Tucson police
Image via Tucson PD and Twitter

Tucson police say a woman helped a pair of home invaders take the ambient temperature challenge early Wednesday morning when they tried to break into her home in the middle of the night. Cops believe the ne’er-do-wells thought they would find drugs in the home. Instead, they found lead.

From The Arizona Daily Star:

The woman was not injured in the confrontation. Her home was specifically targeted in the attempted home invasion, said Sgt. Pete Dugan, Tucson Police Department spokesman. The attempted home invasion appears to have been narcotics related, he said.

The woman, who was alone in the home, woke up around 3:45 a.m. to noise coming from the rear of the house.

She confronted and shot the two men accused of trying to force their way into the home in the 4600 block of East Duncan Street. The home is near North Swan and East Grant roads.

The woman then sought help from a neighbor and called 911.

One home invader died at the scene, the second at a local hospital. But the best part of the story: the neighbor told the Arizona Daily Star reporter that he too planned to tool up to protect his home.

“I’m definitely going to get a gun to protect myself, too,” said Jay Spencer, a neighbor who has lived in the area for about seven months.

Spencer said that in the short time he has lived there, he already has caught a man attempting to break into the rear of his home. When police arrived, the man had already fled, he said.

Nothing like a “come to Jesus” moment to motivate people to go out and buy the great equalizer. This has been another successful defensive gun use brought to you by the right to keep and bear arms.

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110 COMMENTS

  1. “It is unclear if the woman will face charges, Dugan said.”

    For what offense? Did the noise of her defensive gunfire disturb the peace?

    “I’m definitely going to get a gun to protect myself, too,” said Jay Spencer, a neighbor who has lived in the area for about seven months.

    Luckily for Mr. Spencer he is pretty well surrounded by local gun shops:
    https://goo.gl/maps/2s2X5SoyeXiRtLre8

    So, problem easily solved!

    • “unclear if the woman will face charges”….

      How about “Maintaining an attractive nuisance”. She kept a home with stuff in it. Obviously, bait for the poor unsuspecting vic/perps.

      • I think you just invented a catchy new word. Criminals who die in the couse of committing felonies should be called “vicperps”.

        Also while “ambient temperature” sounds quite erudite, I prefer “room temperature challenge”.

      • Residence Baiting. Thanks for the tip! Now removing bird seed containers from garage to avoid break ins from angry birds this winter! Human brain vs. Bird rain in this instance were identical. Kevin 66

    • The closest of those gun shops is 2 hours away from Tucson but I’d bet Tucson has its own gun shops

      • Huh? When I click that Google Maps link it centers on the street in Tucson with the locations of a bunch of gun shops around it.

        Does it not work right for you?

      • Tucson is known as one of the most 2 nd. amendment friendly locals in Arizona,although there are plenty around the state,great state to reside in.

        • Tucson is kind of a mixed bag. The city government is anti-gun and has tried multiple times to challenge State Preemption on gun laws. But the population has many pro-gun people, and of course there is a large military presence too.

    • “For what offense?”

      First, welcome to America. It’s always nice to meet foreigners apparently from slave countries who are utterly baffled by the concept of civil rights and due process.

      See, in this case, we have two individuals who appear to have been shot dead by this woman. In many cultures, it would be sufficient to take her story at face value. Just have some third watch flatfoot draw the chalk outline, write up the report, feed that storyline to the newbie reporter covering the local police beat, and call it a night. Done and done. Well.

      Unfortunately………that half-ass, slapdash approach to law enforcement is apt to leave a lot of sins undiscovered and a lot of victimizers unpunished. Thus, as a matter of course, homicides are investigated as to the facts, then presented to grand juries as to the law to determine whether the actions taken constitute a crime.

      We don’t just let first responders at zero dark thirty on someone’s back porch make the immediate and final determination as to what happened.

      • You left our the Grand Jury deciding on your fate, how many will be pro-gun and how many will be anti-gun? Then the actual jury by your peers, I doubt your will find a group of 15 (including alternates) of pro-Second Amendment people for that jury. Even what we view as a clear cut case could be muddied up.

        If there were actually illegal drugs in the house, in some states that makes a difference as well.

