These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is significantly updated from the calendar version.
Herrick, Illinois is a small village of about 200 households, a little over an hour southeast of Springfield, surrounded on all sides by miles and miles of farmland. If you know the kind of town, you know that everyone knows everyone else there.
19-year-old Wade Barnes was no exception. Barnes, a sheriff’s release later said, “was known by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office due to prior involvements, including a current criminal case.”
That current case was a little over two weeks old. Barnes had been charged with aggravated fleeing from a police officer, possessing a firearm without a FOID card, transporting liquor as a driver under 21, damaging more than $300 worth of property, and driving an uninsured vehicle. His next court date was less than a month off.
It wasn’t his first fleeing charge, either. In May of the year before, he’d been charged with aggravated fleeing and with doing 35 over the limit. The fleeing charge had been dismissed; he had paid a fine and was ordered to driver education and community service.
But he wasn’t done — not just yet.
At 5:25 AM on a Friday morning, Barnes invaded a local home and started threatening the occupants.
One of them got a gun and told him to stop. He kept coming into the house anyway. Shots followed, and he was hit. Medics took him to the hospital, where he died less than two hours after the call came in.
Nineteen is young to have a record like that, and much too young to die. Still, he was old enough to know better, he was told to stop, and he chose not to.
If you like what I do, please consider upgrading your subscription.
Or, of course, I’d be very grateful if you’d buy me a coffee!
Sources
News
Sheriff: Cowden man fatally shot Friday invading home near Herrick (Effingham Daily News)
Herrick home invasion leaves one man dead (Herald & Review; also ran in the JG-TC)
19-year-old dead after Shelby County home invasion (WCIA)
Home invasion in Herrick ends fatally after resident shoots intruder (WICS NewsChannel 20)
Sheriff: Man killed in rural Shelby Co. during attempted break-in (WAND)