Good Guy with a Gun #127: Reading, PA (free post)
Original incident: March 7, 2024. The Captain relayed the perp’s reason for the break-in. Her face filed a separate report.
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Timothy Harris, 37, was under the influence of “some kind of narcotics and other substances” when he tried to break into an apartment in Reading. It seems he didn’t get in, so he tried another.
Two people were in the second apartment. When Harris insisted on coming in, they insisted that he stay out. So Harris assaulted them.
Insistence became resistance: One of the residents shot him, wounding him in the leg.
Harris fled the scene and hid, but not well enough to keep the police from finding him. Captain Cheryl Pentheny of Reading PD tells us that when the police found him, he gave a perfectly good explanation for his behavior: “According to him, he had been told to go down to that location for an unconfirmed reason, and that’s why he was in the building.”
I think her face tells us how she feels about it....
When was the last time someone in your life made that face at you? Does it still sting?
Anyway, the police took him to the hospital and charged him with criminal trespassing, disorderly conduct, and “assault-related charges.”
Authorities didn’t file charges against the defender, who owned his gun legally and had jumped through the constitutionally dubious requirements to register it.
Sources
WFMZ-TV 69 did a great job on this report, including getting a preliminary report of ~30 seconds and a follow-up of 1:47. They also are the ones who got the interview with Captain Pentheny.
Berks Weekly did a good job as well, and they provided the video of the scene without commentary.
The Daily Voice Drexel Hill-Upper Darby also carried a brief mention.
On the 2A side, Sean Holt covered it at USACarry.
As a mother of five, I have _given_ that look a time or two . . . An "unconfirmed reason," indeed.