Police crime scene
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

In San Antonio, Texas, a man saw his mother viciously attacked by his stepfather and demanded the attack stop. Unfortunately a sternly-worded warning failed to end the assault. That’s when the man accessed a firearm and repeated his demand for Dear Ol’ Stepdad to quit pummeling the woman.

When that failed, the son opened fire, striking his mother’s attacker a number of times. The attack was stopped and the stepdad is now resting not-so-comfortably in critical condition.

KENS5 has the story . . .

The shooting happened around 11:45 p.m. on Thursday at a home in the 1000 block of Center Street on the city’s east side.

Police said an argument took place between the husband and wife. At some point, the woman’s son reportedly saw the man assault her.

That’s when the son grabbed a gun and shot the step-dad several times as he demanded he quit hitting his mother, SAPD said. Then, the son ran off.

Stop. Bang. Hitting. Bang. My.  Bang. Mother.  Bang.  Now!  Bang.

The man was taken to a local hospital in critical condition. He’s in his 50s. Authorities said he could be facing assault charges.

In other words, the attacker lived.

Authorities said the son could be facing deadly conduct charges because when he opened fire, one of the bullets went into a neighbor’s home. 

Whoever the “authorities” were who spouted that bit of nonsense either doesn’t know what they are talking about or there was some as yet unreported negligence on the part of the young man who was protecting his mother from a vicious attack.

Unless the person using force in self-defense is reckless or negligent in discharging their firearm to save their lives, it is highly unlikely they will face any culpability for errant shots that don’t strike innocent bystanders. Yes, they might be sued civilly, but charged criminally? Not unless they were reckless or negligent in firing shots that a reasonable and prudent person wouldn’t have fired.

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81 COMMENTS

  1. Living in a heavily built up residential area I do worry about bullets getting loose from my house and getting into the neighbors.

    Fire only when you have no other option and fire only enough to stop the threat. Don’t go cop and have a mag dump.

    • While ammunition selection can go a long way in reducing pass through for hits or misses on the criminal being on target and shooting to stop the threat are the more important factors.

        • cuz he’s a fkaming Brit who, like all “good subjects of the crown” has abdicated his civic responsibility and adopted an unseemly hatred for guns in the hands of anyone not a part of that crown authority, which, in essence, holds that the crown is as God.

          Glad we shucked off that form of tyranny all those dozens of decades back else the way HE thinls would be the norm here.

        • I sure do but I doubt that a .40 S&W would go all the way to the next dimension. Highly unlikely, don’t you think? LOL

        • 40 S&W would go all the way to the next dimension. Highly unlikely

          If a 9mm can blow a lung out, why not?

        • You are right jwm. When people make off the wall stupid comments, especially about police, I have no sense of humor.

      • How about the worry this “gentleman” has about bullets over penetrating, is way overblown.

    • Based on what is known the perp deserved to be shot. Too bad all the projectiles did not hit the spot and stop.

  2. Sh*t happens, but when you prosecute people who are doing what the judicial system has no stomach for, it’s flat out wrong!

  3. That thing about the son running off post shooting bothers me. The righteous man stands his ground.

      • Agreed 1000%. Let’s see what the operative facts are and whether the media has accurately reported them before opining, either way.

        • Always wise. But this tale brings to mind a comment attributed to the late Wyatt Earp – “Take your time in a hurry. Make your first shot count.”

          Still relevant in these days of spray.

    • That’s a good point.
      The stepfather stopped so the threat had ended, why flee at that point?
      A domestic with at least three versions of events, maybe four if you include the cops version.
      I suspect there is some critical information lacking in this report.

      • Maybe he ran out of bullets? Maybe the still bleeding perp/step-abuser threatened him? Or MAYBE he fled because people were shouting that he tried to kill someone–with sirens on the way. Never know. We’ll get more info in the coming weeks or so…maybe.

    • The righteous man stands his ground

      Key word being MAN, don’t know how old the son is… A kid not familiar with laws that protect shooters in that situation might have panicked thinking he would be in “trouble”.

