Several readers sent me this story.
A Texas father took action with his licensed firearm over the weekend after allegedly catching a man peeping at his young daughter through her bedroom window and fondling himself.
What happened?
The father, along with his wife, reportedly confronted an intoxicated man who was inappropriately touching himself outside their 10-year-old daughter’s window late Sunday night, according to KTRK-TV
The child spotted the man first and screamed, alerting her parents to the situation.
(IANAL interpretation follows)
Disgusting? Yes. Deserving of a good butt whipping? Also yes and add fire ants to the honey-covered genitals while at it. But shooting the guy specially when you helped precipitate the event?
The father reportedly told Harris County Sheriff’s deputies that he and his wife instructed the man to lie down in the grass and wait for police to arrive, but the suspect didn’t listen. Instead, he fled across the street to a Valero gas station, and the couple followed him.
At the gas station, the father recalled to KTRK that while he went inside to ask the attendant to call the police, his wife held the suspect at gunpoint.
The suspect, however, was able to wrestle with the mother and take her gun away. The father said he exited the gas station to find the man pointing a gun at his wife — and that’s when he opened fire, striking the man three times.
Texas being Texas, I have no idea how the D.A, will act, but I would not be surprised if some sort of charges are brought against the parents. I understand the feeling and hope they don get charged.
As for the rest of us, I believe pepper spraying the family jewels and then calling the cops is a sound resolution.
Cops: “Where is the suspect?”
Homeowner: “Follow the screams of pain.”
i did not know Biden was in texas
Title seems a tad misleading, focusing as it does, on the original offense of peeping, etc., which seems irrelevant. Sounds pretty simple to me:
1. Man takes gun away from would-be righteous arrester and POINTS IT AT HER.
2. Man gets plugged in classic defense of a third party.
One dumbass removed from the gene pool, hopefully before reproduction.
Not all walked away;
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2021/06/30/homeowner-shoots-kills-burglary-suspect-in-northwest-harris-county/
Yeah, I’m mixed on this. On one hand, guy retreated and the parents shouldn’t have pursued. On the other hand, critter had wrestled gun away and was pointing it at mom when daddy drilled him.
Since it’s Texas, hard to say if the DA will charge them though. The story suggests critter didn’t die (dang it), and Texas takes a pretty low opinion of critters who fondle kiddies.
I admire the parents’ restraint for not shooting the prevert at the outset, right outside the window.
All depends on where in TX this happened. If it were in Houston, Austin, or Dallas, the parents are in deep doo-doo.
It was in Harris County, which I am not familiar with, but because none of the big cities was mentioned (as in Harris County a suburb of Dallas) I am assuming the people, and the Sheriff are not going to go lightly on the pervert.
Houston is in Harris county, over 250 miles from Dallas.
CBM – Houston is the major portion of Harris County. From other accounts of the incident it appears it did not happen inside the city limits so the Sheriff’s Office and the county attorney will handle it.
Nullify
I caught a peeper at my mother-in-laws house, her grandson stupidly got between us. Held him for Houston popo to get there, where he was told “do you understand, this man (me) can DO ANYTHING HE WANTS TO YOU if he catches looking in another window? Do you understand what I’m saying? Anything!” Peeper moved out of neighborhood within 2 weeks, no more problems.
Bad,bad,bad shoot
I agree that this seems like the perfect place to use pepper spray. Lacking that, a blowtorch might work, though calling that “non-lethal weapon” is marginal.
The difficulty I see is that the guy did a combination of good things and bad things.
1. Confront pervert outside his child’s window: good.
2. Confront with a deadly weapon: plausible, depending on the state. In NH where I live, deadly force against threat of rape is justified. Can the father argue fear of that? I would think so. I’d support it if on the jury, definitely.
3. Chase the pervert when he ran: not good.
4. Attempt to hold the pervert at gunpoint after catching up with him: not good.
5. Shooting him in defense of his wife, after the pervert grabbed her gun: questionable.
The reason #5 is questionable is that (again, at least in NH) you can’t claim defensive justification if you start the fight. You can’t claim it if you’re doing something unlawful. The question is whether giving chase and restraining the guy at gunpoint are sufficiently wrong to nullify justification.
So, it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up charged. But if so, it wouldn’t surprise me if he gets “not guilty”; I’d certainly consider voting that way.
All in all, this is not as bad as some of the other “bad shoot” stories, but it isn’t an example to emulate.
The one piece of Texas Law missing in the conversation is that anyone can legally effect a citizens arrest if they observe a felony committed, the peeper committed at least 1-2 potential felonies by peeping and exposing himself in front of a minor, which means the parents can legally effect a citizens arrest(ie. detain for the police), I would say in this one he got shot for posing a deadly threat while resisting arrest.
Thanks Eagle, that makes a big difference, assuming citizens arrest can be done with the use of a deadly weapon. In that case my conclusion changes to “clearly a good shoot” because it changes my points 3 and 4 to “good in Texas”.
The way the media keeps reporting “licensed gun” and “registered firearm” in states like Florida and Texas which have no such licensing or registration makes me wonder if they’re accidentally revealing something.
I’m in Harris and I believe it was a clean shoot. They didn’t pursue him to shoot him, but to arrest him. Had they pursued him to shoot him, then they’d be in trouble.
They actual mistake was tactical, which was strangely leaving the wife to hold the gun on the peeper while the husband went to call the police. WT everloving F?