Pop quiz: you come home from a trip and, before entering your house, you find evidence of a break-in. You have no idea if the burglar’s inside. What do you do? Well, the first thing you don’t do is go into the house. But they apparently handle these things differently in Texas. “Glenn Nugent said when he returned to his home Saturday, he saw a ladder leading to a broken window,” myfoxfw.com reports. “Nugent said he called his sister and asked her to bring him a gun. Once he was armed, Nugent made his way into the home and found a complete stranger sleeping in a bedroom.” You probably guessed already that it wasn’t Goldilocks snoozing away . . .

“When I went to the back, I saw that he had the covers pulled all over him, so I just shot over his head to scare him, but instead it just hit him in the backside.”

Oopsie! Alston tried to make a quick escape, but Nugent had other ideas and held him at gunpoint until the police arrived. And here’s the key sentence in the story for Glenn:

A grand jury will also review the shooting.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

45 COMMENTS

  2. I think the home owner might be on really thin ice in this case. It is hard to argue that a criminal was an imminent threat when they were unconscious or sleeping. It will depend on the exact wording of Texas laws regarding intruders in a person’s home.

  4. Felony breaking and entering. Castle Doctorine should cover this, but each state has different details. How do you think the intruder is going to respond when he wakes up and realizes he’s cornered and the police are on the way? My vote goes for violent. He would do everything he can to get away, include assault/kill you since you’re between him and freedom.

    • Boy, you sure live deep within the mind of the sleeping guy. Maybe he was just drunk and went into the wrong house. Not every trespassing requires a shooting. Let LEO handle it, geez.

      • I’m not a big fan of “LEOs”. If you let them in your home, even if you are the victim, it has been my experience that they take advantage of anything they can.

        “Maybe he was just drunk and went into the wrong house.”

        Breaking into a window from a ladder…I don’t care how drunk I am, I don’t break into a house, even my own.

        • And how exactly do you propose to avoid LEOs coming into your home after you’ve shot someone in your bedroom?

          Anyways, drunk/intoxicated people forcing their way into a home they think is theirs is quite a common percentage of break-ins. I have read about at least 2 on TTAG alone, since coming here regularly.

          The bottom line is – you have to evaluate the threat, and mitigate as the situation calls for it. If the intruder is out cold, I would let the LEOs apprehend/shoot him instead.

      • The dude really could have just sat there waiting for the cops while covering the sleeping intruder with his weapon. He should be punished for the stupidity of taking that shot (which was almost as dumb as the sleeping intruder).

    • No, in Texas you have to have a reasonable fear for your safety or the safety of someone else, or that property is being stolen and cannot be recovered without the use of deadly force.

      Sleeping men are not generally dangerous, combined with his statement against interest that he was just trying to scare the man and you have some potential hot water for the homeowner.

  5. Again, I think this merits a IGOTD far more than it does a DGUTD. He shot a guy through concealment, who posed no immediate threat, ON ACCIDENT because he was trying to fire a warning shot after going towards a potential threat. That’s a lot of no-no’s, from both legal and TTAG standpoints. Additionally the shooter is either a terrible shot or a terrible liar. If he’d killed the interloper this would have been a textbook case of why liberals want to take our guns away; the headline writes itself: “Trigger happy Texan….”

  7. This scumbag makes us all look bad. He wanted to shoot the guy. This is the kind of guy mikey#s thinks we all are. Just waiting for someone to do something so we get to use our guns. I hope he goes to jail.

    • Exactly. Discretion is the better part of almost everything, and instead this wanker gets his Pa Kettle on. Everyone of these is a statistic to be used against us later.

    • I agree. It appears like he shot the guy, then when it didn’t actually work out the way he thought, he made up the rest of the story. Or something like that. Whole thing sounds fishy, from the beginning.

  8. Man gains entry into someone else’s home via smashed out window.

    Homeowner finds him sleeping in one of the beds inside the home.

    Homeowner shoots intruder in the ass.

    Don’t see the problem here. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

    • As much as I want to be the homeowner’s side. He is wrong. Yes you do have a right to defend yourself and your home, BUT, you are not the judge, jury, and executioner.

