A drunk young man thought that an elderly neighbor had previously called the police on him. It hadn’t happened, but that didn’t change the young man’s course of action.

He knocked on the neighbor’s door a little after midnight that Tuesday. (If you’re playing the home game, that means he was stupid-drunk on a Monday night.) The neighbor, recognizing him, opened the door for him — only to have the man force his way inside and threaten to kill him.

The elderly neighbor was not stupid: He grabbed a gun and fired at him, striking the intruder twice.

And this time, someone really did call the cops on the young man. He was rushed to a hospital. A police spokesman said:

The DA’s office and HPD’s Major Assaults Division are currently investigating this, and it’s likely the person who was shot will be charged later on today and the rest of it will be referred to a grand jury in the future.

“The rest of it” means the old man’s actions — his shooting of the stupid neighbor. It’s pretty typical in cases like this for the evidence to be put to a grand jury to decide whether charges are warranted. As I’d expect, though, I don’t see any evidence that the old man was ever charged.

Sources

News

Man shoots neighbor who allegedly forced his way inside and threatened to kill him (ABC13)

HPD: Man shoots neighbor who pushed his way into home, threatened to kill him (KHOU)

Houston shooting: Elderly man shoots neighbor who forced self into apartment (FOX 26)

Man shoots neighbor who forced way inside, accused him of calling police (KPRC 2)

Neighbor gets shot forcing himself into man’s home to threaten him, Texas cops say (Fort Worth Star-Telegram; also syndicated by Mahoning Matters)

Houston police briefing at the scene (YouTube; about a minute and a half of airtime)

In 2015, a 27-year-old named Brian Semil walked up to a woman in Fort Lauderdale and demanded her keys. She handed them over. He drove off in her gray Toyota, and when officers tried to stop him, he ran, ramming one of their cars along the way.

He was charged with robbery, auto theft, and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Nine years later, just before 5 on a Sunday afternoon, a woman was pumping gas at a RaceTrac in Pompano Beach, with her mother and her children in the car. She told the story to a 911 dispatcher in Spanish. The translation is the Sun-Sentinel’s:

I was pumping gas, and I was here with my mom and kids, and there was a person — I don’t know if he was on drugs or not — who tried to get into the car and he wouldn’t let me go.

The person was Semil, 37 now. He had come at her, she said, and “he wouldn’t even let me close the door.”

Three men stepped in and kept him out of the car. One of them, as she put it, “saved me.” She got her family away, but the man who’d helped her was still back at the station, and she was worried about him. She told the dispatcher that the last thing she was was, “I saw him on the ground. I heard a gunshot, and I left from there.”

Other customers were calling, too.

One man yelled for an ambulance and told the dispatcher to “get the cops over here now, God damn it.”

A woman whose partner had drawn on Semil said, “He has his firearm pointed at him. I need someone here right now. There’s another man here too with a firearm pointed at him as well.”

“My man’s gonna shoot him!” she said.

One of the three men fired, hitting Semil. A woman started CPR, but he died at the hospital. All three men stayed and cooperated with deputies, and the case was headed to the State Attorney’s Office for review.

Deputies didn’t say whether Semil had a gun. One caller said she’d seen “a man with a gun trying to rob a lady”; his mother said he was unarmed.

His mother, Selinda Crawley, rejected the deputies’ account outright:

That is not true. That’s something y’all made up to cover the act of this guy murdering my son.

She said he had schizophrenia, that he’d gotten clean, and that he might have just been trying to talk to the woman. “He told me he was looking for a nice lady that he can make a family with and start off new,” she said.

I’m sure she believes that. But no.

Sources

News

Local 10 ran two articles, first the mother’s account, then the 911 calls, plus a Spanish version of the second.

• 911 calls released following deadly shooting at Pompano Beach gas station (The 911 calls)

• Llamadas al 911 fueron publicadas tras un tiroteo mortal en una gasolinera de Pompano Beach (En español)

• Carjacker shot dead in Pompano Beach, deputies say, but his mother disputes their account (The mother’s account)

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel ran two articles, read as syndicated on Yahoo!.

• Man who tried to force way into woman’s car shot and killed by witness, deputies say (Day after)

• ‘Guy with a gun at the gas station’: 911 calls depict woman’s rescue, suspect’s death in Pompano Beach (The 911 calls)

BSO: Man fatally shot at gas station in Pompano Beach; 1 taken into custody (WSVN)

Arrestan a sospechoso de tiroteo mortal en gasolinera de Broward (Telemundo 51)

Alleged Carjacker Shot And Killed At Gas Station South Of Boca Raton (BocaNewsNow; includes the sheriff’s office statement)

BSO Investigates Fatal Shooting in Pompano Beach Parking Lot (The Boca Raton Tribune)

The 2015 carjacking:

• Carjacking Suspect Caught After Chase: Fort Lauderdale Police (NBC 6)

• Police Release Identity Of Suspected Carjacker That Sparked Chase (CBS Miami)

From the family:

• Help Us Honor Brian Semil’s Memory (GoFundMe, organized by his sister)

• Brian Semil Obituary (Bell’s Funeral Home)

In 2024, 24-year-old Rondriguez (not a typo) Hopkins was on familiar terrain: Two years previously, he had been caught on video attempting to enter some homes. On this early morning, just before 6 AM, he was slipping through a bedroom window in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, intentions unknown.

A woman inside was startled by the intrusion. She grabbed a firearm and shot him, hitting Hopkins in the shoulder and hand. He fled, leaving a trail of evidence. The police captured him, ensured that he got treatment, and then charged him.

The woman, fortunately, faced no charges. Her quick response stopped a repeat intruder in his tracks.

I’m all for security cameras. They just don't do anything until it's over.

Sources

News

Poplar Bluff man shot while entering woman’s bedroom window, police say (Heartland News: KFVS 12, WSIL 3)

A Poplar Bluff man was shot after climbing through a women’s window (KBSI FOX23)

2A / specialist media

Missouri Woman Shoots Man Climbing Through Her Bedroom Window (Bearing Arms; Cam Edwards)

Missouri, Poplar Bluff Woman Defends Herself by Shooting Late Night Intruder (AmmoLand)

Woman Defends Home, Shoots Intruder As He Entered Her Bedroom Window (Concealed Nation)

The Armed Citizen® Nov. 25, 2024 (American Rifleman)

The building had been a T.J. Maxx. It had closed, and on a Sunday afternoon it was a construction site on its way to becoming a Sprouts Market. And there had been multiple recent burglaries, which is why the site superintendent was there checking on it.

Around 1:30 PM, he found a man and a woman inside who had no business being there. There was a confrontation, and he got bear-sprayed in the face.

He drew a gun and shot them both.

The man died at the scene. The woman was taken to a hospital, and she died there. They were 40-year-old Timothy Walker Jr., who was shot multiple times, and 37-year-old Patience McFall, who was shot once.

The superintendent stayed, waited for police, and cooperated with them.

Break-ins weren’t news to the neighbors. David William, who works at Mr. K’s Flowers nearby, told Fox 31, “At first it was shocking. But it’s been kind of going down that road the last couple of little bits, so it’s not super surprising.”

