Police arrested Brandon J. Harris, 32, who was arrested after allegedly breaking into several homes in Pace, Florida, and was stopped by a homeowner who fired multiple gunshots at him, according to the Pensacola Daily News.
Calls of the break-ins began to come into the sheriff’s office at around 4:30 p.m., according to police. Harris is being charged with attempted burglary with assault, resisting arrest, criminal mischief, attempted larceny, and several other charges.
Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson said in a press conference on Thursday that one of the homeowners fired gunshots at Harris, and said that he was arrested after being cornered in a house that he allegedly broke into.
“Probably 20 deputies get there, the dogs are out, and he’s jumping fences and breaking into houses as he goes,” Johnson said. “One of the homeowners, he was breaking into their house, and they shot at him. So he continues to run, we finally corner him in a house that he broke into on Tom Sawyer and we cornered him in a bedroom.”
Johnson also encouraged other residents to follow in the homeowner’s footsteps and take gun safety classes, adding that they are “more than welcome” to shoot anyone who is breaking in to their house.
– Adam Sabes in Florida Sheriff Promotes Gun Safety Course for Residents to Shoot Home Invaders: ‘We Prefer That You Do’
Meth…gives you wings…!
Frikkin’ oxygen thieves.
“Meth…gives you wings…!”
And I imagined that ad playing when I read that.
Thanks for the laugh, I needed it after last week… 🙂
You’re welcome.
Hope this week is better.
Our snow is finally melting and my outdoor range is accessible. Time to crank out some 45-70 reloads for (big) grins and giggles. If you have never shot steel with a 45-70 you should try it…at least once (just received a batch of 0.458″ 405 gr lead boolets from X-Treme). Life is Good in the Mountains.
The next best thing to exercising your very own artillery.
Interesting.
Wonder if such a statement means the Sheriff could be considered a co-defendant in any wrongful death/injury lawsuit after a shooting in a private home?
That sounds a bit silly. Someone is kicking my door in. I shoot. There is no wrongful death. No defendant in a wrongful death suit. No co-defendants in any wrongful death suit.
Maybe you’re trying to juxtapose various situations to create a wrongful death. Well, if you shoot through the door and kill your wife who is arriving home from work, yeah, wrongful death. I really don’t think your wife has the tools or the inclination or the strength to be kicking in the door, causing you to fear for your life. Think about it for awhile, alright?
Paul,
While it may well be true that a homeowner used deadly force for righteous self-defense, that does not stop a douchebag prosecutor from charging the homeowner anyway and dragging him/her through the very long, stressful, and expensive legal process.
Remember, we have nasty people in government who will not hesitate to yank any “lever” that is available to them to suppress/punish their political enemies. In a righteous self-defense scenario where the prosecutor goes after the homeowner anyway (and the homeowner is guaranteed to ultimately prevail at trial), “The process is the punishment.”
That’s where the sheriff comes in. What forces does the douchebag prosecutor have to arrest you? Who, for that matter, is going to present facts supporting the charges to obtain a warrant from the magistrate?
“What forces does the douchebag prosecutor have to arrest you?”
We don’t all live in this sheriff’s bailiwick. Some of us have Soros bought prosecutors who have pet cops on a leash. The rot runs deep.
Nero “…diction, not grammar…” Wolfe,
Very true, but context is everything. Some people may have finished this article thinking “I wish this guy was my sheriff,” but I don’t think anyone walked away with the understanding “This guy’s advice can be taken as a nationwide get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Thus, I took the context of the article (the sheriff’s jurisdiction) as implicit in the preceding string of comments, and my own response.
“Someone is kicking my door in. I shoot. There is no wrongful death.”
Door kicking isn’t the only scenario possible. Not all states have laws preventing law suits resulting from DGUs.
Scenario: Cop shoots and kills offender. Family launches suit claiming that the Sheriff’s statement led to “shoot first, questions later” environment.
There is no lawyer worth paying, who could not come up with an argument that could be anchored on the aggressive statement of the Sheriff.
Call assisted suicide.
What if that someone is LE and his associates all say they heard him ID himself? Is Sheriff Bob Johnson going to back the homeowner up?
Well, he could just have a mass Deputization of the population.
“Well, he could just have a mass Deputization of the population.”
That could be quite the entertainment.
No thank you on being the guinea pig on finding out afterwards exactly what the County Prosecutor thinks about the subject. Hopefully Florida is better in that regard than Minnesota, but I know someone here that is going into his second year and around $ 30,000 deep in legal expenses after what should have been a non charged incident involving multiple persons. It is largely the reason that I have a firearms policy for liability independent of my homeowners coverage.
Home owners may or may not accept this invitation. But then, there might not be any choice in the matter.
Just like any profession out there, there are the ones doing their job and other that just want a paycheck. Not all LEO are created equal.
“Probably 20 deputies get there, the dogs are out, and he’s jumping fences and breaking into houses as he goes,” Johnson said. ”
I encountered something similar back in the late 90s. Some punk meth/crackhead who’d been burglarizing the area went on a one man crime spree in my neighborhood, breaking into cars as the local po-po were chasing after him.
Unfortunately, they did not catch him before he hurled what must have been a 50-pound rock through my driver’s side window. I was literally his last stop before he tried to flee.
Fortunately, the local po-po had a K9 unit with them, and decided they had enough of the running, and let Rex the Rottweiler take care of things. I like to think they were leisurely in their retrieval of the K9, but one can’t have everything.
So yeah, that story really didn’t have a point, but I just felt like sharing. 🙂
Are no-knock raids a thing in his county?
Only if it’s on Harding st.
Yes. And, any homeowner (or apartment dweller) is perfectly justified in shooting however many cops come through the door. I’ve said it many times, and I’ll repeat myself many times.