  4. San Antonio sucks. Shit hole full of libs. And when I’m talking about shit, I’m talking about the libs themselves.

    • Drove the loop around San Diego on Fri afternoon, in 2003. Parallel parking with semis and black Suburbans at 95mph, 18″ from concrete wall, cops parked on side, reading newspapers. Scaredest i have ever been in a car.

      If/when NASCAR needs Hispanic 30-some female drivers, I highly recommend San Antone as recruiting ground. They have NO fear.

  5. The imbecile prosecutor just opened the floodgates of legal Hell for every police officer in the country. Very, very few police officers can score a 100% hit rate during a deadly force encounter. Many bullets over penetratrate. All of these errant bullets go elsewhere, endangering other people. It has been a long established legal principle that police as well as citizens should not be prosecuted for reckless endangerment if the defensive shooting was legally justified. Now that this principal has been undermined by this imbecile, every police officer as well as citizen who fires their weapon will be in jeopardy.

        • … a position so statist it defies the imagination.

          In a nation where rights are at the center of its own self-concept, no action by a government official should be “not subject to review”.

    • Very, very few police officers can score a 100% hit rate during a deadly force encounter.

      you are far too generous. I’ll bet the same thing is true for their square up holes in paper qualifying tests with their duty weapons. Friend of mine, when he was fifteen, had opportunity offered him to shoot a cop qualifying course of fire, right alng with the bureau officers as they fired their annual requal couerse. The kid beat all of them. by a significant margin.

      • Yup, I’ve seen similar results. The left’s belief that LE status somehow magically conveys weapons expertise or requires more than a low level of firearms competence is a fairy tale.

        Certainly, there are some cops (usually either former military vets or those who grew up shooting) who have very serious practical shooting skills, as do many members of specialized tactical units like SWAT teams, Secret Service protective details, etc. However, most cops don’t have those skills.

        As such, just about anyone who seriously competes in IDPA, 3-Gun, USPSA, Cowboy Action, or just about any other practical shooting discipline, or who gotten good practical shooting training and stays in practice, will be able to handily beat the vast majority of cops on whatever course of fire you want to run. And it’s for one very simple reason: firearms proficiency requires practice, and most cops don’t practice much more than needed to maintain their annual square range qualification scores (which are a joke).

        • “…and most cops don’t practice much more than needed to maintain their annual square range qualification scores (which are a joke).”

          Which works in our favor when stupid politicians decide the public should be required to take a shooting test before being issued a carry permit. They think they are being clever requiring they be as accurate as the cops, when in reality they should be demanding that their PD shoot to US Secret Service standards… 🙂

        • Back when Art Acevedo (who is the perfect example of the Peter Principle in action) was the head honcho of the Austin police department, he was always pontificating about “civilian gun ownership bad; only us in LE are qualified enough to handle them.” I was halfway tempted to offer him a public challenge via TTAG, which would have been something like:

          Me against you on any established course of fire you want to run (APD qualification, FBI qualification, APD Marksmanship stages, etc.), each using the same bog-standard Glock 17 and ammo. If you win, I contribute $1000 to the APD fallen officers’ fund. If I win, video of the competition goes up on TTAG.

          Now, I’m not even that good, but I can still outshoot most cops, and it would likely have been a safe bet that Acevedo was way out of practice (if indeed he ever had more than minimal skills to start with).

          Of course, Acevedo never would have accepted the challenge, but him refusing / ignoring it might have made for an interesting story. (Now that Acevedo’s last job (Miami) definitively exposed him as the fool and empty shirt he always has been, embarrassing him further would serve little purpose.)

      • “… the kid beat all of them…”
        Makes me think of a couple of farm kids I met once when taking back roads just to not have to deal with crazy highway drivers: they were seated on the tailgate of a pickup, reloading; behind the truck trailed ropes tied to chunks of wood. They were practicing with revolvers — another kid was up front, and when the shooters were ready he’d take off down the bumpy farm road, the trailing chunks of wood serving as bouncing, jerking targets. I asked if they actually hit the wood chunks; they answered “Only about half the time”.