About a week and a half later, the Denver DA’s office said it wouldn’t file charges:

After considering all the evidence in the case, including a 911 call, a statement from the shooter and various pieces of physical evidence that corroborated the shooter’s statement, we do not believe that we can prove any criminal charges to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. A major factor in that decision — which was supported by the Denver Police Department detective who investigated the case — was our belief that there is a significant claim of self-defense on the part of the shooter, who was approached by the alleged burglars and then sprayed in the face with bear spray. We also considered the fact that the shooter, a superintendent of the location where the shooting happened, was checking the building at the time of the shooting due to multiple recent burglaries.

A Fox 31 legal analyst said this about the bear spray: “That is significant, that’s a weapon. It is a deadly weapon if used in close proximity.”

Patience McFall’s father, Robert, wanted the site manager to face charges.

He didn’t argue that his daughter and Walker were in the building legally. “They might have been there trespassing or whatever they were doing.”

He didn’t dispute the fact that they used bear spray. “He [the site manager] got shot with a deterrent spray, mace, bear spray or something like that.”

He second-guessed the site manager’s actions. “He fired seven rounds, which is very excessive. He could have backed out the door and let the police do their job, and they’ll both be alive today.” (We don’t know from news reports how many rounds he fired.)

Rather, he argues about what the punishment should have been for burgling.

“They should never have expectations of being shot and killed in that type of situation. That’s a situation where the police would arrest them and charge them for doing something wrong. You don’t get murdered for being in a construction site. It’s just wrong.

The problem, of course, is that “that type of situation” included assault with a chemical weapon, and yes, anyone who engages in that kind of behavior should have expectations of being shot and potentially killed.

In fact, as a 9News legal analyst pointed out, Colorado doesn’t allow deadly force to protect property. If they had only burgled, and not deployed bear spray, yes, they might still be alive today.

So it wasn’t murder. It was a justifiable homicide. And one of the reasons it happened is that the criminals involved apparently didn’t understand the logical consequences of their actions.

[T]hey didn’t deserve to die, that’s for sure.

I won’t claim they “deserved” to die, per se. But they set themselves up to do so.

Sources

Local News

FOX31 Denver ran three articles: two on the day of and the day after, then the DA’s decision. That last one is the only place I found the DA’s full statement and an interview with McFall’s father.

• 2 shot, killed at construction site in Denver (Day of)

• No arrests so far in double homicide at Denver construction site (Neighbors)

• No charges in Denver shooting, but victim’s father disagrees (No charges; the father)

9News ran two articles, first noting the shooting, then the DA’s decision.

• 2 killed in confrontation at Denver construction site, police say (Original incident)

• No charges expected after 2 fatally shot at southwest Denver construction site (No charges)

No charges expected after 2 fatally shot at southwest Denver construction site (Denver Gazette; reprint of 9News)

Denver7 ran three articles: the shooting, the coroner’s identifications, and the DA’s decision.

• 2 dead in Denver construction site shooting: Police (Original incident)

• Coroner IDs 2 people shot, killed during alleged construction site burglary in Denver (Identifications; also syndicated on KOAA)

• No charges expected in Denver construction site shooting that killed 2, district attorney’s office says (No charges)

CBS Colorado ran two articles on the day of and the day after.

• 2 dead after shooting reported at construction site near West Belleview Avenue (First report)

• Denver construction site manager shoots, kills 2 people who he says attacked him (Day after)

This isn’t a fun read: It was all so unnecessary.

A group of motorcyclists was sitting outside the Kum & Go on the west side of Sioux Falls, a little before ten on a Thursday night, when a black Escalade pulled in and three people got out carrying baseball bats: a young man, an older man, and a boy. A car also pulled in and a woman got out; she told the boy to get back in the SUV. The other two men approached the motorcyclists and immediately started hitting the parked motorcycles.

Somehow, for a moment, things went from violent to verbal, and it seemed like things might be settling down.

A 26-year-old motorcyclist was talking with the older man when the young man came at him from behind and swung the bat at his head. The motorcyclist ducked the bat, drew a concealed handgun, and fired, hitting the young man in the chest.

Then he saw a woman pointing a gun at him. He fired at her, too, and hit her in the arm.1

Almost immediately, the older man swung his bat at the motorcyclist’s head. The motorcyclist fired again and hit him four times.2

The motorcyclist wasn’t hurt. He walked to the north side of the store, put his gun down on the sidewalk, put his hands on his head, and waited for the police.

The young man died there in the parking lot; the older man died at the hospital; the woman had a non-life-threatening injury.

You’re probably asking yourself the question that, I have to believe, the motorcyclist was asking himself while waiting for police: What the hell just happened? So now that we have the motorcyclist’s perspective, let’s back up.

The young man was 23-year-old Francisco Alvarez III. The older man was his father, 44-year-old Francisco Alvarez Jr., and the woman was his mother, 42-year-old Darinda Martinez. The boy was his 14-year-old brother.

Earlier that night, Alvarez III had come home limping and told his mother he’d been jumped near the house. Someone told the family that the people who did it were at the Kum & Go, about four miles away, so he, his father, and his brother got in the SUV with the bats. Nobody called the police.

Upon realizing the 14-year-old had gone with them, Martinez got in her car and followed them. When she got there, she grabbed a gun she happened to have in the car and told the boy to get back in the SUV. He apparently didn’t take part in the fight.

Then Alvarezes Junior and III started swinging — at the wrong people.

That group of motorcyclists was not responsible for that assault. They were actually in a different part of Sioux Falls when that took place, and we have that confirmed. It was basically a case of mistaken identity.

That’s police spokesman Sam Clemens.3 Traffic cameras put the motorcyclists across town when the assault happened.

The motorcyclist cooperated and wasn’t arrested. Clemens was careful the next day not to get ahead of the prosecutor, but he told Dakota News Now where it looked to him like the case was headed:

Certainly, this seems to be a case on the surface of self-defense where somebody’s swinging a baseball bat, which could be considered a dangerous weapon or deadly weapon, but that’ll be a determination that’s made by the state’s attorney’s office.

Less than three weeks later, police confirmed that the county’s top prosecutor had declined to file charges.

Martinez was arrested the morning after the shooting on three counts of aggravated assault. She was in court that afternoon, hours after her husband and son died, and her lawyer told the judge that she, too, had been acting in self-defense. The prosecutor asked for a $750,000 cash bond. The judge set it at $50,000, and she was released. She faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted on all three counts.

I don’t see news coverage of how her case turned out. There’s even a KELO article called “What is the status of 2024 homicide cases?” that mentions this incident, but it doesn’t mention Martinez.

What a waste of lives.

Sources

News

KELO ran the day-after story and two later homicide trackers. Its web story also ran on KCAU 9, and KELO radio also covered the story.

• Thursday shooting: 2 dead, 1 charged (Day after)

• SFPD: 2 people dead in Thursday shooting (Web story, via KCAU 9)

• Sioux Falls 2024 homicide tracker: 16 homicides mapped (Year-end tracker)

• What is the status of 2024 homicide cases? (Two years on)

• Mistaken identity leaves two dead in Sioux Falls shooting (KELO radio)

Sioux Falls Live covered the shooting, the decision not to charge, and the year’s record homicide count. The first two also ran in the Mitchell Republic. Unfortunately, these are paywalled.