        And let’s not forget the cost of that self defense trial. even if you have legal insurance, your life will take a hit in lost work, time incarcerated, lost income and social stigmatism which will be tagged on you for the rest of your life. People charged show up as headlines, people cleared show up as a one inch note in a page of court cases.

        Still better in the US than anywhere else.

      • Not every state does things that way. In my state a uniform takes your statement and hands it to a detective. The detective will speak to you, and if they find you credible, they will return your firearm and close the case.

    • Per the original source materials, she was dealing narcotics and hallucinogens. If there are charges, it will be related to that.

  2. This is not a “Come to Jesus” moment. Rather it is a sobering reminder of how violent firearms are. The Jethro’s and Hillbillies will cheer this moment. But for the majority of the civilized world it is another example of the over aggressive nature of the American culture. In a normal world a person when threatened would simply pick up the phone and call 911. There is no need for violence in our society. A socialist society is not only a just society, it is a society based on peace and equality. POC are especially vulnerable to the violent firearm acts that are so common in America. But there is a light on the horizon. After Trump is impeached in November, Nancy Pelosi will come into power as the replacement for the president. She will as per the wishes of the American people begin the process for confiscation of all firearms. POC like BLM and ANTIFA will aid her by becoming an informant network for all those who would not comply to the law. We will have peace and harmony by 2021 if all goes well.

      • He’s not the real Vlad (you can tell because the real Vlad has a specific avatar), but he likes to impersonate and post funny stuff to make the real Vlad look like a doof. It’s all in good fun, and all with /sarc by default.

        • You are correct, I believe this is not our friend Vlad.

          This is some member of the POTG, who thinks they are being entertaining by-posting this narrative and attributing it to Vlad.

          Of course, there’s a much deeper meaning here.

          The poster thinks he is ridiculing liberals, but he is actually expressing his innermost thoughts and feelings.

          His subconscious is using this opportunity to speak the truth, it is indeed fascinating.

          It is similar to the posters who make Homo-erotic jokes in their comments, you don’t speak of it unless you’re thinking about it.

          As my friend Laney would say, fascinating.

        • @ Miner49er.

          “Of course, there’s a much deeper meaning here.
          The poster thinks he is ridiculing liberals, but he is actually expressing his innermost thoughts and feelings.
          His subconscious is using this opportunity to speak the truth, it is indeed fascinating.”

          Wow. You’re really insane if this is your thought process. Like REALLY insane. I don’t think I’ve read a more obtuse statement. It was like reading the denials of Jerry Sanduski. Of course you’re probably related to him. Wow. Just wow.

    • Those who are committing a violent crime, a home invasion, have no place to demand civilized behavior in response.

    • go spout your communist bullshit elsewhere when you decide to take someone else’s property you sign your death warrant. if you do not value your own life ,it is not my fault if you get stupid and try to rob me. CALL THIS A CIVIC IMPROVEMENT ,and go from there..

    • Who left the ‘clown door’ open again?

      man you are funny so when somebody comes to your home and tries to break in?
      do you help them and give them all your best stuff and some cash?

      if not —-you are not a comrade and must be reeducated!

    • Yeah the real Vlad is finally back. He just got out after being busted for child porn. He lost his right to vote and isn’t happy about that. But it really doesn’t make any difference anyway because he would just vote for leftists and their ideology is failing all over the globe. He’s really in a foul mood cause he allowed to take his Ellie Mae doll.

    • So much crap in one post…where to begin?

      “violent firearms”…PEOPLE are violent…tools are neutral.

      You are conveniently forgetting that the next in line is NOT the Speaker of the House.

      A Socialist / Communist society is a strict two-tier system…the very Elite at the top and the rest are the 99+% that are proles.

      It appears that most members of ANTIFA are not POC as you blithely claim.

      “Informant network”…how very Stasi or Brownshirt of you (and you consider this to be justice?)

      “peace and harmony” Really, immediately after the election…even before the swearing in ceremony in 2021? You realize that peace and harmony are subjective terms and your interpretation is based on surrendering Rights that the United States embodies.

      On a final note: if the USA is such a horrible place to live then why do millions of people from almost every nation on earth try to enter illegally every year?

      One more thought about your “beliefs”…if “we must do something for the children” why do the progressives so fervently practice the dismemberment and murder of children, who are not able to speak in defense of themselves, while still in their mother’s wombs?

