Good Guy with a Gun #102: Elkmont, AL
Original incident: February 10, 2024. After being steeped in crime and drugs for a long time, maybe he felt invincible. But when he got violent, that ended it all.
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Christopher Jason Hovis, a 44-year-old of Hartselle, ended his 25-year career as a criminal as he was “violently attempting to gain entry” through the front door of an Elkmont, Alabama home.
The homeowner had called the authorities, but they didn’t arrive in time. The owner shot Hovis when he came into the house, making him flee outside where he died of his wounds.
Preliminary investigation indicated it was a justified shooting.
I didn’t do a full court-records search for Hovis, but you can easily find information about unlawful drug manufacturing in 2011, possession in 2014, and failure to appear / domestic assault / and two counts of harassment of family in 2021.
There’s also a widely publicized incident in 2022 where he invaded a home while children where there to find what he could steal. One child called the mom, who returned home quickly to find Hovis leaving the scene without a shirt on. She chased him to the local Family Dollar, where police took him into custody.
He had kids and living relatives, and his obituary has its share of people whose lives he touched in a good way. Redemption would have been better than violence and death.
In the end, there was no gold watch for his retirement: just a tombstone.
Sources
A primary source for this incident is the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook post.
For Hovis’s prior criminal activity, check the links above as well as the following sources of the 2022 burglary incident: WAFF 48, WHNT News 19, WAAY 31, and AL.com. I normally don’t quote news aggregators that don’t add value, but Yahoo! has a reprint of a Decatur Daily article that I can no longer find in its original form.
For the incident where he got himself killed, see coverage from Quad Cities Daily, WHNT News 19, AL.com, WAFF 48 (with 45 seconds of airtime), and Fox 54.