Two Women Robbed at Gunpoint inside Hillcrest Homes

"I think we still would have been awake Saturday night," Jeff Berry said, sitting on his front porch.

Palm Street, nestled inside Little Rock's Hillcrest neighborhood, isn't an area where people expect to be held at gunpoint.

"You're at your own porch in a neighborhood you feel safe in," he said.

But less than a block down, beyond the sailing flags and flickering lights, Berry's neighbor was reading on her front porch was forced inside by a group of three robbers wielding a weapon Saturday night.

"I'd rather be home and just come back and see it than be held hostage. That seems a lot worse," Berry said.

Three days before, and less than five minutes, on Oakwood road, the scene was a ransacked home. Again, three young men coming into the woman's home, waking her in bed with a sawed off shotgun.

"You can replace some of your valuables -- you can't replace a life," said Sergeant Cassandra Davis with Little Rock Police Department.

According to police, the safest step is to cooperate with robbers while taking inventory of what you see.

"The suspects description and any names they use," Davis said. "Be able to give the officer any information that you can."

And whatever you do, be careful.

"Unfortunately you still have to be alert and cautious, even in the safety of what you think is the safety of your own home," Davis said.

"Leave the porch lights on, make sure all the doors are locked, lock all the cars at night," Berry said.

Now that the crime has hit close to home, Berry's determined to not become a victim.

"Just being a lot more conscious of doing all those things," he said. "That's what we're focusing on now."