Gun owner: I, not cops, got bad guy

Chicago Sun -Times ^ | 1/22/04

[kattracks]

January 22, 2004

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Three days after Christmas, someone broke into the DeMar family home in Wilmette through a dog door, stealing a television, an SUV and the keys to the home.

The next night, Hale DeMar was prepared for a return visit. With his children upstairs, DeMar, 54, shot burglar Morio Billings, 31, in the shoulder and calf, police said.

Billings was caught at a nearby hospital and charged with felony residential burglary and possession of a stolen car, authorities said.

And, in a move that has drawn criticism, DeMar was cited with breaking Wilmette's ban on handguns and with failing to update his firearm owner's identification card.

The misdemeanors are unlikely to bring jail time. Wilmette Police Chief George Carpenter did not criticize DeMar for protecting his family but said homes are safer without handguns.

DeMar, in a letter sent to the Chicago Sun-Times, is now speaking out:

Village Trustees ... Stick to Parade Schedules & Planting our Parks

Many of us have experienced a sense of violation upon returning to our homes, only to find that someone else has been there. Someone else has trespassed in our bedrooms, looting and stealing that which is readily replaced. Many of us, still haunted by that violation, will never again have a sense of security in our own homes. Few, however, have awakened to realize that they had been violated as they slept in their beds, doors locked, as family dogs patrolled their homes. For me, the seconds until I found my children still safely tucked in their beds were horrifying. The thought that a young child may have been hurt or abducted was incomprehensible.

The police were called and in routine fashion they came, took the report and with little concern left, promising to increase surveillance. Little comfort, since the invader now had keys to our home and our automobiles. The police informed me that this was not an uncommon event in east Wilmette and offered their condolences.

What is one to do when a criminal proceeds, undeterred by a 90-pound German shepherd, an alarm system and a property ... lit up like an outdoor stadium? And now, he had my house keys and an inventory of things he'd like to call his own. Would the police patrol my dead-end street as effectively the second time as they had the first? Would my small children be unharmed the next time? Would the career criminal be satisfied with another automobile, another television or would he feel the need, once again, to climb the staircase up to the bedrooms, perhaps for a watch or a ring or a wallet, again risking little?

Would my children wake to find a masked figure, clad in black, in their bedroom doorway, a vision that might haunt them for years? Would the police come again and fill out yet another report, and at what point should I feel comfortable that the 'bad guy' got everything he wanted and wouldn't return again, a third time?

I went to the safe where my licensed and registered gun was kept, loaded it for the very first time and tucked it under the mattress of my bed. I assured my frightened children ''that daddy would deal with the bad guy ... if he ever returned.'' Little did I imagine that this brazen animal was waiting in the backyard bushes as I tucked my children into bed.

Fifteen minutes after bedtime, the alarm went off. Three minutes after the alarm was triggered, the alarm company alerted the police to the situation and 10 minutes later the first police car pulled up to my home, but only after another call was made to 911, by a trembling, half-naked father. I suppose some would have grabbed their children and cowered in their bedroom for 13 minutes, praying that the police would get there in time to stop the criminal from climbing the stairs and confronting the family in their bedroom, dreading the sound of a bedroom door being kicked in. That's not the fear I wanted my children to experience, nor is it the cowardly act that I want my children to remember me by.

Until you are shocked by a piercing alarm in the middle of the night and met in your kitchen by a masked invader as your children shudder in their beds, until you confront that very real nightmare, please don't suggest that some village trustee knows better and he/she can effectively task the police to protect your family from the miscreants that this society has produced.

This career criminal had been arrested thirty times. He was wanted in Georgia and for parole violations in Minnesota. How many family homes had he violated, how many innocent lives were affected, how many police reports went into some back office file cabinet, only to become some abstract statistic? How is it that rabid animals like this are free to roam the streets, violating our homes and threatening the safety of our children?

If my actions have spared only one family from the distress and trauma that this habitual criminal has caused hundreds of others, then I have served my civic duty and taken one evil creature off of our streets, something that our impotent criminal justice system had failed to do, despite some thirty odd arrests, plea bargains and suspended sentences.

Hale DeMar, Wilmette

[chicagolady]

Finally the truth comes out!!

