HUNTINGTON BEACH : Men Injure Teen, Tie Up 83-Year-Old Woman in 2 Home Robberies

A teen-ager was injured and an 83-year-old woman was tied up in separate home robberies that occurred just hours apart on Friday, police said.

At 8 a.m., two young men wearing ski masks and another with a bandanna over part of his face entered an apartment in the 7800 block of Ellis Avenue, Police Lt. Luis Ochoa said. Wielding a hunting knife and a semiautomatic handgun, the men demanded money from a 43-year-old woman and her son, 17, Ochoa said.

A fight apparently erupted between the assailants and the teen-ager, and one of the men struck the teen-ager with a knife, Ochoa said. The young men then bound the teen-ager with duct tape and pushed him to the ground, where he and his mother remained while the men searched the apartment for cash. They fled with $70 from the woman’s purse.

The teen-ager was treated for a cut to the head. His mother was not injured, Ochoa said.

Police found a hunting knife in the apartment and a ski mask in a nearby alley.

In the second robbery, two young men entered a house in the 8100 block of Guilders Drive at 10 a.m. and confronted an 83-year-old woman sitting on the living-room couch, Ochoa said. They tied her hands behind her back and pushed her to the floor before ransacking the house, he said.

Police did not know what was taken from the house, and the woman was not injured. She was discovered by her daughter, who came by the house about an hour later, Ochoa said.

The suspects in both home invasions were at large Friday, according to police.