Video Fort Worth homeowner opens fire on attempted car thieves

It's hard to tell from the video but it looks like he told them to shove off and that he was armed. Then they shot at him. Once they present a weapon, you can legally protect yourself.

You cannot shoot someone to protect your property. You have to be in fear of your life. The exception being... someone kicking in your front door qualifies. But shooting car thieves in your driveway who are trying to steal your car is not an appropriate use of lethal force.

I don't think him telling the thieves he was armed is out of line or a violation of law. It also looks like he didn't shoot first. All he needed to say was he believed they might be armed and thus was in fear of being harmed. Or worse.

Once a thief presents a weapon all bets are off. You are within your rights in most states to shoot them.

This situation is a good lesson in knowing to keep your mouth shut when the cops arrive. Know what to say and what not to say.
 
In Texas you can use deadly force to protect your property, and that of others, from theft if you believe that the property would otherwise be unrecoverable.

From a very brief Google search.

In Texas, the use of deadly force is justified under certain conditions, such as when a person reasonably believes it is necessary to protect themselves or others from imminent harm, or to prevent serious crimes like robbery or aggravated assault. The law also includes the Castle Doctrine, which allows individuals to use deadly force to protect their home or vehicle without a duty to retreat if they are not engaged in criminal activity.
 
At 3 a.m. somewhere in Texas, you catch someone stealing your car from your driveway. You reasonably believe you can’t recover the car otherwise (e.g., police are too far away). You use deadly force without endangering others. This action can be legally justified. Texas is one of the few states that permits it. But law enforcement has some discretion in deciding if lethal force was justified.

The rub is... you fire a gun in an urban or suburban neighborhood, you better hope a bullet from your gun doesn't land in the wrong place. Thru a neighbor's window or exterior walls. If that happens, you have a problem.
 
Bongo Lewi said:
It's hard to tell from the video but it looks like he told them to shove off and that he was armed. Then they shot at him. Once they present a weapon, you can legally protect yourself.
Click to expand...

Bongo Lewi said:
You cannot shoot someone to protect your property. You have to be in fear of your life.
Click to expand...
See below:
Curmudgeon said:
In Texas, the use of deadly force is justified under certain conditions, such as when a person reasonably believes it is necessary to protect themselves or others from imminent harm, or to prevent serious crimes like robbery or aggravated assault. The law also includes the Castle Doctrine, which allows individuals to use deadly force to protect their home or vehicle without a duty to retreat if they are not engaged in criminal activity.
Click to expand...

To my knowledge the Texas law stipulates defending property with lethal force must be at NIGHT. I'm not 100% sure, but pretty sure.

Bongo Lewi said:
I don't think him telling the thieves he was armed is out of line or a violation of law. It also looks like he didn't shoot first.
Click to expand...

He said it in the interview. I fired in the air to let them know I was armed.

Bongo Lewi said:
The rub is... you fire a gun in an urban or suburban neighborhood, you better hope a bullet from your gun doesn't land in the wrong place.
Click to expand...

Bingo. What he did was reckless. But then again, he was following Biden's advice, eh?
 
Racer88 said:
He said it in the interview. I fired in the air to let them know I was armed.
Click to expand...
I missed that. The audio was not great.

Never fire a warning shot in a defensive situation. Ever.

People do what they see in movies. Those old enough to recall the golden years of Hollywood cowboys still think it's OK to 'wing' a bad guy. Or fire a shot in the air.

A few years ago I met an older guy at a range I frequented in Georgia. He was 85 years old and in excellent shape for a man his age. He bought a Kimber Micro 9 with the laser grip. I noticed him having some issues and decided to give him some help. Turns out the guy is a retired AT&T scientist and engineer who worked at Bell Labs. He invented or worked on half the shit we take for granted today.

This guy was high IQ. He was serious about gun safety and committed to learning how to shoot. He was also convinced the laser was helpful to him - and he knew all about lasers. I failed to convince him that although a laser may help him aim at the range and it's cool we can bounce a laser beam off the moon to determine it's exact distance, in a defensive situation there's no time to look for the dot on the bad guy. There's no aiming. He could not accept this because he was certain that there would be time for him to calculate and determine the best solution to a threat.

I understood his logic, but what he failed to grasp is that fighting is emotional and instinctive. Chaos overtakes the best laid plans after the first shot is fired. There's no thinking going on in a gunfight. He couldn't grok that. I once agreed with his philosophy - until I was in a situation where adversaries were trying to kill me and bullets were flying past my head.

I imagined this fellow going into his local Walmart and there's suddenly a shooter. He would draw his gun and tell the shooter to "cease and desist or I will fire". Maybe a warning shot in the air. That's when he gets killed. But at least he is later hailed as a hero. Posthumously.
 
Last edited:
Shooting into the air is a DEFINITE ND! :rolleyes: Those bullets can come down miles away and kill someone! :eek: At least one person around here gets killed every New Year's Eve from a bullet dropping on their head. :(

What about just shooting them without warning? 🤔 Technically, they would be going for a gun which just so happens to be MY gun that I keep in the car and I didn't want them getting it. 🤔

And did they just lift the window out of the frame? 🤔 Or was that a piece of plywood or something?
 
Bobster said:
Shooting into the air is a DEFINITE ND! :rolleyes: Those bullets can come down miles away and kill someone! :eek: At least one person around here gets killed every New Year's Eve from a bullet dropping on their head. :(

What about just shooting them without warning? 🤔 Technically, they would be going for a gun which just so happens to be MY gun that I keep in the car and I didn't want them getting it. 🤔

And did they just lift the window out of the frame? 🤔 Or was that a piece of plywood or something?
Click to expand...
A chief of police I once knew, and whose name I will not mention, told me that he carried three guns when he was a patrol officer. A duty weapon, a back up , and one for the dead guy.
 
Bongo Lewi said:
A chief of police I once knew, and whose name I will not mention, told me that he carried three guns when he was a patrol officer. A duty weapon, a back up , and one for the dead guy.
Click to expand...

Probably the same guy who advises people to "drag the body indoors." :rolleyes:
 
Racer88 said:
Probably the same guy who advises people to "drag the body indoors." :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Likely be something he would say. He retired and died a few years later.

It's hard to not become callous when you are a cop. You spend your career dealing with the worst of us. And even normal people at their worst. It weighs on you.
 
A legal advisor in the Navy said something similar. Make sure the body falls into the house and strategically hide a few steak knives that you only touched with gloves on for the home invaderr to "hold" in their hands after they depart this life ( just in case the only arms they had were biological).
I wonder if he was selling knife sets on the side....
 
Curmudgeon said:
A legal advisor in the Navy said something similar. Make sure the body falls into the house and strategically hide a few steak knives that you only touched with gloves on for the home invaderr to "hold" in their hands after they depart this life ( just in case the only arms they had were biological).
I wonder if he was selling knife sets on the side....
Click to expand...

Very bad "legal" advice. Should have been, "Here's how you can guarantee you'll be going to jail for life."
 
Yeah, if you have to do all that, it may not be a defensive shooting and I sure wouldn’t lay that roadmap out.
 
I think the goal is to make the investigator's life more easy and the SD case more cut and dry...
 
Maybe so. If I recall correctly at the time (Early 90's) in Virginia, the home invader had to be inside the dwelling and a weapon visible to justify the use of deadly force.

Being a small guy at 125# back then I was a firm believer in "I was in fear for my life" as being a legal defense. True or not, legal or not, it was constantly in the back of my mind in regards to self defense. Many things have changed since then, including my weight, but that one thought seems to be one of the leading ideas I hear or read when it comes to justifying lethal force in self defense.
 

Share this page

Back
Top