Pensacola, Florida

From Mobile’s WPMI.com of August 14, 2006

Homeowner Fatally Shoots Would Be Intruder

A grieving father - Ronnie Wesley: "I don't like it.. the way they did my son. Acting like he tried to steal something. I don't like it."

A scared woman - Pam Hagan: "Very upset. My sister is not able to come out of the house. She's traumatized by Saturday night's shooting."

Hagan's sister, a woman in her 50's, fatally shot 29 year old Vincent Wesley, after Escambia County Sheriff's deputies say Wesley tried to enter her Pensacola home twice that night.

According to reports, Wesley climbed the woman's fence, approached the house, and began shaking her door. When she showed him a gun, he ran off, but he wasn't done. According to deputies, Wesley then ran out to the street, tried to carjack someone, and came back to the woman's home when the carjacking was unsuccessful.

Hagan: "At that time, my sister is trying to close the door. When she came out to close the door, her house door closed and locked behind her and there she was, face to face, with a man coming at her. He never said a word to her. She fired once. It didn't stop him. She fired a second time and he went down."

The state of Florida has a law that states, a homeowner does not have to retreat back to their home, that they do have the right to protect their home and property.

Sgt. Mike Ward with the Escambia Co. Sheriff's Dept.: "If someone is trying to enter you residence or trying to harm you and put you in fear in anyway, you can defend yourself to include deadly force and it appears in this case, that's exactly what happened."

But, Wesley's father says his son was never trying to enter the house. He says his boy was dealing with mental problems. Wesley: "He was hearing voices and stuff. He was running from the voices when that lady shot him. He wasn't trying to break in and enter. He had a job."

Meanwhile, as both sides deal with the grief and the loss, Hagan says she and her sister are dealing with harrassment from Wesley's friends and neighbors.

The Escambia County Sheriff's office says Wesley had a past criminal record.

From the Pensacola News Journal of August 16, 2006

Intruder shooting justified

Officials say deadly force would have been merited before 'Stand Your Ground‘

Law enforcement officers and attorneys say the local woman who fatally shot an intruder at her Navy Point home would have been protected by state law even before the "Stand Your Ground" law.

Rhonda Eubanks, 57, a Baptist Hospital nurse, was alone Sunday night at her home on Gilliland Road when she shot Vincent Demond Wesley, 29, of Pensacola, in the head with a .38-caliber handgun, Escambia County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Ward said Tuesday.

It was the second time Wesley charged toward Eubanks.

Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer was at the scene Saturday and saw Wesley's body.

"Preliminarily, it looks like a justifiable shooting," he said. "He was laying face down, under the carport, only a few feet from her door.

"His head was closest to the door."

The shooting death is the third of this type in Escambia County since the "Stand Your Ground" law was enacted Oct. 1, but investigators say Eubanks' actions would have been justified even before the recent law.

Eubanks was at her home, and therefore allowed to defend herself with deadly force because the home is a person's last retreat from danger.

Now, Florida law states retreat is not required in any place a person has the right to be, as long as they are not doing anything illegal.

A person "has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm," the statute states.

The old law required people to first attempt a retreat in this situation.

"It's really making this a Wild West scenario in Florida," Pensacola criminal defense attorney David Lee Sellers said. But, he continued, "any scenario is bad. It's a tragedy that (Wesley) had to die, but thank God the woman was able to protect herself."

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