Pasadena man remorseful about killings captured on 911 call, attorney says

The Pasadena man who killed two suspected burglars as they left his next-door neighbor's home did not intend to kill them when he stepped outside with his 12-gauge shotgun, his lawyer said Friday.

In portraying Joe Horn as a victim of circumstances, lawyer and longtime friend Tom Lambright called the 61-year-old computer consultant "a good family man" who has been devastated by the Wednesday afternoon burglary and shooting.

Killed in the incident in the 7400 block of Timberline were Miguel Antonio DeJesus, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, both of Houston.

Each had a minor previous brush with the law. Records show DeJesus was charged with failure to identify himself to a police officer in July 2004. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 days in jail. Ortiz was charged with possession of marijuana in July 2005, but it was later dismissed.

"He (Horn) was just doing what everyone is supposed to do," Lambright said at a news conference in front of the Houston police memorial near downtown. "He called the police. He was cooperating with them as best he could, trying to give the police the direction of the burglars. He knew there was danger going outside."

Horn ignored repeated instructions from a 911 dispatcher to remain in his home. He told the dispatcher, "I'm not going to let them get away with it. I can't take a chance in getting killed over this. OK? I'm gonna shoot. I'm gonna shoot."

While lawyers and legal experts across the city continued to debate the legality of Horn's actions, he has left town with his family, Lambright said.

"Hopefully he will see a doctor and maybe get a sedative," he said. "He is not well mentally. This has devastated him. Not in his wildest dreams could he fathom this event."

Lambright said Horn, whom he has considered a friend for 41 years, wept inconsolably during their conversations.

"Joe is the absolute opposite of what everyone thinks he is," Lambright said. "He is not a cowboy. He is not physical. He's 61 years old and overweight. He's not confrontational. He's just a good guy."

Lambright read a written statement in which Horn said the killings would "weigh heavily on me for the rest of my life. My thoughts go out to the loved ones of the deceased."

Lambright said Horn was a hunter, but kept the shotgun in his pickup "for security."

No firearms in house Horn lives with his daughter and granddaughter and does not keep firearms in the house, his lawyer said.

Lambright said Horn was upstairs working at a computer about 2 p.m. when he heard the sound of breaking glass next door. Horn called 911, engaging in a protracted conversation with the dispatcher, who repeatedly advised him to wait inside until police arrived.

"Mr. Horn, do not go outside the house. You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun," the dispatcher told Horn at one point.

"You wanna make a bet," Horn responded. "I'm gonna kill them. They're gonna get away."

Legal opinions conflict Lambright contended that Horn was startled to find the burglars just 15 feet from his front door when he stepped onto his porch. "He was petrified at that point," the lawyer said. "You hear him say, 'I'll shoot. Stop!' They jumped. Joe thought they were coming for him. It's a self-defense issue."

Attorneys and legal experts said Horn's defense probably will be based on state law that allows people to use deadly force to protect neighbors' property.

"If you see someone stealing your neighbor's property, you can get involved and help to stop it," said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

The statutes that allow people to use deadly force to stop a burglary appear to require that the incident be occurring at night, said Craig Jett, a Dallas criminal defense attorney and president of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer's Association.

Experts said that a grand jury may sympathize with Horn. Some people believe that you should be able to protect your neighborhood, said Anthony Osso, a Houston criminal defense attorney.

Osso said that Horn's defense might be that he wanted to prevent the robbers from leaving until police arrived, but they tried to flee and he shot them.

"His best scenario is that he went out to use the threat of deadly force," Osso said. "But they came at him on his own property."

Osso said Horn's 911 call does not tell the whole story about the shooting. Investigators will need information about where the suspects were shot and if they had stopped when Horn ordered them not to move.

"Some people on the grand jury will sympathize with him," said Adam Gershowitz, a law professor at South Texas College of Law. "Maybe he shouldn't have done this, but he was acting in a way a lot of people feel."

"There's a reason we don't let people take the law into their own hands," he said. "We have a police force for that. As an established society, we believe we are better off with an authorized police force that has standards and training rather than untrained vigilantes."

A transcript of the 911 call suggests Horn intended to do what he felt necessary to stop the burglars. Despite a concerted effort by the dispatcher to persuade him to let police deal with the break-in, Horn was insistent on trying keep them from getting away.

