Good Guy with a Gun #226: Malta, NY

It’s a good thing New York State hasn’t taken away our right to shotguns yet. It might have saved this senior citizen’s life. | Original incident: June 14, 2024

These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is somewhat updated from the calendar version.

Northway Estates is a mobile home park for 55-and-up seniors. It looks like a nice area behind enemy lines in the People’s Republic of New York: Google Maps makes it easy to take a look around.

It’s usually a pretty mellow place, though there had been a few issues leading up to the time of today’s incident.

“Two weeks ago today we had the homicide just down the road about 3 miles down the road here off of route 9,” said Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo. Police had been called to a fight and found a man by the side of the road, dead from a blow with a pipe wrench.

So usually peaceful, yes, but you might be getting concerned. Now imagine sitting in your mobile home when a slightly younger man — just 49 years old — forces his way into it. You don’t know him. He attacks you.

When I first read this story, I thought: It’s a mobile home. Where do you run? It turns out that at least some of these mobile homes are larger than I would have expected. Not that it matters much. The resident was still left with only one real option — he scrambled back to his bedroom with others who lived there, where he grabbed a shotgun.

The man followed him, and the resident fired two blasts.

That ended the encounter; the man died.

There was a bit of confusion when the story first broke. The property management released an email that said in part,

From what we understand, a person came to visit someone who lives here - the visitor went to the wrong house - we think the visitor must have walked into the wrong house - the owner of the house assumed it was an intruder and apparently shot the person. This is all the information we have at this time.

That sounds like the intruder made an innocent mistake, but the real story quickly came out. The 49-year-old, Kurt M. Hubbard, lived at a motel two and a half miles north. The residents didn’t know him. And if he really had intended to enter a different home, those residents would have been unhappy to see him, too.

A little time vindicated the resident. After starting the investigation, Sheriff Michael Zurlo told the community, “At this time, the investigation has not revealed any criminal conduct by the resident who appears to have been defending himself inside of his home from a subject who was not known to him.”

Sources

Local news

WRGB 6 tells us about the initial investigation and confusion, and then cleared things up after the Sheriff provided more information.

Same with WNYT 13: initial investigation, follow-up.

The Times Union covered the story the same way: initial investigation, follow-up.

I didn’t try to break the paywall on the Daily Gazette.

2A / specialist media

Sean Holt covered this incident at USACarry.

Colion Noir covered it at his site.

Brandon Curtis covered it at Concealed Nation.