• ‘Mistaken identity’ leads to two shot dead at Sioux Falls gas station (Original incident)

• No charges for Sioux Falls man who fatally shot father, son at gas station (No charges)

• Sioux Falls police investigating 16th homicide of 2024: Where the cases stand (Year-end roundup)

Court documents identify 2 people killed in shooting at Kum-N-Go in west Sioux Falls (Sioux Falls Argus Leader, via AOL)

UPDATE: Two dead in Sioux Falls shooting (Dakota News Now)

Two dead in Sioux Falls shooting near Roosevelt High School (SDPB)

Update: Two Dead in Westside Sioux Falls Gas Station Shooting (97.3 KKRC)

Two people dead following a shooting in Sioux Falls (Hub City Radio)

2A / specialist media

Mistaken Vigilante Attack Leads to Self-Defense Shooting in South Dakota (Colion Noir)

Why You Should Call the Police: SD Family’s Vengeance Fail Ends in Their Own Demise (Doug Howlett, The Truth About Guns)

William Nidever was arrested1 12 times in 2022, 11 times in 2023, and seven times in 2024: arson, robbery, burglary, tampering with a vehicle, drug possession, and false imprisonment by violence. Four of the 2024 incidents came in the month before the incident I describe below. He was 56, and a transient.

At about 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, a man in El Cerrito realized that there was a stranger in his home, and thought the stranger had a weapon.

The man shot at the stranger twice with a shotgun, hitting him in the leg and the abdomen. The injuries were life-threatening, so the stranger — Nidever — was airlifted to a trauma center.

Officers from two neighboring departments helped secure the scene. A school on the same block locked down until they’d finished. By that afternoon, the department had concluded that Nidever had entered the home unlawfully. As it turns out, he hadn’t been armed: He’d been carrying a flashlight.

Of course, the resident didn’t know that. A stranger who turns up inside your house at mid-morning doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt.

“This never happened in my neighborhood,” a neighbor, Nikkio Hunt, told KTVU. “The quietest neighborhood I’ve ever lived in.”

Living in a quiet neighborhood doesn’t make you immune from crime, but being armed can help you deal with it.

Sources

News

William Nidever Arrest Record Details (Local Crime News)

KTVU added a neighbor’s reaction and detail on the wounds. El Cerrito resident shoots alleged home intruder (KTVU)

El Cerrito: Homeowner Shoots Suspected Intruder (Contra Costa News)

El Cerrito resident fires shotgun at unhoused man who entered home: police (KRON4)

El Cerrito resident shoots apparent home intruder (NBC Bay Area)

Suspected home intruder shot in El Cerrito, police say (ABC7)

Wednesday Morning News Roundup (SFGATE)

El Cerrito shooting injures 1, prompts lockdown at nearby school (CBS San Francisco; day-of)

El Cerrito Shooting Injures 1, Prompts Lockdown At Nearby School (Patch; excerpt of the CBS item)

Burglary Suspect Recovering from Gunshot Wounds (Crime Voice)

Hoodline ran two articles, before and after the police update.

• El Cerrito Disturbed by Morning Shooting, One Wounded, Suspect Detained (Day-of)

• UPDATE: El Cerrito Morning Shooting Leads to One Injury and Suspect Detainment, Burglary Investigation Underway (The update)

A 17-year-old male, gun in hand, tried to carjack a 31-year-old driver in southeast Baltimore’s Brewers Hill at about 2 AM.

The driver was armed with a licensed handgun. The two exchanged gunfire, and both were wounded. The teen became unresponsive, and the driver sped off to find a police officer.

He found one about a half-mile away, near Canton Waterfront Park. He flagged down a patrol officer and said he’d been shot. Medics took him to a hospital with what the Baltimore police called “non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.”

About seven minutes later, officers were sent to the block where it had happened. “Once there,” the department’s media advisory said, “officers located an unidentified male suffering from apparent life-threatening gunshot wounds.”

The driver was treated for his wounds and released; the teen died several days later. His name was Elias Palmer.

What Palmer wanted that night depends on whom you ask. WMAR had the police saying he’d tried to rob the man. WBFF had it as an attempted carjacking, on the word of a police community relations council, and reported that the department wouldn’t confirm it.

It really doesn’t matter, though. He approached a man sitting in a vehicle, armed with a gun, and got himself shot. Two months later, Baltimore Police declared the shooting justified.

It’s tragic: A young life cut short because of his own actions. Repentance and redemption would have been better.

Sources

Primary

Media Advisory Update: Southeast District Homicide Investigation (Baltimore Police Department)

Local News

WBFF ran four items, from the morning of the shooting through the ruling.

• Teen pulls gun on driver, both shot in gunfire exchange, police say (Day-of)

• Baltimore police identify three recent homicide victims (Identification)

• Baltimore teen dies days after gunfire exchange with driver in Brewers Hill (The death)

• 31-year-old man justified in fatal shooting of 17-year-old in self-defense incident (The ruling)

WMAR kept one story updated and carried the shooting in its monthly tracker.

• Deadly shootout in Canton after teen allegedly tried robbing licensed gun carrier (Day-of, updated with the death and the ruling)

• October 2024 Tracker: Baltimore murders and shootings (Tracker)

Teen dead after being shot by man in self-defense, Baltimore Police say (CBS Baltimore)

Man fatally shot in East Baltimore on Monday night; 2 injured after Tuesday morning shooting (Baltimore Sun)

Two Men Shot in Canton; One in Severe Condition (Baltimore Witness)

National News

Armed teen in critical condition after shootout with legal gun owner in Baltimore (The Washington Times)

A little after two on a Sunday morning, employees at a Walgreens in Calumet City, south of Chicago, followed two shoplifters, a man and a woman, out the door.

The woman was the easy one. The employees got the merchandise back from her, and she ran.

When they approached the man, he pulled a handgun.

One of the employees had a concealed carry license, and he had his own gun on him. He fired, hitting the man in the chest.

The man still managed to get into a car and drive off. Police were already on their way about the theft when word came in that shots had been fired, and that he’d left heading west. They found 42-year-old Mario Almendarez in his car. He was taken to a trauma center, and he died there.

In reading these stories, I hear people say, “Theft shouldn’t carry the death penalty.” That’s true, but we should be clear: It wasn’t Almendarez’s theft that got him killed here. It was his escalation, with a threat of deadly force by showing a handgun, that caused him to die.

He shouldn’t have taken the goods; once caught, he should have taken the ‘L’. Barring that, he’d be alive today.

Sources

News

Walgreens employee with concealed carry license fatally shoots theft suspect (NBC Chicago)

Suspected thief shot, killed by Calumet City Walgreens employee (Chicago Tribune)

CBS Chicago described the employee as store security: “security guard” in its broadcast segment, “security officer” in the first line of its web story. The other news outlets just say “employee.”

• Suspected thief dies after being shot by store employee at Walgreens in south suburban Chicago (Web story)

• Walgreens security guard shoots shoplifter in Calumet City, Illinois (Broadcast segment)

2A / specialist media

Armed Walgreens Employee Shoots, Kills Gun-Wielding Shoplifter in Calumet City, IL (Luke McCoy, USA Carry)

Concealed-carrying Walgreens worker blows away alleged shoplifter who pulled gun when confronted (Dave Urbanski, The Blaze)

Concealed Carrier Kills Alleged Robber in Chicago-Area Walgreens (AWR Hawkins, Breitbart)

Armed Walgreens Employee Defends Himself Against Alleged Shoplifter Brandishing Weapon (Colion Noir)

Walgreens Employee With Concealed Carry License Fatally Shoots Suspected Thief (Darwin Nercesian, The Truth About Guns)

Concealed-Carry Hero Stops Armed Shoplifter Outside Illinois Walgreens (Grits and Gear)

Whatever had gone on out on the road, the woman in the white Dodge Durango had left it. Around 5 PM on a Tuesday, she turned into a Sterling Heights shopping plaza and stopped at a stop sign near Carrabba’s Italian Grill.

