Pennfield Township, Michigan

From Battle Creek’s WWMT.com of October 25, 2007

Homeowner captures home invader

Police have arrested a juvenile after a homeowner kept him at gunpoint inside his home.

It happened Tuesday afternoon in the 100 block of Derby Road in Pennfield Township.

One of the two suspects got away. That second intruder turned himself in and had an arraignment Thursday in court.

It was the homeowner's handgun that helped him help police.

“I came to the door, I was walking to the door like this, I don't know where they're at, they came to the door like this,” said Damon Ogletree.

He took the concealed weapons course and has Navy medals for his marksmanship. Ogletree had no second thoughts about defending his home.

“He was probably just as surprised as I was,” said Ogletree.

Two intruders had broke through a back window. Ogletree met one of them by his bedroom. That intruder's partner managed to get out the same way he got in.

The one Ogletree first saw did not. “I'm like get your hands in the air, do not put your hands in your pockets whatever you do, and get them in the air, so he put them in the air and got on the ground.”

“That's their decision as a gun owner and homeowner,” said Captain Matthew Saxton. He says the decision is a legal one. But he wouldn't recommend it to everyone. “They gotta decide whether it's worth saving their TV or their life.”

This was the third break-in at Ogletree's house in the last year. For him it was an easy choice. “I just can't believe the mentality of some of the younger kids that's running around, that think they can do this kind of stuff and get away with it,” said Ogletree.

The Sheriff's Department doesn't know if these two intruders are responsible for the other break-ins at Ogletree's home. This time though, nothing was stolen.