Good Guy with a Gun #124: Indianapolis, IN (free post)
Original incident: March 5, 2024. He can't even catch his breath, much less a break. Stop a burglary, hold him for the cops, have a police interview, and 20 minutes later stop another burglary...
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. If you bought or received a calendar, contact me for a complementary subscription. Today’s post is somewhat updated from the calendar version.
Alfred Burdine1 was rebuilding a home in Indianapolis. Early in the morning, around 4:30 AM on Tuesday, March 5, he drove by the house and spotted a man stealing a generator from his property.
Burdine had his gun in hand when he confronted the burglar. “The possibility of him going violent at that time was pretty high,” he told WTHR. “It’s 4:30 in the morning, nobody around. You bold enough to break into my garage, my house, you bold enough to do anything.”
Consider upgrading, subscribing, or even just sharing this post.
The burglar started easing his hands into his pockets. That prompted Burdine to shoot him in the leg. (I know, I know.) Burdine called 911 and held the burglar, 30-year-old Alfie Steadmon, at gunpoint until police arrived.
Burdine went to the police station for questioning and was released. Steadmon was arrested and charged with one count of burglary and possession of methamphetamine.
Oh, but we’re not done. Twenty minutes after returning from police questioning, Burdine found his home being burgled again. Police took that burglar into custody with no violence on either side.
Burdine spent thousands of dollars on repairs and adding reinforced doors for his home after the double burglary.
“I think we just need more patrols,” Burdine said, “because it’s a lot of people with drug problems and there’s no treatment since they closed Central State.2 Where do these people got to go? You got people with mental problems, you got drug addicts — where do you take these people, even if they wanted some help?”
Where they go is one question; how you defend yourself from them is another.
Sources
News sources
WTHR has a good write-up, air time, and an excellent interview with Burdine that really let him tell the story. You can’t help but feel for the guy after watching that video.
Fox 59 is similar, but it gives Burdine just one sentence and then spends a lot of time talking about how non-fatal shootings are on the decline in Indianapolis, and I dislike the framing. A quote:
“We’re doing well, but we have a lot more work to do,” said Antonia Bailey.
Bailey supervises IMPD’s non-fatal shooting victims support program, which connects shooting survivors with assistance and tries to prevent violence by sharing an important message.
“Please just put the guns down,” Bailey said. “There’s plenty of resources out here that can assist you. “We’re just hoping people think before they act.”
Bailey’s team is also taking proactive steps to prevent non-fatal shootings by speaking to students in middle and high schools about gun violence.
“Please just put the guns down” is nonsense in this case. What else was Burdine supposed to do? If you’re trying to get the community to be less violent, you target the behavior, not the instrument.
Specialist sources
It’s unsurprising that 2A and conservative outlets liked this story. I see the following:
Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms
Carlos Garcia at Blaze Media
For privacy reasons, I often don’t use the victim’s name even if it’s available through open sources. In this case, Burdine had no problem talking on-camera about his situation, so I felt free to use his name.
Central State Hospital was founded as the Indiana Hospital for the Insane in 1848, earning its final name in 1926. “Allegations of abuse, funding shortfalls, and the move to less institutional methods of treatment led to its closure in 1994,” Wikipedia tells me.