        [I couldn’t have hit targets bouncing and jerking around that way if I’ been on a stationary platform.]

    • Just this past week or so, 3 cops shot a bad guy. they hit him 3 times, twice in the legs and once in the groin. Not a single shot in the upper torso. They fired a total of 10 times. 30% and they joked about shooting him in the groin.

  6. My home defense gun is a Springfield M1A and I deliberately use A-Max bullets because they have incredible wounding potential and are quite frangible.

    • That was something I considered mentioning as I read other comments here. JHPs and frangibles would be better for common “ballistically transparent” stud-and-gypsum walls.

    • Bill, that’s a coincidence. I was just wiping down my M1-A. I have a couple of 7.62 rifles ready to run, but I keep a couple 5.56 loaded with, if not frangible ammo, at least something the neighbors need to be concerned about. If I unlimber a 7.62 NATO, everyone should be concerned. Kidding. 😆

        • I was living in Miami when some SWAT guy using 7.62 NATO sent three bullets towards a bad guy and one missed wildly; it went out through the home’s wall, across a driveway, in and out through the next set of walls, and finally in through another wall where it hit a child.
          Made me decide I was never going to live in a trailer park.

    • “… I deliberately use A-Max bullets because they have incredible wounding potential and are quite frangible.”

      Just never say that if you’re in court over shooting a bad guy! The proper response to why you chose that ammunition is “It came with a high recommendation”. If the D.A. asks why they were recommended, the answer is “Good stopping power”.

      Never admit you want to do damage to another human being, even if that human being deserved more damage than you dished out.

  7. “Authorities said the son could be facing deadly conduct charges because when he opened fire, one of the bullets went into a neighbor’s home.”

    Did “Authorities” actually say that way or was it inferred or embellished by the news that way? (inference or embellished is common in the news media)

  8. The criminal justice system has been proven not to be righteous. I will take my chances dumping the deceased naked in the big muddy.

      • Only if you get caught. Piece of shit comes to my property and does something that I have to shoot him for, bet your ass he ain’t going to be found. Mess with me and mine and I ain’t spending thousands of dollars on legal defense for your dumb ass.

    • Drop the deceased in the right channel in our bay and in less than eight hours there won’t be any flesh left — and many crabs will be happy.

      On the theme of “people are weird”, there was a guy here who wanted to be returned to nature that way when he died. Obnoxious judge said that wasn’t permitted.

  9. He shouldnt have run off- most self-defense shooting statutes require that the shooter give assistance to the shootee and inform police and emergency medical personnel. Running suggests “GUILT” and leaves one open to suspicion and possible charges…

  12. This unfortunate case shows why having an assault rifle for home defense is always a very bad idea. High velocity rifle bullets can penetrate more than one wall and still sail down through the neighborhood.

    The ignorant and moronic far right laughed at Joe Biden when he said all you need is a shotgun for home defense but when you think about it the shotgun may be the best defense weapon. At close range it is very deadly, yet has far less penetration.

    The shotgun is so deadly it was the preferred weapon for murdering the helpless people in the Philippians when the U.S. jackbooted storm troppers invaded the Philippine Islands in 1899. The U.S. mad dog storm troopers claimed it was better than using their pistols and rifles for finishing off young girls after they had been raped and tortured. Three million Philippian people died in that U.S. jackbooted war of rape, pillage and conquest

    Another sad example. In Cleveland, Ohio a number of years ago two cops, one an inexperienced rookie and the other a mad dog sadist cop were chasing a man on a minor violation. The mad dog cop yelled to the rookie cop to “cut him down”. The rookie cop fired and the bullet missed and penetrated the wall of a nearby house (the cop was using a pistol) and the bullet penetrated the wall of the house and killed a baby in the arms of his father.