      • Chill. The real Vlad hasn’t been seen here for several weeks, so Zimmerman may have finally blocked his IP to stop the insanity. This guy’s just an impersonator having fun by picking up the baton and poking fun at how insane the real Vlad was.

        • …and here I thought the Bloomberg troll was back. Meh, fake or not I enjoyed drafting a response to the perceived BS it contained.

      • Communism/Socialism is a very nice gig if you’re at the top, or one tier down. In the USSR they were called “apparatchiks”. In the US, they’re called by names like “Senior Executive Service, or GS-18”.

        Remember in the early 1990’s when all of the hot Russian women suddenly started popping up? They were being “kept” by the apparatchiks in their dachas(Russian Vacation House). After the collapse they hit the open market.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWAKtYGJZSM

        • “After the collapse they hit the open market.”
          How amusing, it was the Soviet women who were keeping the spark of Capitalism alive during all those Communist years. And I thought they were just amazing snipers.

    • “This is not a “Come to Jesus” moment. Rather it is a sobering reminder of how violent firearms are.”
      ————————-

      I stopped reading right there, have no idea what else you said.

      Firearms are not violent. Nor are they peaceful. Violence is a behavior and only a person has behavior.

    • Wait until they climb in YOUR window in the middle of the night Vlad. See if you’re so Liberal when they violate the one space where you and your Ladyboy should be allowed to feel safe.

      • Oops! I read to much into that comment. Had flashbacks from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Specifically the scene where Dr. Frank N. Furter “violates that one space” for both Brad Majors and Janet Weiss.

    • You fkn jacka$$…. Get your filthy a$$ back across that border before I call ICE on you and your fruit picking mother…fkr

    • I’m curious. Have you ever had any sort of relationship with reality? Or, have you spent your entire life lost in your socialist dream world?

      • He (depending on the day-by-day gender fluid spectrum) has spent his entire life in the basement with a copy of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, a large box of astroglide, and an internet connection.

    • this is either the best tongue-in-cheek satire I’ve ever seen, or some real heavy kool-aid drivel. I can’t determine which, so I say hats off to you my friend, either way this is some master class trolling

    • I will admit I usually stay out of squabbling matches, but I am curious; Do you write things about how the government in Mexico can’t take out the drug lords because they drug Lords are too well armed and during the fire fight the locals can only hide because they are also unarmed? You often speak out about the detriment firearms cause a society but you never comment about the 200,000 to 500,000 times a year a firearm is used to stop a violent encounter, often no even being fired.

      In Chicago there are over 500 victims of gun violence a year, mostly because the law abiding citizen can protect their home. Find a way to disarm the criminal, then we can talk about gun control for law abiding citizens. ‘Till then, gun control is using firearms legally and hitting what you aim at.

      • That was weird, I selected “reply” to what Vlad wrote, but it ended up here. Smart phone my butt. Next time I will wait till I get to a PC.

    • yea dial 911 and when the cops do show up they find you laying there dead -while the bad guys are already gone -NO THANKS

    • I relize that this is sarcasm, but here’s couple of points anyways.
      POC are especially vulnerable to impulse to commit violent crimes.
      As someone who lived in and remembers socialism, all I can tell you is – you have no idea how shitty live in socialism is. Yes, equally miserable for all, except top Party functionaries.

    • Those who call 911 and dont have their own gun are likely going to die. Thats not over aggressive. Thats simply defending yourself. I wonder why the rest of the world abdicates thier responsibility towards thier own defense and defending thier families? Why they die cowards deaths?

  5. Good job lady👏👏👍
    I’m sure the defense lawyers in the area are the only ones outraged about the outcome.
    No moola for them.

    • Good point. Next up to dominate the news cycle…all the relatives and friends who will moan how mis-understood these two fine, upstanding young men were. Oh yeah, while also condemning this woman for killing them. She should have nicely submitted to rape, a brutal beat down, possibly death, while they help themselves to her possessions.

  7. Mr. Boch

    That was the perfect opener to the article.

    “Tucson police say a woman helped a pair of home invaders take the ambient temperature challenge early Wednesday morning when they tried to break into her home in the middle of the night. Cops believe the ne’er-do-wells thought they would find drugs in the home. Instead, they found lead.”