The red Jeep Compass she’d been going back and forth with followed her in and stopped directly behind her.

Two women got out of the Jeep, went to her driver’s side, where she was still sitting, and started beating her up. A shoe was thrown. Another woman, a bystander, started toward the Durango to help.

The driver has a concealed pistol license and had a Smith & Wesson revolver. She was, as the prosecutor’s office put it, “in fear for her life,” and she pulled it and fired once.

One bullet hit both of her attackers. The bystander, sensibly enough, left.

The two women turned out to be a mother and her adult daughter. The daughter was hit in the neck and the mother in the arm, and the daughter was in critical condition at first. Both were recovering two weeks later.

The driver stayed where she was and cooperated. Police arrested her anyway, interviewed her, and let her go. The daughter had told an officer that she and her mother were “in a road rage with a lady and the lady shot them both,” which is true as far as it goes, and at first the woman with the revolver was “the suspect.”

A police lieutenant used the occasion to give the driving public some advice.

“Let the person go,” he said. “Either change lanes, pull off, get away – if they’re following you, call 911.”

Of course, she’d pulled off. The other two followed her.

It took two weeks to straighten out. Police asked for a warrant, and the prosecutor’s office turned them down, telling them that the two women “listed (as) victims in the initial police report were actually the aggressors and assaulted the Defendant inside of her vehicle.” It helped that this wasn’t her word against theirs. Somebody had called 911 while it was happening:

those two girls tried to attack the shooter…those two girls were beating up on her.

“There were also cameras that picked this up,” said Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido. He added that the driver had abrasions, and that the shoe she said she’d been attacked with was found on the passenger side of her car.

“It’s absolutely clear the shooter was not the aggressor,” Lucido said. He had more to say about the other two.

This is an unfortunate situation. The parties should have never allowed it to escalate to this, but it is going to happen. When it does, somebody who is going to be the aggressor is always going to be at fault. Because they didn’t have to get out of the car, they didn’t have to rush the doors to get them open, and drag her out of the car.

So the driver wasn’t charged, on grounds of self-defense. But neither were the mother and daughter, which surprised me. The prosecutor’s office asked for an investigation into charging them, and “following further investigation, witness interviews, and discussion with the shooter, it was determined no charges would be filed against the two women.”

“The aggressor is always going to be at fault” and “no charges” don’t quite mesh for me, but the victim chose not to press it.

Sources

News

Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office Denies Charges in Sterling Heights Self Defense Shooting (Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office; the press release)

Eric Czarnik of C & G Newspapers did a great job, giving a lot of detail while still being concise. Macomb County prosecutor declines charges for shooting of 2 women (C & G Newspapers)

FOX 2 Detroit ran three articles, and interviewed the prosecutor and the police chief for the last.

• Woman shoots mother, daughter in Sterling Heights road rage incident (Original incident)

• Road rage shooting: No charges for woman who wounded mother, daughter in Sterling Heights (No charges)

• Prosecutor: Woman who shot 2 in road rage attack ‘was there to defend herself’ (The interviews)

WDIV Local 4 ran two articles.

• Mother, adult daughter shot during Sterling Heights road rage incident (Original incident)

• No charges filed against woman in Sterling Heights road rage shooting, citing self-defense (No charges)

WWJ Newsradio 950 ran two articles.

• Mother, adult daughter shot after Sterling Heights road rage incident escalates outside Carrabba’s Italian Grill (Original incident)

• No charges to be filed in Sterling Heights road rage shooting near Carrabba’s as prosecutors say it was in self-defense (No charges)

CBS Detroit ran two articles.

• Two women shot in Sterling Heights road rage incident (Original incident)

• Woman who shot mother, daughter in Sterling Heights incident will not be charged, prosecutors say (No charges)

No charges in Sterling Heights shooting after attack, prosecutor says (The Detroit News; archived copy)

Patch ran two articles.

• 2 Women Shot, Injured In Macomb County Road Rage Incident: Reports (Original incident)

  • Woman Will Not Face Charges In Macomb County Road Rage Shooting: Cops (No charges)

A little after 11 on a Friday night, 85-year-old Wayne Williams was sitting on his couch when somebody started banging on his front door, just six feet away. Then came the kicking and yelling.

Williams went to his bedroom for the .380 pistol he keeps for home defense, unzipped the holster, threw it on the bed, and carried the pistol to the front door. Then he opened the door.

He told Cowboy State Daily three days later that he wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking, and that it was a big mistake. Seems right: He should have called 911 and shouted through the door. (It’s nice to see an honest critic of his own work.)

The man on the porch was slim, looked about 25, and stood six inches taller than the homeowner, who’s roughly five-foot-three. He seemed to be drunk or on drugs.

“The guy was obviously irrational,” Williams said. “He was saying ‘they’ sent him to my house; ‘they’ said he owns my house and I don’t — crazy, crazy stuff.”

The man shoved his way inside. Williams pulled the trigger, and the pistol clicked: he’d forgotten to rack a round into the chamber.

“Go ahead and shoot me,” the man said.

There was an argument on X recently about carrying with a round in the chamber or not. Most people who advocated for carrying that way (which was most of them) called out this exact issue as the reason.

So our GGWAG, all five-foot-three of him, had to wrestle the man back out the door.

It helped that the intruder was “kind of uncoordinated.” They grappled on the porch in the dark until, the homeowner believes, the man tripped on the top step and took them both down the concrete stairs.

“So we both fell down the stairs. I was on top of him at that point.”

Both of them were struggling to get to their feet when he fired a single shot into the dark and heard the man say, “I’ve been hit.” A detective found the spent casing between the steps and the front door.

He thought he’d hit the man in the leg. The bullet actually went into the abdomen and out through the back.

He ducked back inside and called 911. It seemed to him that the officers who showed up were at first more concerned with him and his gun than with “the guy who was attacking me,” but he put the gun down and cooperated.

The intruder was Jeremy David Merta, who was 21 by the time he made it into a courtroom seven months later. Three days after the shooting, a detective found him on a hospital gurney and got his side of it, such as it was. He’d started drinking with family at a bar around 5 PM — beers, Jägermeister, and José Cuervo — then went home, then back to the bar, then home again. He left on foot, upset, believing he was headed to the Cedar Bar, which is several blocks from the homeowner’s house.

Somewhere in there he blacked out. The next thing he remembered was waking up shot, with the homeowner standing over him.

His Nike basketball shoes were on the lawn. The tread, a pattern of concentric circles, matched the marks on the homeowner’s damaged screen door, and that’s what the detective pointed to when Merta’s attorney asked for evidence that his client was the initial aggressor. The detective’s affidavit also noted fresh scratches on the homeowner’s face, arms, leg, and knee.

The detective didn’t try to book Merta: the jail wouldn’t take a man in that condition, and he was in no shape to escape. Months of operations followed. Merta was told to stay in touch so he could make his court dates, and the detective testified that he did an “excellent job” of it.

The homeowner spent a few weeks wondering whether he’d see Merta again. That had passed by the time of the hearing, though he was surprised that Merta wasn’t in jail.

The charge was a felony: unlawful entry into an occupied structure to commit battery, good for up to 10 years. The following June, Merta pleaded no contest. His plea agreement had called for a guilty plea, but that requires telling the court what you did, and the county attorney explained the problem:

The judge allowed a no contest plea as the defendant’s level of intoxication on the night in question would not allow him to provide a factual basis for a guilty plea.

