they had been plagued recently by a rash of break-ins. The modest, 113-unit park is home to a number of elderly residents.

Mastoras had lived for the past nine years at the park with his 74-year-old mother and ill stepfather, said Shirley Quist, the park’s manager. She said Mastoras already had been warned to stop his door-to-door forays during which he would demand $5 loans from the elderly residents. Many residents thought Mastoras was burglarizing the park’s residents but none had caught him in the act, Quist said.