[chicagolady]

Three cheers for Mr. DeMars!!
And a 21 gun salute!!

[chicagolady]

Witless Police Chief Declares Burglary season OPEN!
Rick Biesada | 01/13/04 | Rick Biesada


It never fails! Everytime I get a good idea, along comes some party pooper who takes all the fun out of life.

Just as I was planning to hold a radio contest about " The Azzhole of the Month," along comes a character who qualifies as the undisputed winner of that infamous annual award for cowardice - "Azzhole of the Year."

Now I'll have to postpone all other monthly awards until next year. Sorry!

I unamimously declare Wilmette Police Chief, George Carpenter, Azzhole of the Year for declaring burglary season open in the village of liberal infected, Wilmette, Illinois.

Last week, Hale De Mar, a resident of Wilmette, had his home invaded twice.

Wilmette, a wealthy upscale town of business people, politicians and activist judges, who make the laws that create a hostile environment in the City of Chicago, than travel about 25 miles north to their safe haven under the protection of Chief Barney Fife Carpenter, never realizing that malicious predators may be following them home to rob them because of it's easy pickings for murderers, rapists and thieves.

Wilmette could be considered a golden harvest for looters because it is being guarded by a halfwit who has just advertised to every thief in the world, that burglary season is open for business, in this village where the residents are not allowed to excercise their Second Amendment Right to own a hand gun, interfering with their natural, essential and inalienable right to self defense.

Low life thief, Morio Billings, broke into the De Mar residence last week. He stole a TV set, a ring of keys and Mr. De Mar's BMW sport utility vehicle.

A few nights later, the brazen felone, Mr. Billing's, entered the DeMar home again for second helpings, setting off a burglar alarm which propelled Mr. De Mar down the stair case with his loaded 38 caliber Smith & Wesson; greeting Morio with some unexpected hot lead.

Wounded, Billing's crashed through the front window and drove himself to the local hospital in DeMar's stolen BMW.

Now De Mar has been arrested and charged for violating Wilmette's firearm ordinance, banning hand gun ownership, and an additional charge for an expired Illinois Firearms Ownership Identification Card.

The arrogant police chief of Wilmette was in the news all week defending his political stooge decision, to enforce the village hand gun ban against DeMar. Carpenter claims that DeMar could have chose a better way to have handled this situation, like locking his family in a room and dialing 911.

He then went on to pontificate the usual hysterical nonsense about the dangers of having guns in the home, never giving the slightest hint about self protection, self preservation, or constitutional rights being infringed upon. Also, never realizing that he had just opened up a can of worms and layed the foundation for a myriad of law suits, over enforcement procedure and victimhood, in a village soon to be overwhelmed with crime because of Chief Carpenters, dumb blabber mouth.

Carpenter babbled about guns in the home not being safe around children, while Professor John Lott, author of More Guns Less Crime, Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws; sites more children were killed by drowning than by guns, and most child related gun stats used in crime surveys are that of felones, do to street gang violence.

Lott's comprehensive analysis reveals that many of the most commonly held assumptions about gun control and crime fighting efficacy are wrong.

Lott argues that the most cost - effective method available for reducing violent crime would be to have law - abiding citizens to legally conceal carry hand guns, much to the dismay of Chief Carpenter, who prefers to arrive after the commission of a crime, hoping to squeeze his huge ass out of the squad car and waddle up to the crime scene after the perpetrator is long gone.

Most rank and file police officers not beholden to political pressure, hold nothing against law-abiding citizens possessing firearms for self defense.

Police super cop, Bill Jaconetti, Chicago's most decorated police officer, and Tough Tony Amelio, co-hosts of Chicago's popular radio talk show, COP TALK, on WJJG 1530 AM, will tell you flat out; the best deterrent to crime is a law-abiding citizen with a gun. They'll tell you that the police rarely get to the crime scene during the commission of a crime, and these guys would recommend rather than locking yourself in a room and dialing 911, shoot the intruder to preserve your, or a family members life. Only this past week, a 4 year old Chicago child dialed 911 during a home invasion where the intruder murdered his mother, escaping before the police arrived.

Our founders have to be spinning in their graves over these usurptations of our intrinsic rights, yeilding to bogus village ordinances, trumping constitutional protections, ignored by feeble tyrants.