The agreement offered Merta a deferral: if he completes a term of probation, the felony conviction never goes on his record. The length of the probation was left to the judge, with sentencing set for late August.

Sources

News

Clair McFarland of Cowboy State Daily interviewed the homeowner at his house three days after the shooting and again on the day of the preliminary hearing, and covered the case through the plea in four articles. (They also have the most beautiful design and typography of any news source I’ve ever come across.)

• In Brief: Riverton Homeowner Shoots Apparent Burglar (Original incident)

• 85-Year-Old Riverton Homeowner Fought Off, Shot Possibly “Irrational” Intruder (The interview)

• Riverton Man Shot By 85-Year-Old Homeowner Faces Felony Intrusion Charge (Preliminary hearing)

• Drunk Intruder Shot By 85-Year-Old Riverton Man Could Get Probation (The plea)

Felony for suspect shot by homeowner (Riverton Ranger)

County 10 ran two items, the police release and the call log.

• Riverton Police Department investigate reported attempted burglary where shots were fired (The release)

• County 10 Law Enforcement Log: Riverton Police Department - August 12/13, 2024 (Call log)

2A / specialist media

85-year-old Wyoming homeowner who says he fought with, shot intruder describes scary late-night altercation (The Blaze)

85-Year-Old Man Fights Then Shoots Intruder (The Truth About Guns)

Elderly Wyoming Homeowner Shoots Irrational Intruder (GunsAmerica Digest)

Homeowner Shoots Alleged Intruder During Late-Night Burglary Attempt in Riverton, WY (USA Carry)

85-Year-Old Homeowner Fights, Then Shoots, Alleged Intruder (Breitbart)

85-Year-Old Wyoming Man Uses Handgun to Fight Off ‘Irrational’ Attacker (Colion Noir)

Around half past five on a Friday afternoon, a man was making his way along a 17th-floor hallway in a New Haven apartment tower — a building he lived in — banging on the doors and rambling. He was carrying a machete.

The tower is part of Bella Vista, a complex of five buildings and more than 1,400 apartments reserved for elderly and disabled tenants. Multiple people called 911 about him.

Then the calls changed: Now people were reporting gunshots.

After an altercation with another resident on the floor, that resident shot him.

Neighbor Howard Myers heard it: “Like a book hitting the floor, there’s that loud crack. Had no idea what it was.”

The man with the machete was 56-year-old John Reynolds. He died of his injuries.

Officer Christian Bruckhart, the police department’s spokesman, didn’t have much on what transpired between the two residents: “We know that there was some sort of altercation that happened within the hallway. One individual shot the individual.” That’s all we have.

The 911 callers had told dispatchers that Reynolds had a history of mental health problems, and that he might’ve been under the influence. Police knew him, too. “We had a few instances with him here or there,” the spokesman said, “but nothing that was of the magnitude of what we saw the other day.” One resident told WFSB about seeing him outside the building with a machete before.

His cousin, Chinita Hagwood Davis, didn’t argue with the mental health part. She remembered “a very polite gentleman and a loveable father” whose oldest son was in college, making him proud.

“Even though he had some mental health issues, he was still a good guy,” she said. “Nobody deserves to get killed.”

But a man can be all of that to his family and still be the threat to his neighbors, wandering the hallway with the machete.

The shooter stayed at the scene. His gun was licensed. Police and prosecutors set about working out whether it was self-defense.

The spokesman sketched the question for WFSB. “Just in general in Connecticut, you are allowed to use deadly physical force in defense of yourself,” he said, but also: “If you have a way of getting away from something you feel [is] threatening, the state would say we’d prefer you do that first, rather than resorting to just using deadly physical force.”

As WFSB summarized the statute, you can use deadly force if you believe the other person is about to kill someone or inflict great bodily harm, and you don’t have to retreat inside your own home.

The following week, the spokesman told CT Insider where things stood: “The case is still active but to my knowledge no decision has been made whether to charge him or not.” We can find no follow-up suggesting that the shooter was charged.

Sources

News

New Haven apartment tower shooter identified, but no decision made on arrest, police say (The News-Times)

WFSB ran two articles, first the shooting, then the spokesman on the law.

• New Haven man killed in shooting at senior living housing complex (Original incident)

• Man holding a machete was allegedly shot by his neighbor in New Haven (Follow-up)

Man With Machete Shot Dead At Bella Vista (New Haven Independent)

WTNH News 8 got a lot of community reaction. Man shot and killed after altercation with machete in New Haven (WTNH)

Man shot and killed in New Haven was allegedly carrying machete, involved in altercation: Police (FOX61)

Man with machete shot and killed by resident of New Haven apartment complex: police (NBC Connecticut)

Machete-Wielding Man Fatally Shot By Neighbor In New Haven (Patch)

Apartment complex resident shoots, kills machete wielding man in New Haven (WTIC)

Machete-Wielding Man Screaming At Strangers Shot, Killed: Police (Daily Voice)

2A / specialist media

Resident Fatally Shoots Machete-Wielding Man At Senior Living Complex In CT (Concealed Nation)

Senior Housing Resident Fatally Shoots Machete-Wielding Man Who Was Banging on Doors and Causing a Disturbance (G4 Firearms)

Settle in: This is a long one, complete with an epilogue and over 24 sources.

The story starts — and ends — with Phillip Shaw. He hadn’t been allowed to have a gun for a long time. He had convictions in Hamilton County for burglary and for trafficking marijuana, and a federal conviction for heroin trafficking and gun charges that got him ten years in prison in 2013. He was 40, and still under federal supervision.

He’s apparently unaware of these laws, because otherwise he surely would obey them, right? But no, he had one anyway while he was outside the 629 Sports Bar at about 2:30 AM after a late Saturday night.

Several people were arguing in the parking lot. There was a scuffle, and then Shaw and another man — 36-year-old Mack Ogletree, an off-duty Cincinnati firefighter with a concealed carry license and no criminal record — were shooting at each other.

Shaw was grazed in the head. A woman sitting in a car in the lot was hit in the arm, and the bullet never came out: She tried to have it surgically removed, but they couldn’t do it.

Rounds hit a house nearby, too. “They’re hitting my house ... We’re not hit but I’ve got kids in here and everything. Please hurry,” one neighbor told a 911 dispatcher.

Breonna Schwarm, 16, watched from her bedroom window. She was in the house with her parents, her brother, a friend, and her 4-year-old sister. “I was really shaky. I was scared that there was people dead,” she said.

Nobody was dead, and nobody in her house was hit. By the time police got there, the parking lot had no victims in it either. The two wounded turned up separately at a hospital.

More than a month later, Ogletree — the CCL holder with no record — reported for an overtime shift at a firehouse and was taken into custody. The charge was two counts of felonious assault, and the indictment made it four. The fire department, where he’d worked a little over a year, put him on unpaid leave.

Prosecutors called Shaw “the victim.” How the shooting started depended on which hearing you attended. At the first one, the assistant prosecutor said this:

The defendant engaged in an altercation at the 629 Bar; at one point, the defendant left and retrieved a firearm from his vehicle.

Ogletree then pointed it at Shaw, the prosecutor said, and Shaw went and got a gun of his own.

