Burglar is standing on a ladder looking through a window.

By Brad Fitzpatrick

A homeowner was awakened at approximately 3 a.m. by a noise in his home and found an assailant entering through the second-floor master bathroom window. The kicker: The suspect used the man’s own ladder to access the second-floor window to burglarize the home.

The homeowner retrieved a handgun to protect his family and fired one round that struck the burglar as he entered through the window. The suspect fell and died immediately. The homeowner’s spouse promptly contacted police. He also a member of US LawShield and called their hotline. They got their nearest program attorney on the line immediately.

Burglar is standing on a ladder looking through a window.

Though this may have seemed like a straightforward case of armed self-defense, the homeowner was investigated for nearly seven months. That creating a strain on him and his entire family.

He was also without his defensive firearm during the length of the investigation. It wasn’t until the following year that the attorney and client received official notice from the district attorney that he was declining to prosecute the case. The case was closed without charges, and the mans firearm was returned to him.

Moral of the story: even what seem like clear-cut, justified defensive gun uses can result in many months of uncertainty and potential legal jeopardy. Dealing with that can be mentally and financially stressful. Make sure you’re prepared to deal with aftermath of defending yourself and your family, no matter how long it takes.

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73 COMMENTS

    • Yes, for sure. I’ve been taught, but have never had to actually apply, that any shot (into or at another human) will result in jail, prosecution, defense, significant if not total financial impact/loss, loss of friends, family, etc. — even in fully-justified situations in gun-friendly locales.

      I carry for protection, but only as a LAST RESORT. If there is any other means to stop the threat that doesn’t involve a firearm, I strive to use that first.

      In the case mentioned here, for example (having to assume a LOT since the details are few and far between), pushing the ladder away from the house and let gravity operate would have been a potential option, waiting for the assailant to star to enter the window and then greet him with a 2×4, bat, or equivalent and again let gravity run its course, etc.

  2. Obviously a state that hates the 2A, but why didn’t the author mention what city or state it was, so that others could avoid planting roots there?

    Strange, incomplete article… 🙁

    • I scrolled down here to say just that. Insufficient data, poor reporting…

      Furthermore, there’s this line from the article: “The case was closed without charges,…”

      Closed with prejudice to prevent future refiling against the homeowner?

      • Almost as if it was a commercial for carry insurance… 🙁

        • A commercial for carry insurance?! Seven months? Hell, I could settle a case like that in seven hours with the prosecutors in my home county. We don’t need no stinking carry insurance.

      • Oh. no, still open to filing at a later date after he lets his firearms defense insurance expire.

        Today a $100,000 attorney fee/professional witness fees is a low budget defense. Massad Ayoub doesn’t fly out tourist to Hicksville and stay at Motel 6 and drive the cheapest rental car on the Avis lot. An experienced self-defense attorney doesn’t bill out at $500 an hour and if he knows his stuff, it is worth it. There was a father and son legal team featuring E.G Marshall and Robert Preston on TV years ago and they had one of the best, most accurate lines on TV. Marshall is interviewing the accused in the pokey and outlining their defense and the accused asks Marshall how much he is going to charge. Marshall replies, “one million dollar.” The accused says, “That’s sort of high isn’t it?” Marshall replies, “You are charged with premeditated 1st degree murder. The possible sentence for that offense is execution. If we lose you won’t need the money anyway and if we win, isn’t your life worth it?”

        I don’t have any affiliation with any of the firearms defense programs except to be a member of one. The one thing I would never count on is the continued good will of any politician and prosecuting attorneys across the country are politicians. Even if they are appointed by some political body rather than elected, they are still politicians and appointed one are more treacherous than elected ones.

        Steve: Don’t count on never needing an attorney for a shooting. You may be cozy with the present DA but DAs change from election to election. And you can’t count on political pressure. A popular young high school athlete under the same circumstances and there might well be a prosecution just to take the heat off the DA.

  3. Moral of the story, besides the obvious, have more than one defensive firearm. I have at least three of each of my primary defensive handguns. Need this for evidence? No problem. I’ll stick this other identical handgun in my holster. You do have a spare tire, don’t you?

    • Taurus, S&W, used Berettas, Glock clones, and HiPoints if the budget is really tight. Can always do family transfers of redundant spares as you upgrade your collection. And obviously tons more options to add to the above depending on what is in the local market.

    • I also want to know the rest of the story,,, “where did this happen?”. Inquiring from Md. that’s supposed to have a castle law. Prior to Gov. Ehrlich families where compelled by law to egress out of your second story window to escape a burglary in progress i.e. no castle law. When the opportunity arrives I’d best move to friendlier territory.

