End of year feel good story
Amy J sends us a link to an article about a Houston home owner who heard someone stealing his truck, told his wife to call 911, armed himself and followed the auto thief. When the thief pulled out what the fed-up homeowner thought was a firearm, fired and killed the mutt, 19-year-old Damion Gibson.
Investigators say the suspect may not have picked the best target.
“Our homeowner, he is a Desert Storm veteran, he is ex-military, and from talking to the patrolmen up here, they have had a rash of auto thefts up here over the last couple of months and so the man was just protecting his property,” said Deputy Ben Bell.
The case will now go to a Harris County Grand Jury to decide if charges will be filed.
We don’t know the homeowner’s name, but he’ll probably need our well-wishes for him as he faces charges. Who knows how things will turn out in Houston.
Category: Guns
I have had anti-gun types ask me the question “is stealing your “blank” worth killing someone”? I always answer “is stealing my “blank” worth dying for”?
We had a case this past week where a homeless guy(I know, feel sorry for him) was camped out in a couple’s home that was for sale. They were informed by their real estate agent and they went to the house. When the husband opened the front door, with .45 in hand the squatter grabbed him and his wife grabbed her weapon and shot the sucker in the face. You gotta love those concealed carry laws!
Perp is still in the hospital and will be arrested when released.
If I recall correctly, ALL homicides, justified or not, have to go before a grand jury in Texas. It’s a requirement. The DA and the cops don’t get a choice.
If it’s a justified killing, the prosecutor and cops get up and tell the Grand Jury that’s what they think. Then the GJ declares no charges and you’re free to go. You can tell from the Deputy’s statement that’s what the cops think, and that’s what they’ll tell the Grand Jury.
In a way, it’s nicer than the DA just “declining to press charges” or whatever because you’ve got a nice legal declaration that what you did was good to go.
Killing this one fellow will probably put a huge dent in the “rash of auto thefts”. It can be surprising sometimes how many crimes one person can commit before they… “retire”, as it were.
Use to work at the Harris County Crime Lab. I know where the perp is headed and know the people that will work up the homeowners gun. Hope all goes well for the homeowner
Most of us wouldn’t shoot anyone who stole something from us and that’s not what the victim did here. He followed the thief and only drew and fired when he believed himself to be in mortal danger from the thief. At least that’s how I understand it. I wish him well.
@#6 2-17 AirCav:
“Most of us wouldn’t shoot anyone who stole something from us…”
I feel that everything I have is an essential or I wouldn’t have it. For anyone to risk his life to deprive me of my essentials, even if it is yesterday’s coffee grounds would be really stupid, even fatal. What’s mine is mine, why would someone want to risk death to take it?
I feel for the home owner, while the investigators appear to see this as the owner of the stolen truck attempting to protect his property (which btw – use of deadly force to protect property at night is legal in TX), his troubles are far from over. The Harris County DA’s office has a well earned reputation for their complete disregard for State Law when it comes to anything firearm related. For example in this link you can read how the DA decided that despite Tx Law clarifying the traveling exemption of handgun possession (which Harris County DAs office also Ignored – which in turn is in part responsible for the legislature clarifying the law), they have decided that it was still illegal for anyone without a CHL to have a handgun in their car… http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/DA-warns-handgun-law-won-t-relax-enforcement-1918787.php
I suspect the vehicle owner is going to be out thousands of dollars defending himself from the Harris County DA…..
Okay, so if and when I ditch NH to head for Texas, I’ll just make a mental note to avoid Austin AND Houston.