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

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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.

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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.

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