    • Or have a very deep abandoned well at your disposal. Many of which can be found all over the country.

    • “Buy a backhoe🙄”

      No, no, NO!

      Buying a backhoe means records are created that can be used against you in court.

      Much better to borrow one from an old friend that doesn’t ask nosy questions…

      *Snicker* 😉

      • buy a used backhoe or trackhoe and there will be no record. Find one and ay cash for it. Handy if you have acreage, too. firewood is SO easy with a smallish trackhoe.

        • Much better to just borrow when needed, that way you won’t have to explain why there’s one parked in the barn…

  6. Despite what we see on TV, no DA gives a putrid rats rear-end about justice or the lives of their constituents. DAs care about:

    1. Their reputation
    2. Their budget
    3. Their re-election or re-appointment

    Well, maybe one more thing: attaining higher office.

    Those I have had to deal with, see cases, not people. They are administering a pipeline in which people are only opportunities.

    • Unfortunately, very true. I’ve been party to several cases in my lifetime, including criminal, as both plaintiff and defendant. In every single one, all attorneys (including my own) were slimy, and every D.A. sought personal gain over actual justice.

  7. Always have more than one firearm available to you. Prosecutors are politicians and justice is determined by politics and feelings in the communist states. Gun owners are looked down upon in these states.

    • If they don’t decide to take all the guns pending the prosecution and use some “enhanced interrogation” to confirm.

      • get all you can, any way you can, and hide them everywhere you can…simply don’t allow yourself to be disarmed…

  9. While not related to this specific article I believe all communities should create Home Guard Self Defense organizations to protect themselves and their neighbors from Federal law enforcement when they attempt illegal searches and seizures. Our Federal law enforcement agencies have been corrupted and justice severely compromised for political reasons.

    • “While not related to this specific article I believe all communities should create Home Guard Self Defense organizations to protect themselves and their neighbors from Federal law enforcement when they attempt illegal searches and seizures.”

      They tend to be created locally on an ad-hoc basis, as circumstances require it, as this photograph *clearly* demonstrates… 🙂

      http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7084/53/1600/Texans1.jpg

      • There you go. Georgia, a supposedly gun friendly state. Certainly many firearms industry manufacturers and suppliers are moving to GA based on their supposed “friendly” attitude toward firearms. But some single DA is decidedly unfriendly or Mr. Silva had a large family with some political influence. and Voila! Seven months to clear what should have been resolved in 48 hours.

  10. It’s probably not a good idea to have ladders so easily accessed outside multi story homes.

    This is a great argument for owning more than one gun. It would also serve to prove need for non-corroding window sensors for bathroom windows for those that open.

    • Prndll,

      I agree that keeping extension ladders outside for easy access does not seem like a good idea. Then again, a home-invader who wants to get in can break a window on the ground floor even easier than a window on the second floor. So why bother trying to break into a second-floor window?

      Furthermore, extending an aluminum extension ladder is LOUD. A home-invader who hauls an aluminum extension ladder around the yard, lifts it up, extends it, leans it against the home, and then climbs it is making a fair amount of noise which, in actuality, likely gives the homeowner even more time (versus simply smashing through a ground-floor window) to figure out that someone is going to break-in. Think of that clunky loud ladder as an early warning system before the home invader breaks your glass window.

      Bonus: hornets and wasps LOVE to make nests inside the hollow rungs of aluminum extension ladders which lay on the ground undisturbed for a few weeks. A home invader who grabs a random ladder on the ground and starts shaking it when extending and climbing it may be in for a VERY NASTY surprise. (I discovered that little pearl of wisdom the hard way.)

        • “K-rump! K-rump! K-rump! K-rump!”

          Classic… 😉

        • As the fictional character Vicini in the movie The Princess Bridge said so eloquently, “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you!”

          When I was a teenager, my friend and I were trying to flood and then dig up an underground yellow-jacket nest well after dark. A yellow-jacket was out and stung my friend within 10 seconds of applying our shovel. We immediately ran for our lives and left the nest alone for the rest of the night.

          (We came back the next day with 250 feet of garden hoses–versus our initial attempt with two 5-gallon buckets–to REALLY flood that nest. That did the trick and drowned all the yellow-jackets–enabling us to casually and safely dig up the nest.)

      • How many people bother to lock their second floor windows? Most people that care about basic security yes but on average.

        • just find something to sit in the window track…works even if you have screens in the window…

  11. From the article:

    “… the attorney and client received official notice from the district attorney that he was declining to prosecute the case.”

