Posted on 11/17/2007 7:33:50 AM PST by Dubya
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.
Others disagreed.
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.
"It can't be during the day," Jett said.
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."
But that does not mean he won't be charged, Gershowitz added.
"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.
"I don't want you going outside, Mr. Horn," the dispatcher said.
"Well, here it goes, buddy," Horn said. "You hear the shotgun clicking, and I'm going."
Seconds later three shotgun blasts are heard.
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."
Chronicle reporters Mike Tolson and Ruth Rendon contributed to this report.
allan.turner@chron.com
dale.lezon@chron.com
Yes, but now they know he keeps it (a shotgun) in his truck, and not inside the house.
It's about 2 PM and these guys are shooting up the place trying to hit a kid in a car who appears to have done nothing more than back out of a parking space.
This is when the young children are coming home from school, but do they care? No ~ and it's the same with this guy in Texas. He's out there protecting his sidewalk, or is it his pickup, blasting away and it's time for school to be letting out.
You really gotta' know your target and what's behind it before you shoot ~ otherwise you might go to jail or find your career ruined ~
It was time for Mr. Horn to take cover and think about protecting himself.
He had a gun as he went outside. When that happens and the guy says he doesn't keep guns in the house, he's impeaching his own testimony.
He's got a real problem now because he's told what appears to be a lie.
"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."
I guess that's the reason he was so adamant about going outside against the advice of the 911 operator. Perhaps he feared that his house would be next and he wanted to have that shotgun in his hands instead of outside in his truck.
I have no doubt this man will get over his feelings of remorse. I don’t blame him for playing to the cameras and to the justice system, who he KNOWS could wop him good. However, according to the laws that say you are allowed to defend your neighbor’s property also, he did the right thing. Take a vote of all of you reading this thread, and i am sure the majority would vote to live next door to THIS GUY yourselves. You want him as a neighbor. And he should not get locked up for anything. The thieves were scum. What goes around, comes around — sometimes while you’re climbing out the window, yes?
The statement from the lawyer, about the gun, is one of the things that is confusing the story here. It appears from the 911 tape that Horn has the gun inside the house and is about to step out onto the porch.
I don’t know at what point he took the gun into the house. There may be an easy explanation, and it may be that it is a lie about the gun being kept in the truck.
It is a tragedy all the way around, but it could have been avoided if the burglars hadn’t shown up to do harm, and had harm done to themselves instead.
Jett is wrong here. The statute allows for deadly force to be used when six specific and named crimes are being commited. Only two of them are caveated with the "in the nighttime" restriction. Burglary is not one of them. Here's the statute in question.
§ 9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. (2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary: (B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property; and ...
A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property: (1) if he would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.41; and
See how arson, burglary, robbery, and aggravated robbery are allowed to stand alone without the "in the nightime" restriction whereas theft and criminal mischief are both tagged with the restriction -- meaning those only have that restriction. In 9.42(2)(b) "criminal mischief in the nighttime" has been dropped from the list along with arson as you aren't allowed to shoot a man in the back who is fleeing after committing those crimes (though you are after he commits the other listed crimes or, from the previous paragraph, if he is in the process of committing these two as well). Reading both paragraphs together, the adjectival predicate "in the nighttime" of 9.42(2)(b) only applies to "theft" and not the other three crimes of burglary, robbery, and aggravated robbery just as in 9.42(2)(a) "in the nighttime" applies only to theft and criminal mischief and not arson, burglary, robbery, and aggravated robbery .
(A) to prevent the other's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or
Yes - there is a link.
I don’t have it at the moment, but a with some searching will find it again..
Give me a little time and I will forward to you...
No, it does not. see my post #68.
also says you need approval of the home owner to protect their propertyalso says you need approval of the home owner to protect their property
It doesn't say that either! You are zero for two today. There's a large "or" in that statute which allows you to defend the property if the neighbor gives approval, but because it's an "or" not an "and" you don't need their approval. Discussed here.
Prosecution, you mean "just stay inside and we'll send someone out to take pictures and fill out the paperwork sometime sometime tomorrow."
hopefully, there will be no mis-representation of the statutes before the grand jury.
Yes, that’s what concerns me more than the fact he really didn’t need to shoot these guys. I am pro-2nd amendment, any firearm you want. If you can afford a full-auto rifle and that’s what you want then I say you should be able to have it.
I stop at some nut playing Wild Wild West in my neighborhood, whether it’s a law enforcement official or citizen. If the burglars were in his house, hey, do what you need to do. But when he goes outside, not because he was threatened, but because he wasn’t letting them get away; Well, that is different. He kills someone’s child, shoots a cop, and they aren’t going to care about whatever bobbles were in the burglars bag. Also, just because someone is shot in the chest doesn’t mean that they necessarily were not going to head out of there. If you’re surprised and hear, “move and your dead”, it’s a fairly innate reaction to turn and face in the direction you heard the command.
