nice defensive use of gun today, will never make the media

man home with his kids is out in his front yard, when he sees a kid in his neighbor's house office window. the kid is "ransacking" the room, and the neighbor knows the occupants of the house, and this is not one of them.

he goes back inside his house, dials 911, tells his kids to wait inside , gets his shotgun and approaches the neighbors house as the kid was exiting.

he racks his shotgun,points it at the kid (16 yoa), the kid hits the deck and he holds the kid there until we got there. nice arrest, the kid had stuff from the house in his backpack, and he gave up his accomplice (who had run off prior to the guy going outside with his shotgun).

the kid was so freaked out, we had to call an aid car. his pulse rate was 170! medics said if it didn't go down, we'd have to take him to hospital, but 10 minutes later, it was near normal. apparently, doing a burglary, then getting held at gunpoint by a pissed off neighbor with his shotgun causes an elevated heart rate :)

this will NEVER make the news. just another common use of a firearm by a citizen to help protect his neighbor's property.

"Nice rack"

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i'm just saying this sort of call is not at all uncommon, and almost never makes the media.

defensive uses of guns almost never do, unless the gun is fired.

But I'll bet you fin it won't get to court...

Guilty or not.

post miranda, and long after the guy with the shotgun had left.

furthermore, as i said, when he left the house, he had items stolen from the house IN HIS BACKPACK.

that's about as open and shut a case as you can get (with or without a confession) in a burglary.

you have an eyewitness, you have a kid leaving the scene of a crime with stolen property in his possession, and likely we'll get his prints off the stolen property too.

Saw the bit about giving up his accomplice, though.

Out of curiosity, and not to be snarky, how do you confirm that the items were stolen from the house in a case like that? I mean, my house is chock full of stuff that I might not be able to prove is mine if it were stolen. :shrug:

arrived and went into his office. we ask him "what's missing?", without telling him what we found in the backpack. lo and behold, something he mentioned as missing was one of the items in the kid's backpack. one of the items stolen was a PDA with a lot of the homeowner's info and contacts, also, and that was in the backpack

this is WAY more than enough to convict. even if the kid had nothing in his backpack from the house, the fact that he was seen ransacking the office (and it was ransacked) would be more than enough to arrest for burglary, although it probably would be pled down to attempt burg or crim trespass I, although since the rear door was kicked in, maybe not

fwiw, the fact that the arrestee gave up his accomplice is not enough IN and OF itself to charge the other guy (once we found him). we would need some other corpus delicti, as accomplice testimony is not enough.

"What are you missing, sir?"

"I had an engraved, commemorative picture frame from Mt. Rushmore."

Removes it from the backpack. "Like this one?"

"Why yes!"


By the way--it's not central, but I'm curious: do I infer correctly that you're a police officer? Shouldn't you be violating everybody's rights or something? I'm sure I read something to that effect in GD...

medical leave for 4 + months, and just got back yesterday, so sadly i am a little out of practice for violating people's rights, harassing people, racially profiling, and planting evidence.

baby steps, my friend. baby steps.

:rofl: :toast:

Congrats on getting back to work! (What happened to you? I don't remember if you mentioned it or not...)

during a weightlifting competition

Something involving nine armed assailants and a crate full of smuggled parrots.

...as part of an escape attempt to fly away!! :D

They brought ex-parrots .

Now THAT's some funny stuff right there!

And I second the congrats on the return to work :)

The kid doesn't live there, and they found items from the home in his backpack. Unless the kid does live there, but has managed to remain hidden for all the time they've lived there, this seems like a pretty open and shut case to me. I only wish my neighbors were as watchful. I am glad the kid had the sense to not try anything stupid (well, more stupid than what he already did), so he can now have another chance to hopefully turn things around. Maybe this incident will scare him straight.

I was on the jury for an open-and-shut case, and by the end of it we had to acquit the defendant based on the evidence and testimony.

I agree with the earlier assessment that it likely won't go to court, though.

And immediately after the trial we were informed of inadmissible evidence that pretty much confirmed his guilt.

Still, I'm confident that we did the right thing, considering the evidence and testimony, and we were still able to convict on criminal conspiracy at least.

to paraphrase, you can sue a ham sandwich.

the issue isn't whether the kid is found not guilty.

the issue would be whether the neighbor had a reasonable belief (which is much lower than proof beyond a reasonable doubt) that the kid was committing a burglary.

remember, the burden is on the state to prove all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. a person using a firearm for defense (of his self or others) does not need to meet that burden to use a firearm.

as long as the jury found the guy credible that

1) he saw the kid ransacking the office
2) he had reason to believe the kid was not lawfully present in the house

he would be golden, imo

You hear all the time about cops being sued for excessive use of force. Pointing a shotgun at a kid because you saw him in somebody's house seems to me like an over the top way of protecting somebody else's property.