    Although the stingy, cheap far right, who squeeze every penny so hard it screams for mercy, often lust after the idea of shooting a person robbing their home sometimes in the long run its better to leave, call the cops, and avoid all the civil lawsuits that sometimes follow if you accidentally kill a neighbor or even if the criminals relatives sue you. Do not laugh, one famous high school football star broke into a mans home and the homeowner shot and killed him and was sued in court and the entire town wanted the homeowner to be convicted for an unnecessary murder. It turned out the kid was unarmed at the time. It cost the homeowner thousands in legal fees and he said “Shooting someone over property was the worst mistake I ever made in my life.

    Another sad case. Again in Cleveland, Ohio. A homeowner had is backyard shed broken into numerous times and when he caught a kid in the act of breaking into it he chased him and gunned him down and killed him. The homeowner was convicted of second degree murder and went to prison over it. Was it really worth it to prevent the theft of a couple of garden tools???

    Of course all this good advice falls on the deaf ears of the vicious , cheap and stingy far right who put the value of material objects above that of human life. They actually are so warped and vicious they actually view themselves as heroes.

    • Whenever I see D’s Gravatar, I scroll to see how long the comment is to determine which Dacian wrote it. If it’s the typical TL;DR, I know it’s the real Slim Shady, and I skip it.

    • “… cheap and stingy far right who put the value of material objects above that of human life.”

      You’ve got it backwards. A thief values another person’s stuff more than he does his own life.

    • Don’t know how to break it to you man but a typical 55 grain 5.56 load has less penetration through walls than a full metal jacket 115 or 124 grain 9 mm. an AR-15 or a Mini-14 loaded with hollow point ammunition is much safer for use in a home then a regular handgun if you’re concerned about penetrating the walls and harming someone behind them.

      • To Billy boy

        Your reading comprehension is very low. I did not recommend either rifle or handgun what I did recommend was the shotgun.

        • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, Here we go again. A shotgun? Would that be for outside the home or inside the home? Outside the home would be kinda impractical. Luging a 12 ga? Inside the home is Ok if all your loved ones are BEHIND you. You see a shot gun has multiple projectiles and a shotgun is powerful enough to go through plasterboard. ONLY AN EXPIERENCED GUN OWNER should use a shotgun indoors.
          Anyone who follows your recommendations would be a fool. Again, you are showing just how little you know about firearms.

    • Dackie Boy, didjya even READ the piece? I just did.NOT ONE MENTION of the use of an “assault rifle” so your rant has no basis.
      Relax and try to read for content. You will make an ass of your sorry self far less often.

    • I agree with Dacian. It’s a great idea to keep an assault rifle, ready at the door. And, another ready behind the refrigerator. And, another inside the bedroom door, plus a couple pistols in the night stand. You can never have too much firepower.

      One should make every effort to shoot intruders as close to the hog pen, as possible. You wouldn’t want to strain yourself dragging the body a couple hundred yards. But, there are fork lifts, front end loaders, and hay loaders, if needs must.

      Disposal of the body is always critical. One doesn’t want to wait for the flies to start congregating before the hogs start feeding.

      Thank you for your words of wisdom, O Wise Dacian!

    • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, you bet we laugh at Sleepy Joe and his shotgun comment. Clearly you don’t know much about shotguns? They have about the same penetration as a “high velocity bullet.” Not to mention the multiple projectiles. 12 ga shot has been known to go right through a plasterboard wall like a hot knife through butter.
      I suggest you do a bit more study on firearms before you make mor such dumb pronouncements.
      Far right are cheap Seems that we on the right historically give far more to charity than you Leftists. But I digress. If you enter my home in the dead of night with the intent to take my property possibly forcibly, you can rest assured if I am present, I will defend my home and my family. Apparently you think we should just open our doors and let the bad guys in to take whatever they want. Not just stupid, but REALLY STUPID.
      The case you cited where a homeowner shot and killed a kid who broke into a shed OUTSIDE the home deserved what he got, a prison term. A shed outside the home is not a home.
      Do you understand the difference? Apparently not.
      Apparently you Leftists think that a human who wants to forcibly take my property is “entitled to it?” Dream on

      • It wasn’t just because he thought it sounded good that a college friend called his 12-gauge his “trailmaker”.