  8. Lead is very toxic when injected at high velocity directly into vital organs. Every person who wants a gun should be able to buy one, screw the government permission slip. Buy, Train, Keep, & Carry.

    • ACTUALLY there are plenty of people/ areas of every city where, where they don’t need guns….
      Apart from “those people “, you’re right….. every HUMAN deserves to own firearms….

      *this has been a public service announcement brought to you by W.A.S.P.*

      • “ACTUALLY there are plenty of people/ areas of every city where, where they don’t need guns….”

        Yeah, the real estate is so expensive it tends to keep the gang-bangers and common thugs out of the area.

        The rest of us live and work where human predators roam.

        I’ll tell you what, ‘greta’, you go right on ahead and “just lay there and enjoy it”. I’ll fight back.

        It’s all about choice. We choose not to be victims. You’re welcome to fake an orgasm for your rapist. My body, my choice.

        You really are a special kind of stupid, aren’t you, honey?

  9. “Detectives said in the court document that two “spent” .38 caliber shell casings were recovered from the property. Other items taken by police included: a Remington 870 shotgun; two .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Special Revolvers; a knife; suspected psilocybin mushrooms; LSD sheets and tablets; marijuana seeds; packaging materials; and a vacuum sealer, according to the document.

    Pills suspected to be Xanax, a knife sheath and duffel bags were taken from a vehicle apparently used by the two slain men, according to the document.

    The woman has not been charged with a crime.”

      • Depends on the amount. Looking up the AZ statutes… they’re strange.

        The mushrooms are odd and I don’t really get the way AZ deal with them but they don’t seem to deal with them very specifically as a “named” drug. It seems that this means they just fall under the “dangerous drugs” rules which covers everything that’s illegal/controlled except marijuana.

        LSD possession is a felony but a charge for intent to distribute/sell requires ~50 hits or “half a milliliter” (see ARS) in your possession… which is retarded because LSD is a solid so half a milliliter, by definition, has to be in solution meaning that a bunch of the liquid is not LSD. But…. AZ laws mention LSD as a big no-no by name and it comes with harsher penalties. In AZ the legislature has a particular hard-on for certain drugs in their legal code, and they name them. Meth, GHB, LSD, Flunitrazepam (roofies aka Rohypnol) and Ketamine (but interestingly, from a chemist’s point of view they ignore PCP in this regard). In other words: drugs they consider “date rape” drugs (though I’ve not heard of someone using K as a date rape drug, it would make a certain amount of sense to do so), meth and LSD.

        Long story short, AZ has some very odd laws but when you look at all the ways you can catch breaks for possession, and even for first time sale, it’s entirely possible that if she doesn’t have a prior record and she keeps her nose clean that she actually walks away from this basically unscathed save for some fines and a time period where she can’t get in trouble at all. Unless they’ve got her for a salable quantity of LSD in which case they’re probably going to nail her to a cross.

        The wording of the law does make one wonder how exactly the state proposes to regulate blotter acid though… I’m sure they have some method but reading through the ARS… seems like a competent lawyer could probably legalese you out of a charge for a possession of LSD if it was any form other than liquid.

        Damn, this was a nice post from my point of view. Got to add a like eight words to my computer’s dictionary.

        • ” …which is retarded because LSD is a solid so half a milliliter, by definition, has to be in solution meaning that a bunch of the liquid is not LSD.”

          Probably a “saturated solution”, IE, the maximum amount dissolved at a specific temperature.

          And it appears Lysergic acid diethylamide is soluble in ethanol as well as water :

          https://www.reddit.com/r/LSD/comments/5ecfy8/lsd_solubility_in_h2o_minimum_h2o_needed/

          The internet is pretty fvcking cool. Learn all kinds of stuff… 😉

    • I don’t know AZ law, but in FL self defense and all the legal presumptions flies out the window if engaged in illegal activity. Takes jumping through quite a few hoops at that point to regain the right to self defense.

