Waterbury, Connecticut



From Hartford's WVIT (nbc30.com) of February 12, 2004:

Jury Rejects Wounded Burglar's Request For Damages



A Waterbury jury has rejected a burglar's bid for damages for being shot when he broke into a house five years ago.



Clarence Wiggins had sued Louis Steponaitis Jr. for shooting him in arm on Dec. 16, 1998.



Wiggins claimed he broke into a house on Pine Street looking for a place to sleep. Steponaitis, who purchases, renovates and rents buildings in distressed neighborhoods in the city, was sleeping upstairs to prevent burglaries. He awoke to sounds of someone entering the building.



Steponaitis said he warned Wiggins to stop and only fired the shotgun when Wiggins continued to come toward him.



The jury took about one hour Wednesday to reject Wiggins' claim.



Wiggins served time for third-degree burglary related to the break-in. He later violated probation for that crime and served time for a failure to appear charge.

Oxford, Alabama



Bizarre, and a little old, from February 7, 2004, WKMG in Alabama:

OXFORD, Ala. -- A convicted burglar sentenced in Calhoun County to 20 years in prison this week as a repeat offender had an unusual run-in with his victim.



The victim, Richard Bussey, says he drove up to his father's rural residence last summer and found a man loading furniture and other items into a pickup truck.



Bussey held a gun on the would-be thief and ordered him to return the furniture. Bussey didn't have a telephone, so he made 45-year-old Roy Andrew Gendron mow the lawn with a push mower until he could think of a plan to alert authorities.

Houston, Texas



From the Houston Chronicle of February 9, 2004:

Suspected burglar killed by shop owner



A business owner fatally shot a suspected burglar during a break-in at a machine shop in northeast Houston, police said.



The shooting occurred about 6:15 a.m. Sunday at Rose Machine and Fab., 9031 Ley. The owner told Houston police he began living above the shop after previous burglary attempts.



After an alarm sounded Sunday, the owner went downstairs armed with a shotgun. He confronted a man in the shop and fired once as the intruder came toward him, police said. The intruder was hit in the chest and was pronounced dead at the scene.



Investigators didn't know the name of the suspected burglar late Sunday. The shooting will be referred to the Harris County Grand Jury without charges, police said.

Rolla, Missouri



From the Springfield News-Leader of February 8, 2004

Intruder shoots pair, is killed



A Rolla man shot and killed another man who had broken into his home and shot him and his wife, authorities said.



David W. Brown, 45, was pronounced dead at the scene Friday night. The couple, James Butler, 48, and Suzanne Butler, 44, each suffered single gunshot wounds and were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.



According to the Phelps County Sheriff's Office, Brown broke into the Butlers' home around 11 p.m. armed with a handgun, rifle, ammunition and gloves.



He shot Suzanne Butler in the arm and James Butler in the neck. James Butler then retrieved a handgun he had in the house and shot Brown several times, killing him.



James Butler said the couple had hired Brown, a neighbor, to do odd jobs around the house a few years ago. About a year ago, they noticed him peeking in windows. That escalated to threats, unwanted calls, and break-ins, Butler told the Rolla Daily News. On Christmas Eve, Butler said his wife was assaulted by Brown after she came home and found him in the house.

And here's another news account from the February 8, 2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatchof the same incident (thanks to Kim Du Toit for the pointer):

James and Suzanne Butler had retired for the night Friday when a man who they say had been harassing them for a year kicked in their back door and rushed into their bedroom, armed with a rifle and a handgun.



"He was shooting with the rifle as soon as he came into the bedroom," Butler said in a telephone interview Sunday from his home outside Rolla, Mo. "My wife grabbed the barrel and she got shot, but it allowed me the time to get my gun" from a nightstand drawer.



Butler fired several shots, killing David W. Brown, 45.



"We're very, very lucky," said Butler, 48, who was grazed on the neck. "My wife saved my life by giving me the time to get my gun."



Suzanne Butler, 44, was shot through the hand and upper forearm. Both Butlers were treated and released from the hospital.



"It's certainly a bizarre case," said Sgt. Mark Williams of the Phelps County sheriff's office. "It's like something out of the movies."

Or something off this blog. [Clayton]

Rancho Cordova, California



From the February 7, 2004 Sacramento Bee:

Woman opens fire on intruder



A man is wounded as she defends her home with two handguns.



Firing nine rounds from two handguns, a 53-year-old Rancho Cordova woman fended off an intruder Thursday night after he crashed through her sliding glass door.

