Good Guy with a Gun #155: Norway, ME (Free post)
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Sometimes that's the winning play. | Original incident: April 1, 2024
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 slightly updated from the calendar version.
Defensive Gun Uses (DGUs) often don’t involve anyone pulling a trigger, much less getting shot — but those incidents rarely make the news. In fact, I’m leaving this post wide open so you can share it and show people that yes, this really happens.
In this case, it happened in Norway, Maine, where a woman was prevented from breaking into a home and was held for police with nary a shot fired.
Matthew Glatz heard a banging noise and glass breaking at his neighbor’s home, so he grabbed a handgun and went to investigate. He discovered 43-year-old Lindsay Clark trying to break into the house. When confronted, she stopped, and he held her at gunpoint until police arrived.
Police said that the home was damaged, but nothing was stolen. Clark was charged with attempted burglary and criminal mischief — though one has to wonder what will really happen, given that Norway police had charged her with failure to appear in a separate case less than two weeks earlier.
Vagrancy was apparently a real problem at the time; among other things, the Norway PD posted to Facebook on April 19 saying:
NOTICE: Due to recent burglaries and homeless taking up shelter in vacant homes, we ask that if you own a vacant property or a property that is under construction in Norway and would like regular property checks, please email Officer Pullen at [redacted]. She will make sure that your property is checked on a regular basis.
Sources
The Sun-Journal gave us the GGWAG’s name and the detail about failure to appear; the story is behind a paywall.
WGME 13 covered the story based on the Sun-Journal account and showed us the mugshot, though without the name or failure to appear detail. The Bangor Daily News seems to be affiliated with WGME and printed a not-quite-but-almost identical story.
It hit the radio on The Mix 107.9 and True Country 93.5 with identical stories.
As I said in the article, the Norway PD posted to Facebook about vagrancy and burglaries.