As general information, these “knock followed by home invasion or not” robberies are all the rage in southern California, first spread up the coast, and are now heading inland.
If someone answers, they use a b.s. question like asking for directions, then bug out. If no one is home, then typically some of them break in and the others act as lookouts unless there is something heavy and valuable to move.
So far, I suspect most of them are Californios. Arizona is going to be one hell of a buffer, however.
Very little data yet, locally. No comment as to whether she perforated any of them.
And kudos to the Tempe PD, as those guys do not dillydally.
just as a point of information, I think it's called burglary when the robbery happens when you're not at home.
I stayed in my sister's house in Phoenix a few years ago while she was out of town. In the course of a week I got 4 of those bizarre "stranger knocks, tries to get in your face, and asks weird question", all different edge-y characters (crack? Meth? both?). They didn't want to wait for an answer as soon as they saw my holstered pistol. I called the police on the last knocker - Phoenix PD found a bunch of seedy types living in a derelict car at the end of the block. That and some recently stolen property.
When my sister returned from her trip I told her all about it. She says something like "oh, right, I forgot to tell you about that. It's been happening a lot lately. But you're from the big city so you should know how to handle it..."