Posted on 11/27/2007 6:15:36 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
PASADENA, TEXAS -- When he saw two men pry into his neighbor's house with a crowbar one afternoon earlier this month, Joe Horn did what many people would do: He called 911.
But when police had not shown up by the time the suspects were about to leave, the 61-year-old retiree did something most people probably would not: He stepped outside with his 12-gauge shotgun and killed them.
"I'm not going to let them get away with this," Horn told the 911 dispatcher, who responded: "Property's not worth killing someone over."
Seconds later, the sound of a gun being loaded could be heard on the 911 tape, followed by a warning -- "Move [and] you're dead" -- and then three bursts of gunfire. Miguel DeJesus, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, both of whom had small-time criminal histories, died of their wounds.
The six-minute recording of Horn's anger, frustration and eagerness to take the law into his own hands has made him the focus of a national controversy. Critics condemn him as a vigilante bent on meting out murderous justice. Admirers praise him as a courageous hero whom any law abider would love to have next door.
"Why is he still a free man?" Linda E. Edwards wrote in a letter to the Houston Chronicle.
"Joe Horn gets a Texas 'attaboy' from me," countered John E. Meagher in the next letter. "Justice was served, law or not."
As the debate rages on talk radio and cable-TV news shows, Horn remains free.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
To: Miguel Bustillo, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
RE: Texan a vigilante or brave law abider
Dear Mr. Bustillo,
You had a fair and balanced story going, until your last paragraph, and then you turned it into a propaganda story worthy of distain.
To state “Noting that Horn is white and the suspects were dark-skinned, Quanell X, a Houston activist, has accused the authorities of bias. “Mr. Horn did not have to kill those people,” Quanell X said at a protest on the street where the men were shot. “Mr. Horn became judge, jury and executioner.”
With that paragraph you changed a law and order story into a racist one. This means that you are nothing more than a race monger and propagandist, for the last paragraph is crap because it does nothing to enhance your original supposition but brings race into it. Since YOU brought up race how about being honest and point out that the DEAD criminals were illegal aliens. Then you could talked about how 90% of the crime in the USA is committed by either Blacks or Hispanics. You could have also mentioned that crime waves increase with the number of ILLEGAL ALIENS.
No by adding that garbage in the last paragraph you lost all respect as an honest writer and became nothing but a LIBERAL American hater. People like you, no matter what your skin color, are a disgrace to American and the free press.
Exton
Right toward him. Neighbor confirms his version. Not the brightest bulbs to charge a guy with a 12 gauge pump in hand. Especially one that already has a round chambered. No Click-Clack before the BOOM.
But he did give them a choice to stop and just wait for the police.
And the property of others as well.
As confirmed by a neighbor, the reason he shot right away is that they moved towards him right away. You want him to delay and increase the chances that he'd only get one before the other got him?
That was what got them in trouble, but they were killed for being stupid enough to advance on a guy with a 12 gauge pump who has just told them not to move.
Excellent points...especially since at 61 his reflexes are as quick as the young ones....
That should be ARE NOT as quick...
It doesn't take long to cover 15 feet and a shotgun is not the best weapon to get off two shots in a hurry.
How long is "shortly?" Long enough for them to kill Mr. Horn? But in any event, considering they hadn't arrived in those 7 minutes, and that Mr. Horn could not know that the police were going to come along "shortly".
BTW, while they were thieves, what's important under the law is that they were also burglars.
Stealing a hamburger off the grill would be simple theft, and because this was during the daytime, Texas law would not justify use of deadly force. But this was a break in, witnessed by Mr. Horn. That makes it a burglary, which is justification for use of deadly force under Texas law.
Even so, he shot to defend himself, not the property. At least one other witness confirms that the departed were on his property and advanced towards him, when he shot them.
Would you have advanced on him when he yelled "move or you're dead"? Would you have gone onto your neighbors' property after breaking in to that house, and coming out with a bag of something you didn't have when going in. Would you have broken out a different window, as well as in? (Can't figure out why they did that, instead of just opening a door or a window, but they did.)
But stopping a crime in progress is not vigilantism, not in Texas at any rate. It's also not vigilantism to shoot at someone who is advancing on you after being told to stop. Especially when that someone has just committed a felony, which you know, and is now on your property.
Since one of the burglars was shot in the side, I would suppose that he started to turn at the time of the first shot, or possibly the second. One shot missed, maybe the second. There was a bit more time between the 2nd and 3rd than between the first and second.
61 is old, but not elderly. (I'm 58 BTW. :) ..
I didn't know that one shot missed. It wiil be interesting when the details come out. It seems to me that there was enough time between the second and third shot for one of the burgulars to cover the distance between them.
Maybe long enough for them to kill everyone in pasadena, galena park, la porte, clear lake, seabrook, and deer park. Good thing Mr. Horn shot them when he did.
“As the details are investigated on that one, I think it will be more of a case of a thug-related killing, not a burglary.”
Right, I don’t think your average burglar would kick down a bedroom door and open fire.
The fact is that this man didn’t have any intention of warning anyone - he wanted to kill them. The “warning” was just for show so that he could say he warned them. The shooting happened so quickly after the “warning” that there’s no way anyone can argue that he gave them any kind of true warning. If you listen to the audio, at around the 5:30 mark, he tells the officer “I’m gonna kill ‘em”. He doesn’t say he’s going to stop them or detain them, he says he’s going to kill them. Clearly his intent when he walked out with the shotgun was to kill.
As I stated earlier, he may have been justified legally in what he did, I’m really not sure on that point how the Texas law applies to him in this case. I just think that he is being dishonest about what his motives were. He was not trying to stop a robbery. He left that house with the intent to kill someone.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.