(NewsNation) — Anissa Tinnin, of New Mexico, was having a fun night with her four-year-old granddaughter, watching the “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” movie together at her house in Albuquerque.
But the two’s “lives were changed in an instant,” Tinnin said, when a man running from the police came into their home.
The door had been unlocked, but closed, Tinnin told “NewsNation Now.” She hadn’t even realized the man, who police identified as Joseph Rivera, 32, was in the house until he dropped something.
Rivera, according to NewsNation local affiliate KRQE, had been spotted in a stolen car around 9:30 p.m. that night. Spike strips caused him to crash, KQRE reported, but he took off on foot and hopped a fence into Tinnin’s yard. Footage from the family’s Ring camera shows him walking into the home.
He then grabbed Tinnin, and demanded she give him her keys. As Tinnin dialed 911, Rivera grabbed a key fob, and went to her car.
“My thought process was to get my granddaughter and my dog to a safe location, get my firearm and really try to direct the police where they could find him,” Tinnin said. “We live on four acres of property. We have a lot of places where he could hide.”
Grabbing her gun, Tinnin went to check if Rivera had left, and saw he hadn’t. Instead, he broke back into the house and came at Tinnin down a narrow hallway.
“The only thing standing between him and my granddaughter was me and a gun,” Tinnin said. “I shot him as he came towards me. I warned him to get back several times. I told him I had a gun. He didn’t listen.”
Megan Tinnin Austin, Anissa Tinnin’s daughter and the mother of the four-year-old, said she’s grateful everyone in her family remained physically unharmed.
“It’s something that you just never expect to happen to your family, and then it does,” she said. “I mean we’re still in a state of shock but thank the Lord that everyone’s okay.
KRQE wrote that Rivera was in court earlier this month, where a judge ordered him to remain behind bars.