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Venice Woman Who Hid From Intruder On Her Roof Was Actress In 'Sparkle'
It turns out the woman who crawled sans pants onto her roof to escape an intruder is an actress who was in the 2012 Whitney Houston film, Sparkle.
Photos emerged yesterday morning of a woman hiding in terror on her Venice roof from a looming break-in suspect. That woman was Melora Rivera, an actress who also had a role in the TV show How to Get Swagger, L.A. Times reports.
Rivera said she heard someone break into the unit next to hers at around 8:50 a.m. yesterday and climbed onto the roof to escape him. She was clad in only a flannel shirt, as she was sleeping at the time of the break-in. She said, "Once I saw him in the house, I knew we both couldn't be there." She grabbed her phone and fled to the roof, where she called the police and hid.
The suspect can be seen in photos shared via Twitter, following her onto the roof and lurking behind her as she hides. LAPD and LAFD arrived shorty after she called for help, and assisted Rivera off the roof and got the man to surrender. He was later identified as 29-year-old Christian Hicks, a local transient.
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He's been arrested on suspicion of burglary. Rivera told KCAL 9 that she thinks more should be done for the homeless.
"To continue to let these people walk around without offering them assistance to protect them and us… that I think is the hardest problem," she said.
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