Posted on 12/20/2009 4:51:55 PM PST by csvset
SUFFOLK
An indiscreet tire change may have been a burglar’s undoing Friday night, according to police.
At first, it looked like he’d make a clean getaway.
An attempt to burglarize Butler’s Store, on Godwin Boulevard, had been unsuccessful. The store’s owner, John Butler, said he heard an intruder try to kick in the door and had chased him away, but the intruder managed to drive off and, better yet, escape unharmed.
“I coulda dropped him,” said Butler, who’d come running out of his store with a 9 mm in his hands. He and his wife live in an apartment in the back of the store, he said, and they’d just been burglarized a few weeks ago.
“The thought did cross my mind,” he said. “But then I thought no, I don’t want to do it, and my wife, she was inside here crying, and she’d be upset.”
So, Butler said, he fired at the tires on the escaping 1997 Chevy, hitting the front left one. The burglar drove off anyway, and police arrived soon after.
Butler was on his way to police headquarters to give a statement when he saw something funny in a 7-11 parking lot on the way in.
“Car exactly like the way I was saying,” he said. “Trunk open. The fella was changing the tire.” Butler called 911.
Matthew Freeman has been charged with breaking and entering and possession of burglary tools, police spokeswoman Debbie George said.
And if the local DA charges this store owner with illegal discharge of a firearm or some such, the local citizenry should show up on his doorstep with torches, pitchforks, tar, and feathers.
Very wise decision on store owner’s part. Shooting someone in the back even if it is a perp, kind of makes “...afraid for my life...” a joke and LE would be sure to give him a very hard time...or worse.
I’m sure the perp will now sue and win for damages.
Hey, he coulda stopped and shot out the other three tires and the spare.And THEN called the cops.
The perp will say, “My car was stolen and I’ve been looking everywhere, I found it here with a flat tire.”
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