A couple of weeks later, a different assistant prosecutor told it differently:

The defendant comes up with a gun in his hand and starts yelling at them, points the firearm in the direction and then starts shooting the firearm. At that point, the male victim produces his own firearm and returns fire.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported a third version from prosecutors: a fight among a group of people was de-escalating when Ogletree started shooting at Shaw.

Ogletree’s attorney, Brandon Fox, said it was the other way around. “This is a self-defense case. My client is a legal CCW owner. He was fired upon by a convicted felon. He returned fire. It’s on video.”

WLWT obtained the video, of which you can see a portion in the news clip below.

Unfortunately, watching the video doesn’t help us much. Both Ogletree and Shaw are black and have long hair, and the resolution’s not great. Even the news reports note that it’s hard to tell who is whom. I’m sure the police know who’s who.

The magistrate at that second hearing didn’t rule on any of it, but did say from the bench, “It appears there could be a very valid self-defense argument.” Ogletree posted a $50,000 bond and was still in jail three days later, waiting for an electronic monitoring unit to become available.

Shaw, meanwhile, picked up a charge of his own: being a felon in possession of a gun.

The trial was set for a Monday in March, in front of a judge and no jury — but it never started. The assistant prosecutor told the court why:

I am not ready to proceed today. As the court is well aware, there are two victims in this matter, one of which is facing his own criminal charges. He is intending to plead the Fifth Amendment today.

So the state’s “victim” wouldn’t testify about a gunfight he couldn’t legally have brought a gun to.

The woman from the car didn’t come to court, for the second time. The prosecutor said she had “expressed her desire not to come down.” Ogletree’s defense attorney told the judge it wouldn’t have mattered:

She told the police repeatedly she didn’t see who was shot. She was intoxicated. She was passed out in the car when the shooting occurred. So even if they had the medical records, even if they had her here, it doesn’t add anything to the case against Mr. Ogletree.

He asked for a dismissal, and the judge granted it.

“Unfortunately, this happens from time to time,” a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said. “Victims and witnesses do not always want to cooperate. That does not make it any less disappointing that this case was dismissed.”

Ogletree’s attorney Fox was less disappointed: “We were confident that we would have received a not guilty verdict, even if everyone would have shown up.”

It’s worth noting that Ogletree wasn’t acquitted: His case was dismissed without prejudice.

“Mack is a protector. He’s a family man. He’s always going to protect those around him, and that’s what happened that night,” Fox said. “He’s looking forward to getting back to work, getting back to providing for his family.”

The fire department said its command staff would meet to decide what came next.

For six months, the firefighter with the carry license and no record was the defendant, and the felon with the gun was the victim.

Epilogue

Seven months after the judge dismissed the case against Ogletree, a 34-year-old man named Justin Johnson left a bar in downtown Cincinnati at about 2 AM on a Friday morning, a few hours after a Bengals home game, and got into his BMW. A vehicle pulled up alongside, and someone inside it started shooting. Johnson died at the scene.

Police arrested 50-year-old Robert Shaw the same day. He was out on bond in a pending gun case, with convictions for illegally possessing a gun in 2003, 2011, and 2015, and he was wearing an ankle monitor: Its data is how police placed him at the shooting.

Nearly five months later, they arrested his brother: Phillip Shaw, by then1 41.

A grand jury indicted Phillip Shaw on one count of aggravated murder, three counts of murder, two of felonious assault, and three of having weapons while under disability, along with theft and receiving stolen property. His bond was set at $1 million.

Prosecutors said the brothers targeted Johnson, though they couldn’t say why. By their account, the two sat in a truck stolen out of Kentucky, carrying a license plate stolen from a car whose owner was at the game, waiting for him to leave the bar.

“There were approximately two guns fired and around 23 shots were fired in total,” the assistant prosecutor told the court at Shaw’s bond hearing.

Incidentally, that assistant prosecutor is the same one who, at Ogletree’s second hearing, had called Shaw “the male victim.”

The magistrate was the same, too: The one who’d said that Ogletree might have a very valid self-defense argument. This time, the magistrate said that Shaw had served ten years for drug trafficking and had “some violence” on his record.

In court, Phillip Shaw’s public defender said that Shaw’s last conviction was in 2012. What happened to felon-in-possession charge from the 629 Sports Bar?

I don’t yet see follow-up information about this incident for either Shaw.

Seven months before Johnson died, the prosecutor’s office had called it disappointing that it couldn’t try the man who shot at Phillip Shaw.

Sources

News — main incident

WLWT obtained video of the shooting and the 911 audio, and quoted both sides in court.

• Cincinnati Fire Department employee charged with felonious assault (Arrest)

• Video shows gun battle outside Colerain sports bar, Cincinnati firefighter arrested (Video and 911 calls)

• Cincinnati firefighter claims he fired gun outside bar in self defense (Second hearing)

• Assault charges dismissed against Cincinnati firefighter after shooting outside bar (Dismissal)

The Cincinnati Enquirer named the other shooter and laid out his record. Its dismissal story is paywalled; both articles were read as syndicated on Yahoo!

• Attorney: Cincinnati firefighter involved in Colerain bar shootout acted in self-defense (Self-defense claim)

• Charges dismissed against Cincinnati firefighter involved in gun battle outside bar (Dismissal)

WCPO ran two articles, first the shooting, then the arrest.

• Police: Two shot at sports bar in Colerain Township (Original incident)

• Cincinnati firefighter arrested, charged with felonious assault for Colerain Township bar shooting (Arrest and first hearing)

FOX19 followed the case from the shooting to the dismissal.

• Two people hospitalized after shooting near bar in Colerain Township, police say (Original incident)

• Cincinnati Fire Department firefighter charged in August shooting in Colerain Twp. (Arrest; Enquirer copy)

• Cincinnati firefighter arrested in double shooting (First hearing)

• Cincinnati firefighter pleads not guilty again in connection with double shooting (Second hearing)

• Charges dropped against Cincinnati firefighter in connection with double shooting (Dismissal)

I can find three articles from Local 12.

• 2 people injured in Colerain Township bar shooting (Original incident)

• Cincinnati firefighter arrested in connection to double shooting at bar (First hearing)

• Charges dropped against Cincinnati firefighter for shooting as trial was set to begin (Dismissal)

Assault Charges Against Cincinnati Firefighter Mack Ogletree Dismissed after Victims Decline to Testify (Hoodline)

Firefighter Held After Gunfire Near Cincinnati Sports Bar (Thin Line News)

News — epilogue

The Cincinnati Enquirer ran five articles, all read as syndicated on Yahoo!

• Police release name of man killed in apparent Downtown drive-by shooting (Original incident)

• Police make arrest after man killed in apparent drive-by shooting in Downtown (First arrest)

• Gunman in Downtown drive-by shooting was wearing an ankle monitor after weapons charge (Robert Shaw’s record)

• Police make second arrest connected to October homicide (Second arrest)

• $1 million bond for second man charged in October Downtown drive-by (Bond hearing)

FOX19 interviewed Johnson’s father.

• Gunman opens fire in downtown Cincinnati, killing 1 (Original incident)

• $2M bond for murder suspect in Downtown shooting (First arrest)

• Second arrest made in ‘targeted’ fatal shooting in Downtown Cincinnati (Second arrest and indictment)

• Grieving father honors son killed in Downtown shooting (Interview)

WCPO ran two articles, first the arrest of Robert Shaw, then of Phillip Shaw.

