One had identification indicating he was from Puerto Rico, the other had paper indicating he may have been from Puerto Rico, Colombia or the Dominican Republic
In a case legal experts say may “stretch the limits” of the state’s self-defense laws, a Pasadena man (pictured right) shot and killed two suspected burglars during a confrontation as they attempted to flee his neighbor’s property Wednesday afternoon.
In the minutes before the fatal shootings, Pasadena police said the man called 911 and reported that he had heard glass breaking next door and saw two men entering the home through a window. Still on the phone with police, the man, believed to be in his 70s, saw the suspects leaving from the back of the home.
“I’m getting my gun and going to stop them,” the neighbor told the dispatcher during the 2 p.m. call, according to Vance Mitchell, a spokesman for Pasadena police. “The dispatcher said, ‘No, stay inside the house; officers are on the way.’
“Then you hear him rack the shotgun. The next sound the dispatcher heard was a boom. Then there was silence for a couple of seconds and then another boom.”
After the shotgun blasts, the telephone line went dead. But the neighbor called police again and told a dispatcher what he had done.
When police arrived moments later, they found two dead men in the 7400 block of Timberline Drive. One was across the street, and the other had collapsed two houses down behind a bank of mailboxes in the Village Grove East subdivision.
Up to the grand jury
Police said the neighbor, whose name was withheld Wednesday, appeared calm as he retraced his steps for police.
“He was well composed and knew what he was doing,” Mitchell said. “He was protecting the neighbor’s property.”
It will be up to a Harris County grand jury to decide if the man committed a crime by opening fire, police said.
Wednesday’s shooting “clearly is going to stretch the limits of the self-defense law,” said defense attorney Tommy LaFon, who is also a former Harris County prosecutor.
If the absent homeowner tells police that he asked his neighbor to watch over his property, that could play in his favor, LaFon said.
“If the homeowner comes out and says, ‘My neighbor had a greater right of possession than the people trying to break in,’ that could put him (the gunman) in an ownership role,” LaFon said.
The Texas Penal Code says a person can use force or deadly force to defend someone else’s property if he reasonably believes he has a legal duty to do so or the property owner had requested his protection.
The neighbor, however, would have been on much safer legal ground if he had been trying to protect his own property, LaFon said.