Now some residents fear a shakeup in the police department could make the crime problem even worse in Valley Stream and several other communities.
"My family is traumatized," the victim's sister said.
We're hiding the woman's identity because she fears for her family's safety.
She got a frantic call last week in the middle of the afternoon from her sister who was hiding in a closet in her house.
Three men, who police have now identified as Carl Brown, Johan Antney and Shakey Foster-Bey, had broken into her home in West Hempstead, and ransacked the place.
They made off with jewelry and cash.
"My sister, she can't sleep. She can't eat. It's a traumatizing situation. These guys basically stole our sense of security. We're not safe. You can't go to bed and feel you're at peace," the victim's sister said.
It's just one of many recent horrific stories of home invasion burglaries in Nassau County.
Police now confirm there's been a 69% increase in burglaries this year over last year.
A 111% increase in burglaries of homes.
It's become such a problem that you can just randomly run into people who have stories of being robbed.
Jay Alpert said his Manhasset home was burglarized recently.
"They used a bath-ram and batted down the door. Yeah. (You guys were home?) No we were not home," Alpert said.
"We know that this is not the time to be closing down precincts to be reducing police staffing," said James Carver, Nassau Police Union.
The numbers are renewing calls by local legislators and the Nassau Police Union to stop the closing of half of Nassau's Police precincts and turning them into community policing centers.
The union says already officers are being forced to cut corners and it's not going to help the burglary problem.
"Just a few weeks ago, what they did to try to curtail the burglary problem is they put a marked car in an area that they were burglaries and left it vacant. Just as a deterrent. That's not the way we do business out here," Carver said.
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