• $2 million bond set for man accused of shooting, killing man in downtown (First arrest)

• Police: Second man arrested after fatal October shooting downtown (Second arrest)

Second arrest made in murder of a man in Downtown Cincinnati (Local 12)

Around 4 on a Sunday afternoon, people at an Amarillo Dollar Tree watched a woman get thrown out of a car.

Some of them went to help her. The man in the car answered by shooting at them.

One of the witnesses had a gun, too, and shot back. The man drove off.

The man was 25-year-old Kurt David Cobain Gaede. The Amarillo Globe-News described what happened to the woman as an apparent domestic assault, but that’s as close as I can find to a potential motive: It’s About a Girl. (IYKYK, and sorry.)

The picture above says, “Amarillo Police: Man Shot & Killed” — but our Good Samaritan’s bullets didn’t kill him. It doesn’t sound like they even struck him. They just made him run away.

The police tracked Gaede in part because of an outstanding felony warrant out of Randall County for burglary. Officers went to his last known address: a home on the same street as the Dollar Tree.

They watched a man they believed to be Gaede walk up and knock on the front door. He was turned away. The officers then approached; he ignored their commands and ran for the back of the home. They chased him, and Gaede displayed a gun.

“This action resulted in a task force officer discharging his firearm striking Gaede,” the department said. He died later at a hospital.

There was good work here both by a legally armed civilian — a witness who kept a woman from harm with an appropriate application of gun violence — as well as by police officers, like those from the Amarillo PD who continued the pursuit to its (unfortunate) conclusion.

Sources

Primary

Kurt David Cobain Gaede obituary (Rector Funeral Home)

News

Burglary suspect shot, killed during officer-involved shooting (KVII)

Amarillo police release new details, identity of suspect in officer-involved shooting (KFDA)

La policía de Amarillo revela nuevos detalles sobre la identidad del sospechoso en el tiroteo con un oficial (Telemundo Amarillo; the KFDA story in Spanish)

1 dead Monday in north Amarillo after foot chase with police (KAMR)

UPDATE: Suspect dead after officer-involved shooting on S. Georgia Monday (Amarillo Globe-News)

Man With Famous Namesake Killed By Amarillo Police (98.7 The Bomb)

A little before 8 on a Tuesday night in South Nashville, a man was approached by another man with a gun, who told him to take off his clothes.

He did as he was told. I have no idea what a robber wants with another man’s clothes, but whatever this one had in mind, he should have paid closer attention to the pants. When the robber got distracted, his victim pulled a gun out of them and shot him twice.

Somewhere in the gunfire, a bullet ricocheted and apparently hit a third person, who got to a hospital without help. The robber was taken from the scene to a hospital, too, with injuries that weren’t life-threatening.

Sources

Slim pickings on this one. I would have expected that a pants robber would get more coverage.

News

At least 2 injured after robbery attempt in South Nashville: Police (WKRN)

Your editors think the best way to avoid pursuit by bounty hunters is by not doing things that get bounties placed on you.

A man in Fort Worth, who apparently never learned that lesson, was in a vehicle being pursued by two bounty hunters. Your editors would suggest that the best way to use a vehicle to avoid capture by bounty hunters is to drive it away from them.

The man in Fort Worth, who apparently didn’t learn that lesson either, aimed his vehicle at his pursuers. They, naturally, didn’t want to be rammed by a giant hulk of speeding metal, so they fired their weapons at him.

The man was hit in the thigh — which makes it hard to run from bounty hunters — and was expected to pull through.

Did he learn his lesson, though? Magic 8 Ball says, “Don’t count on it.”

Sources

News

Bounty hunters shoot man during pursuit in Fort Worth (CBS Texas)

Man shot by bounty hunters in Fort Worth, police say (FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth)

A little after five on a Sunday afternoon, 53-year-old Kevin Villalobos came up to the entrance of Ryan Fleming’s house, uninvited. The homeowner knew him — we don’t know in what capacity — but Villalobos was drunk and aggressive, and, among other things, he hit the resident in the head.

So the resident shot him.

Officers and medics tried to save him, but he died at the scene.

Nampa police called it “an isolated incident that started as a verbal dispute between known parties.”

The case went to the county prosecutor. This is routine, and it’s normal for these things to take a while to percolate. Six months later, Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Boyd ruled that the resident had acted in self-defense under Idaho’s “Stand Your Ground” law; he declined to file charges.

Boyd’s statement opened with Villalobos’s family: “This was an unfortunate and tragic event that resulted in the loss of a life, and I extend my sympathies to the family of Mr. Villalobos as they grieve.”

Then he talked about the evidence that had been accumulated that supported the decision — witness statements, forensic analysis, physical and DNA evidence, and video footage — and said it showed the resident had acted lawfully:

He was violently attacked at his own home and responded with justified force. Idaho law presumes that a homeowner acting in defense of their habitation does so with reasonable fear of imminent peril, and my office will not second-guess the fundamental right of self-defense.

It’s great to see such moral clarity.

Sources

Primary

Shooting Death Investigation On-Going (City of Nampa)

Man Cleared in Nampa Shooting (Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney)

News

CBS2 ran two articles, first the shooting, then the ruling.

• Authorities seek information on Nampa shooting following deadly dispute (Original incident)

• Nampa man cleared in shooting, “exercised his legal right to self-defense” (Ruling)

KTVB ran two articles, first the shooting, then the ruling.

• Nampa man shot, killed following argument, police say (Original incident)

• Nampa man cleared in fatal shooting, ruled self-defense (Ruling)

Police investigating fatal shooting in south Nampa (Idaho Press)

Man cleared in fatal Nampa shooting, acted in self-defense (Idaho News 6)

2A / specialist media

Idaho’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law Protects Man Who Killed Attacker in Self-Defense (Colion Noir)

Nampa, ID (Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog)

In Southwest Baltimore, just before 8 PM, a 32-year-old man attempted to carjack a white Honda. As the carjacker moved in, the driver produced a firearm and fired at least six shots.

Video footage captured the alleged carjacker running from the scene before collapsing and dying a short time later.

A local resident named Nia, who had previously been a victim of carjacking, said, “Good for him for being prepared, because in Baltimore you never know what’s going to happen.”

She added a warning to other carjackers: “You don’t know who you might be running up on. That should be a lesson learned to all you carjackers out there. Whoever’s doing all this. Stop.”

Carjackings had ticked up 10% citywide that week, per BPD, but this driver’s stand halted one thief’s plan.

Sources

Primary

Media Advisories: Sept. 28 (Baltimore Police Department)

News

Fox45 ran two articles, first the shooting and the dispatch audio, then a follow-up two days after the shooting.

• Fatal shooting in Baltimore may be connected to an attempted carjacking, witnesses say (Original incident)

• Questions remain after dispatch audio links homicide to attempted carjacking (Follow-up)

Homicide detectives investigate fatal shooting of 32-year-old man in Southwest District (The Baltimore Sun)

September 2024 Tracker: Baltimore murders and shootings (WMAR-2)

Nadarius Joiner was not a good man. He had been convicted of armed robbery in 2018, in a case that started with a game of dice.

A group had gathered at an apartment to play, and Joiner lost money that night to one of the other players. A jury convicted Joiner of robbing that player at gunpoint with two other men. He was sentenced to serve “seven years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.” The Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in 2019.

Yet, in October 2023, a Nadarius R. Joiner was booked in Tunica County on charges of burglary and burglary of an inhabited dwelling house. Are we 100% sure it’s the same guy? No, but it sure seems likely. And that’s only five years served on a seven-year sentence.

