The road to incarceration is paved with good intentions.

A Pasadena homeowner this afternoon fatally shot two men he believed were burglarizing his neighbor's house, police said.

About 2 p.m., the homeowner in the Village Grove East subdivision heard noises he thought sounded like broken glass, said Capt. A.H. "Bud" Corbett, with the Pasadena Police Department. The man determined the noise was coming from next door.

The man, who police have not identified, knew the owner of the house in the 7400 block of Timberline Drive was not home, and that the noise could possibly be a burglary, Corbett said. The man then called police to inform them he thought his neighbor's house was being burglarized.

The man then saw two men coming through a gate in the backyard of the neighbor's house.

"He confronted them with a shotgun," Corbett said, and asked them to stop. They did not and he fired two shots, striking each man once, Corbett said.

One man was found dead about two houses from where the reported burglary occurred. The other was found dead across the street, Corbett said.

Police are interviewing the homeowner.

A window in the back of the neighbor's house was broken

911 dispatch call

He's as good as westinghoused.

He was legal even up to trying to detain by threat of force. But if they didnt threaten him, and he knew his neighbor wasn't home, no ones safety was at stake. Legally, he had to let them walk.

Depending on his background, Manslaughter in the first, 2 counts. A sympathetic judge might give him reduced sentence, or deffer part of the time. But I bet he'll still turn a nickel.

Right now, undoubtedly, an investigator for his lawyers office, if such people are in his employ, is scrambling to find a weapon, something shiny, or anything that could even be construed as threat of force from the victims, to try and justify his actions. If such people are not in his employ, his ass just became a tunnel, and there is a series of trains waiting to go blazing up it.

Worst case scenerio for gun owners, is that he has incompetent defense, and the burgalers were just neighborhood misfits. In which case, it hits the headlines as some cowboy gunning down to kids for what amounts to property damage, and criminal mischief.

Best hope, is we find out they were two hard hoods with sheets that read like demons resumes, including a history of B&E, and assault on victims, to make his actions seem rightous, if pre-mature.

Either way, bad day for gun owners.

Wow, that was an amazing 911 call!  Top to bottom bad news for the shooter, huh?  The caller's demeanor shifts ever so slightly after the shooting though.  You can hear the "OH shit what have I gotten myself into" tone with the hyperventilating.  Phew. 

When I saw Pasadena, I immediately thought California and was surprised I hadn't heard about it.  Texas.  Well, you're right it will be interesting to see how this plays out.  More than the gun angle, is the racial aspect that worries me.  Crazy white Texan murders two black youths in cold blood.  Unarmed.  

The dance begins once more.  I'll be watching.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I think his goose is cooked even though this is a Houston, TEXAS suburb. Turns out the perps were minor criminals in their 30s. Ortiz and DeJesus. Here's the updated article with the headline "I Didn't Mean To Kill Them..."

It could be he wanted to do like OJ -- just show his weapon hoping he scare them into dropping their loot, but then things went awry.  And of course, he pretty much made his intentions clear to the 911 dispatcher.  Too bad he was not able to delay their escape because the cops were on the scene almost instantaneously. Within 5 minutes of the initiation of the call.

Too bad. Some impetuous decisions have little consequence. Some have great biggies. Wonder if the cops had arrived seconds earlier and with guns drawn. Would they have shot Mr. Horn to prevent him from shooting the burglars? If they arrived in between the first and the second shooting, would they have shot him to prevent the second? Wonder what the police protocol is for such encounters. 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Argh.  I saw on the news this morning that the "New Black Panthers" (just what the world needs...) are protesting in Texas and DEMANDING Mr. Horn be charged with 1st degree murder for his "racist" crime.

Why does this not surprise me?

Once Jesse and Al go to Pasadena, the circus will be in town for the foreseeable future.  I'm holding my breath counting down...

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

according to one article, the men were on his property too at some point: "While is sounds like Horn went outside to see the two men, his attorney insists he just wanted to see where they were. Horn, he says, opened his front door and saw them on his property just 15 feet away, got scared and fired in self defense."

I'm having to reach really far back on this one, but TX has (or had) a law that allowed homeowners to shoot anyone on their property as long as they were warned once, I believe (don't remember the details). The difference here might be that it wasn't this guy's home....but if that law is still on the books, a good lawyer might be able to use it for the man's defense.

ah, found this on this site:

Now for the applicable law: The use of deadly force in Texas is governed by Chapter 2, Section 9 of the Texas Penal Code.

In 1973, the Penal Code was modified to impose a duty to retreat in the face of a criminal attack, “permitting the use of deadly force only if a reasonable person in the situation would not have retreated.” Then, in 1995, the Texas legislature created “an exception to the duty to retreat before using deadly force in response to an unlawful entry into the habitation of the actor, but the duty still applied in any other location where a lethal attack might occur.”

In a continuation of this trend, on September 1, a new Texas law took effect that provides “a person has no duty to retreat if the person is attacked in a place where he or she has a right to be present [including one’s home, vehicle, business, and place of employment], if he or she has not provoked the attacker, and if the person using force is not engaged in criminal activity at the time the force is used.”

This new law was hailed as an expansion of the right to protect one’s property outside the home and, to a degree, it does that. Specifically, the law expands the castle doctrine by extending the presumption of reasonableness (and no duty to retreat) to one’s own vehicles, businesses, and place of employment. However, as far as I can tell, the new statute does not change the law regarding the use of deadly force in defense of property of a third person, i.e., Section 9.43 of the Texas Penal Code.

Texas law governing self-defense and defense of one’s own property is in Texas Penal Code Sections 9.31, 9.41, and 9.42.

This post is already too long and I’m not a criminal law attorney. So, having pointed out the basic law, I will leave it to others to unravel the legalities of this subject.

Jordan .