How can we call ourselves a free society when the character of our leaders are marked by every act that defines a tyrant, unfit to lead in a free society.

As The Declaration of Independence states: "We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying it's Foundation on such Principles and Organizing it's Powers in such Forms, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

What struck me almost as appalling as this pompous police chief, was a statement made by Todd Vandermyde, a spokesman dispatched by the politically sensitive National Rifle Association, who used weasel words to appease this doofus police chief. Vandermyde stated, " obviously, we think it is ludicrous to charge someone for defending their family, but you have to stand behind the laws, no matter how ridiculous the situation, or take them off of the books."

It's obvious to me, that we should have heard from a spokes person from the Armed Females of America, instead of the NRA, because they wouldn't mince words as they would tell us exactly how they feel about the surpression of our constitutional rights by over zealous government agencies, with a proclivity for intimidation, acting under the color of law protection.

I hope Chief Carpenter flipped his Friday Chicago Sun Times, two pages over from his article to page 8.There is a brief clipping about a Chicago home invasion, where two guys were charged with First Degree Murder, in the slaying of Alejandro Martinez. They broke into his house and drilled him full of holes while he was laying in bed. Witnesses claimed Phillip Hatfield and Mohammad Abukhdeir, were seen laughing as they strolled out of Martinez's house, then Abukhdeir complained about getting blood on his clothes.

This is a slice of reality, and these little nauseous gun grabbers need to understand that there are evil predators out there, waiting to inflict harm, and that our right to self defense is essential and necessary.

A weak kneed philosophy of appeasement and sensitivity only breeds catastrophe and nourishment for the criminal mind.

Our founders were of the belief that if a law was stupid or illogical, than it should not be obeyed. Any police chief as dumb as George Carpenter, should never be allowed to get payed.

[Just another Joe]

Good for him!
He took a stand and saw the action through.

[cynicom]

The gentleman is guilty only of being a poor shot. Had he been a better shot, society could have been rid of one more "victim".

[ovrtaxt]

He needs to trade in the handgun for a shotgun. More cleanup involved, but a funeral is a lot cheaper than a lifetime of jail, plus medical bills for removing bullets!

[Byron_the_Aussie]

[Ladysmith]

APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE!!

[bvw]

That is a very powerful letter!

[joesnuffy]

Police super cop, Bill Jaconetti, Chicago's most decorated police officer, and Tough Tony Amelio, co-hosts of Chicago's popular radio
talk show, COP TALK, on WJJG 1530 AM, will tell you flat out; the best deterrent to crime is a law-abiding citizen with a gun.

They'll tell you that the police rarely get to the crime scene during the commission of a crime, and these guys would recommend rather than
locking yourself in a room and dialing 911, shoot the intruder to preserve your, or a family members life.

Only this past week, a 4 year old Chicago child dialed 911 during a home invasion where the intruder murdered his mother, escaping before the police arrived.

[joesnuffy]

TRY....calling 911 when your phone lines are cut and you live in an area where cell phones
are useless...
When it comes to saving your family ..your spouse...your children....its your responsibility and yours alone..
The bad guys have guns....you better have one...and have learned how to use it....
You will not rise to the occasion..you will only default to your level of training..

[Jimmy Valentine]

My only criticism of Mr. DeMar is that he should have put all six rounds in the guys chest for a job well done.

Regards,

[Physicist]

Mr. De Mar is a surprisingly good writer, as well as being a stand-up guy. I'd like to live next door to him. He's a model American citizen.

[jigsaw]

Proving once again that 'liberalism' is another word for 'learning disabled.'

How the heck can liberals even feed themselves when they don't live in reality?

[Drango]

Hale DeMar for Congress bump

[claptrap]

Anyone under the false assumption that communism is dead
needs to talk to local government types like this buffoon
of a police chief. These local police departments are ridiclouis

[Stallone]

Give this man an award!

[Glenn]

That is one of the best written pieces I have read in my life. This guy, if he is not already employed as such, should be working for a major newspaper.

[wita]

...and worse still, this perp may never see a day in jail, and may have a long memory for the citizen who attempted to ruin his day and stop his means of employment. If he gets jail time he may be even more PO'd when he gets out and attempt his own brand of justice.