      If you find an intruder sleeping in your home, you will be angry. That does not give you the right to shoot him. It’s a police (yes, those guys) matter from the very beginning of this story.

      If he handled this differently and/or kept his mouth shut, this could have been spun a lot more positively for him.

      • Right, his urge to shoot overrode his repugnance at having his bed covered with the blood of a stranger, yuck!

  10. Legally, he is screwed – there was no immediate necessity to use force under Texas PC 9.31 – if you have enough time to assess that the guy was sleeping, you should have called the po-po. Practically speaking though (and I speak as a prosecutor in Texas), he will probably not be indicted. If he is charged with anything, I would suspect it would be Reckless Discharge of a Firearm (misdemeanor) rather than Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon (2-20 years in the pen, or probation), or Deadly Conduct (2-10 years in the pen).

    As a prosecutor, this is not a case I would want to try before a jury. Surprisingly, burglars don’t make sympathetic victims.

  11. If you had time to call your sister and wait for her to bring you a gun you had time to call 5-0. Trying to clear a house, even your own, single handed is a recipe for disaster. If there was no immediate danger he should have posted up outside and waited for the cops.

    On a side note. This was Texas, so I doubt he’ll be in serious legal trouble.

    On another side note, this was Texas. Why did he have to wait for someone to bring him a gun? Doesn’t he know he should be armed 24/7?

  12. I just shot over his head to scare him, but instead it just hit him in the backside

    Mission accomplished. The burglar is scared — and sore. When the bailiff says “All rise,” the burglar will be the only person in the courtroom who’s already standing.

  15. If I ever get drunk again (its been decades) I am going to make sure that I confuse a sorority house at Reed College with my home even if they are miles away. Maybe the girls will just assume that I’m one of the other girl’s dads visiting from out of state.

  16. This guy is an idiot. Plain and simple. Maybe its time for him to evaluate his use of firearms…If the burglar was asleep, let him keep sleeping while the cops are called. I would even go as far to say it would be ok for the guy to cover him with the gun, from a safe distance if he really really wanted the guy to be locked up.

    TTAG, this guy makes all of us look like dangerous, bloodthirsty nuts. I for one think what he did was reckless and dangerous, but odds are he will get off with a slap on the wrists. It might be better for the rest of us gun owners if they throw the book at him.

  17. I’m so glad we have a bunch of mind readers that are able to divine the kid’s intent. I remember the last time that a bunch of you did this, in regards to the story of the Marine reservist exercising in nearly full battle rattle, the post slipped into obscurity after he had been given a drubbing.

    Then a bunch of people who knew the complete circumstances, served with they guy, and knew him chimed in on the comments section. It got pretty quiet after that.

    Stop being knee-jerk reactionaries. You don’t have to support his actions (I’m not sure I do), but saying he was just some guy who really wanted to shoot an intruder is irresponsible beyond belief.

    • I don’t think it’s being a knee jerk reactionary when we point out that he shot the bad guy while the bad guy was asleep. That’s pretty damn cold blooded when you think about it. He should’ve called 5-0 and waited.

    • WRONG!! On every count. I live in a suburb of Fort Worth. Read the entire article.

      The majority of comments reflect reasonable gun owners with common sense. Who DISAGREE WITH YOU. Quite the opposite of knee jerk reactionaries.

      1. Shoot a sleeping intruder? Who AT THAT TIME POSES NO THREAT.
      2.Fired a warning shot? What B grade movies do you watch. Since when are “warning shots” responsible use of a firearm. In a residential neighborhood. Bullets do tend to go through sheetrock, and the siding of a house.

      This man is a menace. No respect for human life. Totally irresponsible with a firearm.

      This is one zombie with a gun that SHOULD be prosecuted for his illegal, over the top, irresponsible behavior.

    • You must have a read a different article than the rest of us.

      Or, you are from a different planet, far, far away.

  19. Seriously, why wouldn’t you just call the cops and have them clear the house for you? They have guns, vests, and they can send more than one. Then it’s not your butt on the line.

Comments are closed.