William Kriske, a 47-year-old parolee, was treated for a gunshot wound to the arm, then taken to jail and arrested on suspicion of burglary and resisting arrest, according to Sacramento County Sheriff's Sgt. Lou Fatur.



"It was one of those nights. I have a few holes in my glass out front," Carolyn Lisle said Friday.







"That's OK, I don't think he'll be back," said Lisle, who emptied one .357 revolver at the intruder before she retrieved a second one and he crashed through another window to flee.



"I was trying to miss my furniture. Priorities, right?" Lisle said.



Lisle, shaken but spirited, recounted her night that started as a quiet evening of TV with three friends and two dogs in her living room.



At about 9 p.m., a noise at the sliding door prompted a male visitor to get up to investigate, but Lisle dashed to a back room to get one of her guns.



"I knew it couldn't be good," Lisle said.



When the intruder shattered the glass, Lisle's three guests fled from the house. Lisle stood her ground and opened fire.



"He was like a mosquito hitting the window. Every time he turned around, poweee," she said.



Lisle wasn't sure the intruder was alone so she nervously watched her back as she squeezed off rounds.



When she emptied one gun, she still hadn't hit him. And he wasn't gone.



"He was still in the garage, flitting around," she said.



She went to get another gun -- "I like to be prepared," she said -- and waited to see his next move. After tearing up the garage, he finally broke out through a garage window, but he veered toward Lisle's front door. She fired again, hitting him at least once.



The bleeding intruder ran across the street and tried to hot-wire a motorcycle, but its owners, already armed to come to Lisle's aid, chased off the would-be thief, she said.



She said one of the men yelled after the retreating burglar: "And that's just our womenfolk."



A California Highway Patrol officer stopped the suspect a short distance away and sheriff's deputies arrested Kriske.



Lisle is still puzzled why someone would break into a well-lit living room with four people and two dogs.

Terminally stupid, perhaps?

Amarillo, Texas



From the Amarillo Globe-News of February 7, 2004:

Man confronts, shoots suspect in shop burglary



A suspected burglar apparently thought using a dog door to sneak into a business was a good idea.



But where there's a dog door, there may be dogs, as the would-be burglar learned.



The canines created a racket about 5:35 a.m. Friday and woke owner Donald Lee Carr. His house is connected to his business, Carr Automotive, 4445 Canyon Drive.



"He's a smart-ass burglar," Carr said, "but he's not too smart."



Carr, 64, went to his office, where he saw someone run into a closet, according to an Amarillo Police Department news release.



"I was trying to sic the dogs on him and that didn't work," Carr said. "So I got my weapon."



He fetched a .32-caliber, semi-automatic pistol from his house and returned to the office, where he saw a man loaded up with stolen mobile phones, a video camera and chargers, Carr said.



He advised the intruder not to move, but the man attacked him, said Carr, who fired one shot into the man's lower torso. The injured man was on the floor and Carr's wife was calling 911 when "this turkey gets up and runs," Carr said.



Police caught the man outside and arrested him for burglary of a residence, the release said. The 41-year-old suspect then was taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment of injuries not believed to be life-threatening.



APD Cpl. Jerry Neufeld said the suspect assaulted Carr, who was defending himself.



"We do not anticipate any criminal charges at all (against Carr)," Neufeld said.

St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana



From the New Orleans Times-Picayune of February 5, 2004

Parish leader greets burglar with shotgun



St. Bernard Parish President Henry "Junior" Rodriguez, the victim of two recent burglaries at a house he has been renovating for years near his home, decided he was going to be ready to act in case of a third break-in.



Keeping a loaded shotgun near his bed, his chance came early Saturday.



Rodriguez, awakened at 4:30 a.m. by an alarm tripped by a motion detector he'd put in the vacant house, confronted a man he recognized carrying a vacuum cleaner out of the house.



When the man threw the vacuum at Rodriguez and fled, the parish president fired one shotgun blast into the ground and another into the air, according to a police report of the incident.



...



Rodriguez, who said he flashed a light at the man as he was coming out of the house and got a good look at him, told sheriff's deputies he was Rodney Sanchez, 48, who lives near Rodriguez on Bayou Road at Verret in eastern St. Bernard Parish.



"I've known him since he was a kid," Rodriguez said.



An arrest warrant on a charge of simple burglary has been issued for Sanchez, 3762 Bayou Road, said Maj. John Doran, Sheriff's Office chief of detectives. Sanchez has a record of 14 felony arrests and six convictions, Doran said.



Doran also said Rodriguez didn't break any law when he fired the shotgun "as far as we are concerned." Doran said, "You have every right to defend yourself" during a home burglary, adding that no shots were fired at the fleeing man.