Mississippi: Son’s 2nd shot kills intruder

Passcagoula, Mississippi

From the Sun Herald of April 24, 2009

Son’s 2nd shot kills intruder

A woman, awakened by the sound of someone removing the screen from her bedroom window, got out of her bed at 1 a.m. Friday, walked to her son’s room and quietly woke him.

“She said, ‘Snigg get up,’” the son said in an interview later Friday morning.

“I got up, grabbed my gun and went to the corner there by her room,” he said, standing at the door of the apartment, on the bottom floor of the last in a row of Spanish-style buildings in the Granada Apartments on Chicot Road.

It was dark in the apartment, but the window was backlit, Snigg said. He heard the window go up and saw a man coming in.

“He stuck his hand under and pulled the blinds back, the blinds and the curtain,” he said. “And he eased in like he was attempting to come in.

“I fired two shots, then he ran off,” Snigg said.

Police say they won’t identify the woman or her son, who offered the nickname Snigg, for fear of retribution.

Javorous Darnell Tims, 20, ran about 80 feet from the window, fell to the sidewalk and died of a single gunshot wound, police said Friday.

Pascagoula police said Snigg and his mother acted appropriately, “taking the actions they felt necessary to protect themselves.” However, because a man died, the case will be presented to a grand jury for review.

Tims, who had at one time lived in apartments not far away, was a familiar face in the parking lot of the Granada Apartments, according to Dustin Clarke, 22, who handles maintenance and courtesy security at the apartments.

Not many people in the complex heard the shots, said Clarke, who was at the scene when police investigated the shooting and talked with residents and investigators.

Clarke said Tims had gotten his head through the window when Snigg fired the first shot and missed. That shot hit the wall under the window, Clarke said. By the time Snigg fired the second shot, Tims had turned. The bullet went through Tims’ upper body, he said.

“The blinds were down. And the bullet hole in the blinds supported his (Snigg’s) story,” Clarke said.

(More)