There are alternatives to kicking doors in, throwing grenades through windows, and shooting at any shadow that moves.
Paul, I wouldn’t try that if I were you. You are liable to get “lead poisoning”. Not to mention should you survive the encounter, you will do a lot of quality time in the Gray Bar Motel.
There are places where laws are in place making it a crime to reinforce your doors against entry. Where do we draw the line? Ever ask yourself why building code requires residential doors to swing inward, but business doors have to swing out for ease of exit in an emergency? Only reason I can think of is it makes it easier to crash through for the badge blasters. There’s such a thing as due process, and it’s supposed to protect us, not them.
“There are places where laws are in place making it a crime to reinforce your doors against entry.”
Got a link on that? That just seems extreme, even for Leftist Scum…
Let’s go, Brandon!
The *REAL* one!
Brandon’s the perp – my apologies.
Let’s go, Bob!
Poor dacian, the Dunderhead and Minor MINER49er. I am sure they will take issue with the Sheriff.
We dacians hate America, hate Americans, hate guns, hate homeowners, hate Republicans, hate Christians, hate white people, hate black people a little less, hate brown people, hate old people, hate young people, hate male people, hate female people, hate, hate, hate.
We do love us some transvestites and child groomers though!
Of course we are going to hate this sheriff!
One of the most dangerous things a stupid criminal could do is trespass at night in Texas. A trip to hospital followed by jail if you are lucky. A long dirt nap if you are not so lucky.
Beats the he!! out of my sheriff Tom “twinkletoes” Dart(I just coined that). Seriously a couple years ago 5-O charged through my yard gun’s drawn chasing a carjacker. Nice weather that day & my front screen door was open. I ALWAYS have a loaded gat(or 3!) ready. Yeah they caught him down the alley. Pretty sure they don’t want us mere mortals chasing or shooting homie the thief…
Now this is the kind of law enforcement society needs. Not one who tells people to not defend themselves.
Any law enforcement officer who has two brain cells to rub together knows that they face considerably less risk apprehending a violent criminal if a homeowner has already incapacitated the violent criminal. For that reason alone, police should enthusiastically support an armed populace.
Throw in the fact that armed bystanders have actually rescued police officers in very bad situations and police supporting an armed populace becomes a classic “no-brainer”.
I’d like to point out that, if every third person you meet is actually armed, the criminal life will be far less appealing. People become criminals because they can get away with things. If, suddenly, they can’t get away with things, they’ll either get a job, move in with family, subsist on welfare, or move out in the woods to escape the pressure. Put yourself in that situation. You’re a burglar, but you know that 8 or 9 or even 10 homes out of 10 have armed citizens living in them. Are you going to try guessing which homes are unarmed? The odds are against you.
An armed society is a polite society. I strongly believe that.
“Are you going to try guessing which homes are unarmed?”
To be effective, a deterrent must be known, must be believable, must have certainty of implementation. We are told there are 300-400 million gun owners in the country, yet, violent crime of all types continues (and is higher in some places). Everyday, there are reports from every city indicating that somehow criminals either didn’t get the word, didn’t believe the word, or didn’t fear the word.
I wouldn’t put any trust in the likelihood criminals know about, or pay any attention to legal gun ownership/DGU reports.
I don’t know about Florida but Illinois has a “Castle doctrine” law. If someone violently enters your home, you have a right to use deadly force. This is not the same rule as for general self defense where you must be in reasonable fear of life or physical harm. In other words, the violent entry puts you technically in fear of life or harm. Personally, I will not shoot until I am actually in fear of harm, but the front door is 15 feet from my bed room. If elsewhere I would retreat while calling 911. Yes, I carry my cell phone everywhere as I have a medical device that uses it. If someone is messing around outside, call 911. In Illinois BTW, trespassing is no longer a crime, so don’t use deadly force outside unless you or some one else is in danger. You cannot use deadly force to protect property, even your dog, which I find disgusting, even though I do not own a dog. If someone lights a Molotov outside, then you can shoot. You are well advised to know the exact laws in your area, even if you do not own a gun. What you think it should be is irrelevant.
Yes, Florida has a similar provision, and you would be covered. Someone breaking in can be considered there to do you harm, and you can defend with deadly force.
Between North Florida county Sheriff Bob Johnson and my Central Florida Polk county Sheriff Grady “Because they ran out of bullets” Judd, Florida is not a safe state to go breaking into people’s homes… 🙂
I agree…The last thing a good person needs to do is something outside the bounds of the law that lands them in a jail filled with nitwits just like the one they shot.
You will notice that crime decrease in areas in which criminals know that both the police and community are going to react if they go into those neighborhoods. A good lesson for the Lefties in Blue Cities/States who promote crime by defunding the police and going easy on crime. Their constituents should toss them out come election time and stop putting up with the nonsense. These are the real people who should be charged with inciting insurrections.
Example in point: Kennesaw, Georgia.
Even the LA County Sheriff is calling out wokeism and the far left wing of his own party. Now if only the sheriff could read the 2nd amendment clearly his crime problem would dissipate.
I like this Sheriff and his attitude about how honest, law abiding citizens should handle criminals violating their homes. His advice about taking classes in firearm safety and shooting skills is spot on. Additionally, eliminating these cretins will make his and his deputy’s jobs easier and more effective when and where they are needed.
Nice.
I’d never shoot anyone breaking into my house…unless of course they said something about my mommy. In that event, they’re dead meat.
jk
Gee, I’m surprised our resident commie hasn’t weighed in, starting with QUOTE…. Its his precious criminals who are in danger of being shot while committing crimes. They’re needed for rioting and burning down cities after all. Seems so unfair for someone to die just for invading a home.
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