He fired 3 times, from the sound it was a pump action, probably something like a Wingmaster, the tone was too sharp to be a Mossberg. Unless these guys were on crack I find it hard to believe he felt threatened enough to fire 3 times. A sane and sober man hears that pump action work just once and he is no longer a threat. He has either soiled himself or he is gone. :)
Yet another article which does not disclose the deceased’ immigration status.
He better hope that their status is legal. There are 2 Border Patrol Agents sitting in prison right now for 10 and 11 years for shooting a drug smuggler in the a$$. There was no proof the smuggler was unarmed. His word against the agents. Apparently in the US of A smuggler credibility trumps that of a Border Patrol Agent.
I had a similar thought at first. But as I read the law that was posted above (and believe that it is actually the law in that jurisdiction) it would appear that he was completely within the law. He didn't even have to order them to stop. He could shoot a fleeing burglar from next door without a self defense element.
Some are uncomfortable with killing another over property, (and here likely not very much property either). That's a reasonable position. But I know one thing: If there were more laws like this and more neighbors like this guy, there would be far, far fewer burglaries.
If one adds the number per day murdered by illegal aliens, 12 to the 13 killed each day by uninsured illegal alien drunk drivers the total comes to 25 per day or 9,125 per YEAR...
Found here: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/ia05_king/col_20060505_bite.html
From the Desk of ... Representative Steve King
5th Congressional District of Iowa
Biting the Hand That Feeds You
May 5, 2006
On May 1st, the activists who brought you thousands of Mexican flags flying in marches down the streets of our cities are now bringing you “Nothing Gringo Day”. With help from the Mexican government, Mexican unions, Mexican political groups, and through the Spanish language radio and newspapers, the call has gone out to make America experience a total boycott, both here and in Mexico. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Just the word “boycott” sparks the image of noble dissent in the face of economic or social oppression. I think of American colonials bucking British economic interests in retaliation to the Stamp Act. Or perhaps the ostracizing of Irish landlord Charles Boycott, the namesake of the verb for all tyrannized people. If not tyrannized, at least disgruntled. If not disgruntled, maybe just bored.
Yet, isn’t the key to a successful boycott an economic or social upper-hand? The cost must be felt if the offending party be forced to reform. For example, how does boycotting a movie you had no intention of going to affect the box office? More people probably see a boycotted movie due to the attention than if it had simply been ignored. President Carter thought he was on to something when he kept American athletes out of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. That showed ‘em. That particular boycott neither got the USSR out of Afghanistan nor brought down the Berlin Wall. It just caused our own athletes to suffer.
The May 1st anti-Gringo-fest is also being billed as “A Day Without Immigrants” which is a misnomer on a couple of counts. First, the threatened boycott fails to conjure the image of a Norwegian refusing to buy his May 1 lutefisk at the corner Fareway. Second, the pro-amnesty groups are insistent on confusing legal and illegal immigration. Let’s not start mixing our apples and oranges. The issue before Congress is illegal immigration. Perhaps the May 1st boycott should give America a glimpse into “A Day Without ILLEGAL Immigration.”
What would that May 1st look like without illegal immigration? There would be no one to smuggle across our southern border the heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines that plague the United States, reducing the U.S. supply of meth that day by 80%. The lives of 12 U.S. citizens would be saved who otherwise die a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal aliens each day. Another 13 Americans would survive who are otherwise killed each day by uninsured drunk driving illegals. Our hospital emergency rooms would not be flooded with everything from gunshot wounds, to anchor babies, to imported diseases to hangnails, giving American citizens the day off from standing in line behind illegals. On the negative side, the price of a pound of tomatoes might go up from $0.79 to $0.80. That is unless you have a garden. But I’m guessing that the Mexican drug lords are not taking May 1st off. Neither will the 11,000 illegal invaders that pour over our border every other day of the year. It is a safe bet that the U.S. Border Patrol will have a very busy “Nothing Gringo Day.”
Since September 11th, it remains true that OBL is the greatest threat to America. I will leave it to the reader to decide if the greatest threat is Osama bin Laden or the Open Borders Lobby. The emerging cheap labor “ruling class” in America is the strongest supporter of amnesty for illegals. Their anti-American “new servant class” has chosen to boycott them; the very definition of irony. On May 1st, Primero de Mayo, Americans will observe, as illegal immigrants celebrate, “Bite the Hand That Feeds You Day.”
You will find more links at this page.
http://www.google.com/search?q=illegal+aliens+murder+statistics&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-41,GGGL:en
What about the shooter’s immigration status? This guy has a Scandinavian, not an Anglo-Saxon surname ~ could be a shipjumper from Denmark (like Ollie North’s grandfather).
Amazing statistics! I had not seen that...thanks for posting.
....well... Mr. Horn would not have shot these men had they not been breaking into his neighbor’s house. I hope he can get over this soon and forgive himself.
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