Not strictly a self-defense use, and probably not the smartest step to have taken, but the results were good. From the November 14, 2003 Olympia, Washington Olympian:
Josh Lenoue had stepped onto his front porch when he heard noises coming from the woods near his neighbor's property.
It was after sunset, and he could see lights that flickered off from the trees when he walked by to investigate.
Lenoue hurried back to his house, grabbed a flashlight and a .22-caliber handgun, summoned his German shepherd and went back outside.
As he crept closer to the area at 5:55 p.m. Wednesday, three men appeared out of the darkness, approaching him.
The 29-year-old commercial truck driver pointed his gun and ordered them to the ground.
It turned out that Lenoue had observed car headlights. He had interrupted three men who, according to police, were taking parts from a stolen car.
"As soon as I shined the flashlight on them, I knew what was going on," Lenoue said Thursday, saying the men told him they were repairing the car for a friend.
Lenoue used his cell phone to call 9-1-1 while he watched over the three men, drawing Thurston County Sheriff's deputies to his neighborhood in the 8100 block of 61st Avenue Northeast, near Tolmie State Park. Deputies arrested three male suspects.
The sheriff's office doesn't encourage citizens to take matters into their own hands, sheriff's Capt. Dan Kimball said. But, without Lenoue's intervention, deputies probably would have had little success in tracking the thieves, he said.
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