  13. One of the reasons I live in the boonies; any round fired in self-defense is less likely to affect someone else’s property or body. Plus, I can see them coming.

  14. When I read the story title, I thought the local prosecutor was going to charge the son with deadly conduct because he used a firearm rather than going toe-to-toe via fisticuffs with the step-father.

    Reminder regarding many prosecutors:
    If an attacker has no visible weapons beyond their hands/feet and a defender is somewhat similar in physical capabilities, many prosecutors require that said defender only uses his/her own hands/feet for self-defense. In other words, if a somewhat evenly matched defender uses a firearm against an “unarmed” attacker, many prosecutors view that as a non-legally justifiable escalation to deadly force.

  15. “Authorities said the son could be facing deadly conduct charges because when he opened fire, one of the bullets went into a neighbor’s home.”

    What’s the legal ‘lay-of-the-land’ out there?

    Is the DA a Soros plant? If so, that may have been a deliberate action, lest some other citizen dare defend themselves or others. A classic “You can beat the rap, but not the ride” situation. To make an example out of him… 🙁

  16. Had he used hollow points its likely the attacker wouldn’t be with us today and the bullet would have lost its energy after the first wall it encountered.

    • busybeef,

      Everything that you said is true.

      Note that it is entirely plausible that the defender missed the attacker entirely with a shot and that bullet sailed through a glass window. Said bullet would have plenty of residual momentum and energy to seriously injure or kill a bystander.

      Moral of the story: use quality hollowpoint ammunition and ensure that ALL of your bullets land on your intended target.

      • Hey just saying “we” gun owner’s are responsible for every boo-lit we fire. 4 rules & all that jazz. I am aware of that every time I’ve picked up my pistol or rifle & stood guard or heard a bump in the night…I support the male who shot the bastard beating his mom.

      • Especially if you live in a trailer park — those “mobile homes” walls aren’t a whole lot better than a glass window for stopping power.

  17. So now we have John Boch ranting against concepts like “be sure of your target and what is behind it” and “we are responsible for every bullet we fire” — Congratulations John we are all proud of you for your righteous stand on these important issues.

    Yes, John, in the last few years we have seen more instances of both civilians and LEOs charged for recklessly blasting off in the general vicinity of a legitimate target. But in this particular case the shooter HAS NOT been charged (at least not yet) and as you point out in your peevish screed, he probably won’t be unless there is more to the story that we (INCLUDING YOU) don’t know yet.

    Even your screed admits you don’t know what the circumstances were “Whoever the “authorities” were who spouted that bit of nonsense either doesn’t know what they are talking about or there was some as yet unreported negligence on the part of the young man”

    When a shooter flees the scene of a “defensive” shooting that certainly increases the chances of being charged for something.

    He is lucky his round didn’t hit anyone in the home next door.

    He is also lucky that this shooting took place in a relatively pro-gun jurisdiction, otherwise he could easily be facing much more serious charges for shooting an unarmed man.

    • You can shoot an unarmed man in self-defense in Texas and there is a staggeringly long list of circumstances where it is permissible.

  18. This is a case of sexism??
    I don’t think a woman would be charged if she shot a man attacking another woman. Not every man has the ability to physically overwhelm another man.

    Also is this a Soros DA?

    • Reduce the parasite La Pierre’s salary to match that of the President of the United States, and the NRA could afford to have that insurance for every Life member.

      • If you don’t like Mr LaPierre, that is your prerogative. Frankly, I think your math is a bit off.
        I have seen Mr LaPierre and find he is a good leader for the NRA of which I am a Patron Life Member.
        If you want to belong to some other pro gun organization, that is your prerogative as well.

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