"Well, here it goes, buddy," Horn said. "You hear the shotgun clicking, and I'm going."

Praise for dispatcher Experts who reviewed a recording of the call at the Chronicle's request said the dispatcher handled the call professionally and did all he could to defuse the situation until police arrived.

"He was doing everything he could to 'normalize' the conversation and not agitate the caller any further," said Sue Pivetta, a training consultant from Sumner, Wash. "Trust me when I say that he was indeed showing professional control at the highest level."

Charles Carter, a former police executive in Atlanta who has trained dispatchers for two decades, said the officer who handled Horn's call used proven techniques to dissuade him from leaving his home.

"We teach a technique called repetitive persistence," Carter said. "It needs to be at a level lower than the person calling to try to get him to calm down and listen to you. ... He did an outstanding job and needs to be commended."

This "lawyer" should sue his law school, or least learn to read the law more carefully. Yes the law provides justification for stopping "theft during the nighttime" and "criminal mischief during the nighttime", but there is no such restriction for stopping robbery, burglary (which this was) or arson.

It was time for Mr. Horn to take cover and think about protecting himself.

It was time for the felons to cease and desist. When they started advancing toward him--two on one--he was well justified in believing that they meant him harm. They clearly were not Girl Scouts selling cookies. They were males in the prime of life physically, he was an old man, and they had already demonstrated that the law would NOT restrain them from committing felonies.

Now if he had shot them while they were fleeing, I might agree with you. But he didn't. He was where he had a right to be, was holding a gun he had a right to be holding, and they advanced on him. They were less than 15 feet away--a distance that could be quickly and easily closed. They could have easily killed him by overpowering him.

I can't understand why you apparently believe everyone should hide, submit, roll over, and be victims of criminals.

Did I say that?

Look, there's the traditional European way of fighting ~ get your guns, line up in rows, stand up, fire, and die.

Then, there's the traditional American way ~ you get your gun, you find cover, wait until you see the whites of their eyes and then shoot 'em. Duck quickly while you reload.

Another trick is when you are faced with an enemy outfitted with lots of Tiger Tanks you bring in as many artillery pieces as they have rifles. You blow away at them for several weeks until they're all dead.

Mr. Horn shows every sign of not having a grasp of the way we do the job. He's lucky the cops didn't shoot him.

Besides, up to this point we have only his story.

Let's go back to my question about Horn's immigration status. Given the fact he has a foreign name (Horn is Scandinavian ~ usually Swedish) and may be nothing other than a ship jumper, with the two presumptive house robbers maybe being American citizens (this is Houston with a large native born Hispanic population), what does Texas law say about illegal aliens shooting American citizens?

We really do need a lot more information about this case to draw many of the conclusions we've seen here.

Three shots, two hits. If he was any good, and using a shotgun, he should have been able to take these guys out with one shot.

You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

The spread of the shot is dependent on the choke of the shotgun (full, modified, improved cylinder, etc.). At only 15 feet, and given that the scumbags were probably not standing/walking/running right next to each other (they may have been separating to flank Mr. Horn), it was likely impossible to kill them both with one shot.

As far as "the children, the children!" (you sound like a democrat, "Don't defend yourself because there MIGHT be children in the area!"), I bet, like most neighborhoods, there was hardly anyone around at 2 pm. Yes, some schools let out in the early afternoon (elementary schools where I live START letting out at 2:30 pm), but IF there were little crumb-crunchers in the area during the righteous shooting of these two turds, then the media would have run with that AND the scumbag's "grieving" (and complaining) welfare queen wife, instead of just the wife alone.

Again, you sound like an anti-gun democrat, in that it appears you think all gun owners are to stupid/careless/bumbling/untrained to be able to responsibly own and deploy a firearm properly. Given statistics concerning gun owners/CCW holders, Mr. Horn, and the rest of us deserve more credit than you, and people like you, give us.

There are, what, something like 300 MILLION privately owned guns in this country, and there is not chaos and death in the streets. Lighten up, "the sky is NOT falling", Francis. My last point, and one other thing to understand, is that pellets from shotgun shells do not travel as far as rifle/handgun bullets, and are less likely to go through the target and hit something behind.