    What case? How else would the District Attorney “interpret” some dude on a ladder at 0’dark-thirty who just broke a second floor window–and how else would the District Attorney “interpret” the homeowner’s response? I cannot begin to imagine a more crystal clear example of legally justified self-defense.

    Note: I know multiple people who keep aluminum extension ladders outside their home in their back yard. If the District Attorney was somehow hung up on the fact that the home-invader accessed and used the home owner’s ladder, that is a total non-factor.

    • Is the DA trying to argue that leaving a ladder unsecured is tantamount to an “open invitation” for burglars?

      • That would be an EXACT analog to claiming that a woman who was wearing a bikini in her yard was issuing an “open invitation” for rapists.

        Of course truth, common sense, and justice never really meant anything to District Attorneys.

  13. Please provide some details on the city and state of this event, at least.

    But there must be many more details regarding this incident.

  14. This is where we are now. It’s sad. It’s all about protecting the perps and penalizing the law abiding victims. It’s all sickening 🤮.

  15. It’s easy to give your opinion. No they didn’t give the name of the city. Have any of you actually lived in a city like Baltimore, where you have to defend yourself and it’s not reported. Its easy to make comments ! What will you do when you really have to pull the trigger and nobody cares.

    • Served with a few from Baltimore, at first I thought they were talking tough about shooting at people trying to rob them and walking away without reporting it (didn’t ask specifics as I thought they were just talking shit) ……… yeah in the days before widespread ring cameras that apparently wasn’t so uncommon.

  16. Looks like a fake article to me.

    Why?

    Sheesh, God only knows. What a stupid submission to TTAG.

    • evidently you live in a safe neighborhood. you want to call me out . Just name the time when you want to meet me around the harbor and we can do a walk.

  20. Y’all go to Armed Attorney’s on YT so you can keep up with what’s going on.

  21. if youre a white man married with kids in america
    youre worst nightmare right now
    is an unarmed black man
    kicking in the front door to your 3 bedroom 2 and a half bath 2 car attached garage home with a pool in the backyard in the middle of the night
    because if you shoot
    the national headline will be:
    “without even firing a warning shot or trying to shoot him in the leg first a toxically rich cis white man shot a retreating unarmed black man in the back of the head execution style in defense of his upscale suburban home”
    regardless of what the actual facts of the case were
    you will likely become unemployable
    and spend your lifes savings to stay out of prison
    the scenario that you actually pray for
    is 3 white men with uzis shooting their way into your home
    because thats the one that if you pull the trigger
    the prosecutor will be pressured least
    to run up a boatload of criminal charges on
    and the only people who would reject this premise
    dont have a clue
    as to whats really going on in america right now

    • This is one reason why it’s important to strengthen red states and leave blue districts if possible. Red states can offer a level of protection against the liberal tyranny we’re seeing.

    • There you go. Georgia, a supposedly gun friendly state. Certainly many firearms industry manufacturers and suppliers are moving to GA based on their supposed “friendly” attitude toward firearms. But some single DA is decidedly unfriendly or Mr. Silva had a large family with some political influence. and Voila! Seven months to clear what should have been resolved in 48 hours.

  25. My Army trained wife and I have backups all over the house! Bet no one could find en all!

  26. I post my name .Not some fake ass moniker ,like shooter does. I called him out and told him anytime he wants to meet me at the harbor and walk a couple of blocks I will meet him. It’s easy to talk shit if you don’t work or live where the shit is for real. Yes I’m calling you out shooter or blanks whatever you want to be called

  27. In reality shooting someone, even a burglar, is often more trouble than it is worth.

    I had a neighbor who had his house broken into by a burglar, he got his family out the back door and called the cops. The cops did come but the burglar only stayed a few minutes as most of them often do. The financial loss was slight. The homeowner said he made the right decision as he did not have to shoot and kill someone over a few bucks which the depraved far right salivate over and he faced no expensive long legal fight because the survivors of the man you shoot can and sometimes do sue the home owner.

    In another case my Uncle was robbed in broad daylight while visiting the Smithsonian Museums. My Uncle handed over the wallet and avoided a shoot out and temporary jail time and possible a long legal battle. My Uncle said, shooting it out over a wallet was not worth the risk of losing ones life. The greedy, depraved Far Right would have shot it out over losing a few pennies.

    The one group of people who should be banned from owning any guns are the depraved far right who consider life cheap and expendable and worship the golden calf of blind greed as their only god.

    When it comes to money the greedy far right are the sickest people on the planet and they would kill you to save a penny and then brag about it. They will tell you with a straight face they would rather die in a senseless gun battle than lose a penny out of their wallet.

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