Good Guy with a Gun #186: Memphis, TN
Teen: Breaks into car. Man: "What are you doing?" Escalation: Teen shoots, hits. Escalation: Man shoots, kills. Escalation: Retaliatory gunfire later that night. | Original incident: May 4, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is essentially the same as the calendar version.
The Frayser neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee, has seen better days. Once a thriving suburb, it’s become one of the city’s most economically depressed and highest crime areas. But there are still good people there who watch out for each other.
A man caught a teenage thief red-handed trying to steal his neighbor’s car.
He said to the thief, “What are you doing?”
The kid turned and shot him, also hitting the house several times.
The man was hit, but he fired back, killing the perpetrator.
A neighbor, Don, says the man was shot “in the chest,” but the news says he was treated at the hospital and released, so the wound was apparently not as bad as that sounds to me — though I’m sure it was worse than not being shot.
Later that night, the shooter’s house was hit with bullets in what he believed to be a retaliatory attack.
Don the neighbor said, “You wouldn’t think somebody who looked that young would have a gun in his hand.” If you’re a regular reader, though, you know how often teens (and sometimes younger) are the perpetrators of crimes that require a self-defense reaction.
And this was a self-defense reaction. Memphis police ruled it a justified killing after witnesses backed the man’s account.
Sources
Sources are surprisingly sparse for this incident, especially considering the death of a teen. Action News 5 gave an initial report and then did a follow-up, quoting extensively from the neighbor, Don.