Protecting one's own property, perhaps. Protecting oneself or someone else from harm, sure. But in this case it seems like overkill.

If the kid is found not guilty, then it seems to me that he'd be able to mount a case claiming that the man is guilty of aggravated assault, on the grounds that the man had no basis to point the shotgun at him and force him to the ground.


Incidentally, I'm not professing any keen knowledge of precedent here, and I'm not conversant with all of the laws regarding citizen's arrest, etc., so if I'm wrong I won't be a jerk about admitting it! ;)

1) whether the man was justified in using the shotgun is based on the facts and circumstances perceived by HIM AT THE TIME, and based on the "reasonable man" standard. even if the kid is found not guilty, doesn't mean the guy wasn't justified. it just means that based on the admissible evidence, the case was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt. those are two entirely different things.

2) it is more than established (at least in WA state), that you can threaten deadly force to prevent the commission of a burglary, or flight therefrom. if the kid was running away, and he shot the kid, he would be hosed. but it's not even in question that the guy could use the shotgun to detain a burg suspect

Thanks!

I'd sue for a ham sandwich...

:rofl:

Sorry, been a long day and I'm freakin' starving.

Unlike the asswipe in Texas who was told by the police dispatcher to stay in his house, went outside anyway and blew the two scumbags who had burglarized his neighbors house away as they were fleeing.

A firearm can be a very effective tool in deterring crime, much more so if it is not fired. Once you have fired at a burglar or suspected burglar you have opened a can of worms that can't be easily contained. And that applies to air guns as well. I can attest to that from personal experience.

They were charging him when he shot. The one that was killed pretty much instantly had made it onto his property. The other who he had wounded was still able to run away, and later died, if memory serves.

Texas allows for the use of deadly force to protect private property. Meaning, if you're destroying my boat parked in my driveway, but clearly don't pose any threat to me (let's say you're on crutches), I can still shoot you dead in order to protect my property. Very reasonable law.

What would the neighbor have done with the shotgun if the kid had tried to make a run for it?

nobody (not even him) KNOWS what he would do in a hypothetical, but i don't think this guy would shoot some kid for fleeing from a burglary.

what is interesting is the psychology. if the kid KNOWs beyond any doubt, that the guy won't shoot him if he runs, then he might run. the fact that the kid can't be sure is what makes this kind of tactic effective.

No way to know without the scenario actually playing out.

In WA, you cannot shoot someone to protect private property, like you can in Texas. You can DRAW a firearm if you feel the need, in the presence of a felony in progress, but you can't shoot someone who's running away. The fellow that recently went to jail for shooting a guy in the back of the head with a mosin-nagant for breaking into his car, and then fleeing, is testimony to that.

Actually, I shouldn't be so flippant about Texas's shoot to protect property laws, as I don't fully understand it. I think it might have something to do with the day of the week, and after dark or something. It's not straightforward.

But when shooting along lines of longitude, you're only allowed to shoot to wound.


However, I guess my previous post should have been: "What did the neighbor plan to do with the shotgun if the kid had decided to make a run for it?"

I mean, if he had the level-headedness to assess the situation and to tell his kids to stay inside, he clearly had a plan when he stepped out the door.

I would certainly bring the firearm with, and order the person on the ground, but if the suspect began to flee, I would only gather the description for the police. Without the threat of physical harm, I have no justification to use the shotgun.

What HIS plan was, I cannot guess.

It was more of a "I wonder what he was thinking" kind of thing.



A few months ago I saw a teenager attempting to kick in the front door of a neighbor's house. This was in the middle of the afternoon in full daylight. I called the police, and four cars arrived on the scene within about three minutes.

So I'd have to say that I probably wouldn't have gone outside to detain the burglar. But if I had gone out, and if I'd had reason to suspect a violent response, I certainly wouldn't have gone out unarmed.

We're on the same page. I do care about my neighbors, and would probably respond in person to the sort of activity you reported to the police, but police response times here are NOTHING like what you experienced.

(I am not suggesting you don't care about your neighbors)

Pies stolen from windowsills and cats up trees. That sort of thing.


Well, maybe not that quiet...


But their response times are pretty good, so we're lucky in that regard.

If I'd gone over on that afternoon, I probably would have started with a line like "can I help you with something?" from a distance of 20 feet or so.

.. you can't shoot kids TP'ing your trees, when a waterhose would suffice. (the language is 'when no other means exists' to prevent an arson, robbery, burglary, 'theft during the night time', and 'criminal mischief during the night time')

Thanks for the clarification.