And here he was again, less than a year after that, breaking into a Tunica apartment at 1 AM on a Friday.

The 46-year-old man who resided there exchanged gunfire with Joiner. The resident was hurt and was flown to a hospital in Memphis. Joiner died at the scene.

The sheriff’s office said, “Homeowners have a constitutional right to protect their homes once a person gains entrance.”

I can’t find anything on how the resident came through it, and I wish him well. He finished what three trips through the court system didn’t.

Sources

Primary

Nadarius Joiner a/k/a Black v. State of Mississippi (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, via CourtListener)

Nadarius Joiner Obituary (Henderson Funeral Homes)

Other

Nadarius R Joiner Mugshot & Arrest Info – Tunica County, Mississippi (RecentlyBooked.com; the 2023 booking)

News

Homeowner Kills Burglar in Tunica, Mississippi (Vicksburg Daily News)

Homeowner injured, break-in suspect dead after both shot during home invasion (Action News 5)

One dead, one injured following home invasion attempt in Tunica (WATN Local 24)

Suspect dead, resident shot in MS home invasion (WREG)

Man shot, intruder killed during Mississippi home invasion, sheriff’s office says (FOX13 Memphis)

2A / specialist media

Alleged Mississippi home invader fatally shot in exchange of gunfire after midnight, sheriff’s office says (The Blaze)

Tunica Homeowner Wounded, Intruder Fatally Shot in Overnight Home Invasion at CottonLand Village Apartments (Hoodline)

Around twenty to eight on a Thursday morning, a man and a woman in their 20s were at home when they heard glass breaking. It came from their front door and the windows next to it.

There was a man on the other side of the door; his hands were bleeding. They had apparently only just moved in, and they didn’t know who he was.

They called 911 and confronted him near the front of the house.

Lt. Jason Johansson of Las Vegas Metro’s homicide section laid out what happened next:

The male was acting extremely irrational and was not listening to what they were telling him. They continued telling him to leave the property, at which time he moved towards the doorway where they were at, where the homeowner felt the need to shoot the man.

The call was still open. The dispatcher heard the shot, and the callers said they’d just shot the man who’d tried to get into their house.

Officers found him in the driveway and gave him first aid. Medics took him to the hospital, where he died of a gunshot wound to the torso. He was 38-year-old Luis Sanchez-Bran.

Police didn’t know of any other break-ins on the street. Jennifer Sauberan, who’s lived in the neighborhood for decades, said, “I was shocked, because it’s a very quiet neighborhood.... I was just thinking, oh my God, what if I hadn’t come back the night before? It could have been my house.”

The residents were “extremely cooperative,” and Johansson said there were “elements of self defense.” He didn’t expect an arrest.

KSNV 3 spoke to a criminal defense and Nevada gun law attorney, Joseph Gersten. The basic thrust of it makes it clear that the couple wasn’t in legal peril.

You're allowed to stand your ground as long as you're not the original aggressor. Meaning you didn't bring the fight to wherever it is, you have a right to be present where the deadly force is used. So you’re not a trespasser or an unwelcome guest, something like that; and lastly you're not engaged in illegal conduct yourself.

He advises people to close their doors and call the police, which doesn’t quite fit the current case — the man was coming through the door and/or windows — but his general principle remains:

So, again if the danger comes to you, you’re doing good. If the danger is something that you go to; not so good. That is where the laws will sort of turn on you.

Sources

There was a lot of coverage on this story, including a lot of detail, community reaction, and a discussion of the law.

Primary

Here’s Lt. Johansson’s media briefing. There are several recordings of it on YouTube.

Local News

8 News Now (KLAS) ran two articles, the incident and neighbor reaction.

• Las Vegas homeowner shoots, kills intruder, police say (Original incident)

• Neighbors share concern after police say homeowner shoots intruder in southwest Las Vegas (Neighbors)

News 3 (KSNV) ran two articles, the incident and an interview with defense attorney Joseph Gersten regarding Nevada’s stand-your-ground law.

• Homeowner shoots, kills alleged robbery suspect in Spring Valley (Original incident)

• Attorney weighs in on Nevada’s stand your ground law after fatal shooting (Attorney interview)

The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran two articles, first the incident, then the coroner’s identification.

• Police: Residents kill man suspected of trying to break into Las Vegas home (Original incident — paywalled, see archive link to bypass)

• Man shot, killed after allegedly trying to break into Las Vegas home ID’d (Identification — paywalled, see archive link to bypass)

Other coverage:

• LVMPD: Suspect breaking in to Spring Valley home shot, killed (FOX5)

• Metro police investigating homicide after Spring Valley homeowner shoots, kills intruder (KTNV — includes full on-scene media briefing, 4:19)

2A / specialist media

• 911 Dispatcher Hears Gunshot on Phone as Homeowner Kills Alleged Intruder (AWR Hawkins at Breitbart)

• Las Vegas Homeowners Shoot Intruder During Break-In Attempt (Brandon Curtis at Concealed Nation)

• Las Vegas Homeowner Shoots & Kills Crazy Acting Intruder in Apparent Self-Defense ~ VIDEO (F. Riehl at AmmoLand)

• Homeowner fatally shoots window-breaking male trying to get inside: ‘We never have anything ever happen in this neighborhood’ (Dave Urbanski at The Blaze)

• Las Vegas Homeowner Shoots And Kills Intruder (Darwin Nercesian at The Truth About Guns)

Police who were part of a robbery intervention detail observed 21-year-old Antonio Vance commit a traffic infraction in a Mercedes at about 11 PM. Also in the car were 16-year-old Jean Pierre Moises and an unknown number of other people.

When they tried to pull him over, Vance sped off. The cops gave chase, and Vance collided with another car just a quarter-mile away.

Vance and the 16-year-old bolted from the wreck; the police nabbed them both nearby.

Where’s the Good Guy with the Gun? Back by Vance’s car.

Vance’s other passengers got out, guns drawn, and approached the driver they had just crashed into. He pulled his own handgun, firing at them.

They scattered. One man was hit in the arm. It’s unclear what happened to the others.

Police took Vance and Moises into custody, and they found the man who’d been shot a few blocks away. He got a free ride to the hospital and was in stable condition.

The neighbors heard it all happen close by. “I heard a bang and later shortly after some gunshots,” said Anthony Manacapilli.

Deborah Daniels said, “It was terrifying because I’ve never heard gunshots that close, and I was thinking, ‘OK, the worst case scenario of maybe they’re gonna come inside this house.’”

A third neighbor heard the crash, then gunshots getting closer, and knocked on Dad’s door. Dad’s advice: “I hear you. I hear you. Just get down. Just lay down.”

We often think about the Good Guy with a Gun, and how he, she, or the others involved in the incident must feel — but the whole community is affected, either immediately or in the aftermath.

Officials said the victim wouldn’t face charges.

Sources

News

WSVN went out to the neighborhood and talked to the neighbors.

Attempted traffic stop in Miami Gardens takes wild turn, ending in car crash and gunfire, police say; 2 in custody (WSVN 7News)

Pursuit in Miami Gardens ends in crash, gunfire and 2 arrested, including teen (NBC 6 South Florida)

Miami-Dade robbery detectives’ pursuit ends after crash, shooting, 2 arrests (WPLG Local 10)

2A / specialist media

Miami-Dade Robbery Pursuit Results in Shooting, Crash, and Two Arrests, Police Seek Community Tips (Hoodline)