Now, about guns, after serving as an 11F40 in the US Army Infantry, I would suggest I probably know more about firearms than most folks, and probably more than you.

It's apparent you didn't notice this guy SHOT AT AND HIT two men ~ so however weak those pellets were they did the job.

Which raises a question ~ let's say you're correct and the shotgun was barely able to scare away quail and here he has shot and killed two guys ~ would you say that maybe he was a lot closer than 15 feet?

And you still don't know if they were robbing the neighbor's house. Until we get more information that's just a supposition.

Now, about guns, after serving as an 11F40 in the US Army Infantry, I would suggest I probably know more about firearms than most folks, and probably more than you.

It's apparent you didn't notice this guy SHOT AT AND HIT two men ~ so however weak those pellets were they did the job.

And you still don't know if they were robbing the neighbor's house. Until we get more information that's just a supposition.

Pasadena TX Memorial Highschool 7th period ENDS at 2PM.

1. Do they have 8 or more periods?

2. If they don't have more than 7 periods, still no problem, unless the little shits get in a teleporter and miraculously appear in their neighborhood in a nanosecond. /sarc

So, yeah!

How old are you?

Interesting that you buy into the guy's claim that he shot these two because they were robbing the neighbor's house, yet you reject the notion that a highschool with 7 periods would not have a few of its youngsters already out after 6 periods, and cruising that street, and others.

There are even more schools in the area. Check all their schedules if you want.

Early afternoon is a common time for schools to let out ~ Texas is not that terribly different.

Now, what's your take on the discovery (rumored apparantly, but I got this from Texas sources) that these two guys worked for CenterPoint and were breaking into the house to get the owner's cash so he could make bail and get out of jail. He still hasn't returned home; no one came to make bail, and these two are dead. Rumor has it the CenterPoint truck was still in the neighborhood Saturday afternoon.

Any truth to that one.

We still don't have all the facts in on this one.

I started shooting and hunting at around 7 or 8 years old, was a member of a gun club and shooting targets (rifle and pistol) and skeet (shotguns) in my early teens, went to boot camp in 1975 and shot competitively in the Marine Corps (service rifle and pistol) off and on for 13 years, while in the Corps - I did some MOUT training in "shooting houses" on an Israeli military base using shotguns and live rounds, I have continued to be a member of a gun club and worked part time at a gun range/store.

In short, I know firearms.

I never said that shotgun pellets were "weak", or anything about them being "barely able to scare away a quail" (where DO you get this sh*t?). A shotgun is a close in weapon, period (unless, and I DOUBT it's the case here, one uses slugs).

Unlike you, pulling "facts" out of your ass, I read in the story that the perps were 15 feet away when he came outside, but they could have been closer by the time he shot them.

The story and the audio also states that the perps had broken into the neighbor's house and come out with "loot". I DOUBT that a 61 year old man is just going to go out and shoot two people in his neighborhood for no good reason.

Even the prosecutor and judge are required to consider this guy innocent until proven guilty, I think we, as his fellow citizens can give him the benefit of the doubt based on what we've read and heard so far.

Yes, the facts will all come out, and I feel confident this man will either not be charged, or will be found not guilty by a jury of his peers.

We need the total specs on the death scene. We don't have that yet. This particular situation doesn't seem as cut and dry to the guy's neighbors as you seem to believe.

Now concerning firing weapons at 6 or 7, I was allowed to fire the over/under at 4 and 5 (for just the .22 round), and progressed to the .410 shotgun barrel at a little older, but the really big time was firing the 12 gauge all by myself (at 10 or 11 )surrounded by all the men in the family ~ big strapping farmers and factory workers ~ all with experience in WWI and WWII. BTW, remember that command track with the 1/15 that led the line of attack in Iraq? Not the tank ~ he had a camera too, and when they took a look at what he was looking at, you saw the command track ~ my heart about flipped out when I saw it was #47, and I and a gazillion other guys know that one. Made me feel really good ~

Fully loaded 12 gauge can really knock you backwards Fur Shur.

So, yeah, all we have is this guy's story on the distances. We were always taught to pull the body outside into the front yard, so I suppose you could pull them across the line into your own front yard. If they hadn't bled out much he might get away with it.

Like I said, all the facts aren't in on this one.

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