        • It’s the state that we live in. Fla recently changed our self-defense laws to where you can’t claim self-defense, if for almost ANY reason if you have been found doing something illegal. As one 2nd amendment lawyer said; parking ticket, J-walking, pull the tag off of your mattress, or any one of the 10,000 laws that you may break just getting out of bed in the morning. It isn’t really well known except for the lawyers who regularly deal with self-defense. It was another “we’ve got to DO SOMETHING” gift (like the red-flag law) from governor Skeletor just before he left for the DC Swamp. Supposedly an attempt to keep drug dealers from using the SYG or Castle Doctrine defense when they get robbed.
          But like a lot of this piling-on law crap it ends up biting the honest gun-owner in the butt. Only a sympathetic DA will keep you out of jail, IF you kiss his ring and butt during the legal process. And then only if he doesn’t need your hide tacked to the wall to get re-elected.

    • It depends on how the prosecutor looks at this incident.

      In states with a felony murder statute, if someone is killed while other Felonies are being committed, everybody catches a murder charge.

      If she was trafficking in drugs, and maintaining a residence for the purpose of drug dealing, she was committing multiple felonies. If this killing was related to her drug felonies, she may be charged with murder times two.

  10. lead poisoning:
    the number 1 killer of neer do wells
    also the number 1 preventable type of death in america right now

    • And abortion ‘doctors’ don’t celibate death? The New York left had a massive celebration with post birth abortion.

    • “Trump was not dewly elected ”

      Bullshit. Trump was duly elected according to our Constitution. A miserable reality, a catastrophe for our Republic. As awful as it would have been had Clinton won instead. Pretending reality isn’t real will not make any of this shit show easier.

      “The gun community is celebrating death. ”

      People can get a bit demonstrative in cheering for the side of law and order. But it is a celebration of good over evil, not of death.

      • Education. Apparently not a thing anymore..

        I wonder if it advocates for free college for all, when not trolling TTAG. Would be ironic, biggly.

    • Actually, they were celebrating a drug dealer successfully protecting their operation.

      It is interesting to see so many POTG congratulating the drug dealer on successfully killing two individuals in order to protect her stash.

      The posters on this forum were so intent on perpetuating their narrative, they failed to wait an appropriate period of time to more fully understand exactly what happened in the situation.

      Fascinating.

      • 1) We don’t know that she was dealing anything. We know that they allege she was caught with these things and in an unspecified quantity.

        Reading AZ law there is no amount of LSD or mushrooms that would be legal to possess but they do make a distinction between personal use and salable amounts. However, if she was caught with a hit of acid and gram of shrooms she’d still be hit with charges for possession but not distribution.

        2) There’s nothing wrong with what this woman did in terms of self-defense. Even being convicted of a serious crime doesn’t negate your right to defend yourself. From the victim’s point of view there is no difference between someone coming after your drugs or coming after your Rolex. They threatened her with lethal force and they died for it. Why exactly they did that isn’t material.

        3) Some of us, like myself, would argue that the woman in this instance has in fact committed no real crime in our eyes because the drugs should be legal in the first place. Especially drugs like this which are non-addictive, and in fact cannot be addictive, because of the way they interact with your brain.

        Honestly, yeah, I’ll defend her on both grounds individually and if they’re combined. It’s a free country so the only way, in my mind, that you can harm someone with drugs is if you force the drugs on them against their will.

        • It depends on how the prosecutor looks at this incident.

          In states with a felony murder statute, if someone is killed while other Felonies are being committed, everybody catches a murder charge.

          If she was trafficking in drugs, and maintaining a residence for the purpose of drug dealing, she was committing multiple felonies. The reporting mentions ’sheets of LSD’, that usually means 25 to 100 individual doses. If this killing was related to her drug felonies, she may be charged with murder times two.

        • Well said, strychnine.
          What we like about this story is not 2 dead guys, it’s the one unharmed home owner. I couldn’t care less about her drugs.

  12. Seems to me that just having warm fuzzy… lets all hold hands and get along and HOPE and PRAY that nothing bad happens should be enough RIGHT??? I mean GUNS. They’re loud and complicated and goodness, I wouldn’t want to hurt someone!

  13. “A socialist society is not only a just society, it is a society based on peace and equality.”

    Did somebody forget to tell Venezuela??????

    Best comment I’ve seen all year.

  15. A couple of interesting updates I found over at Tuscon.com

    The deceased perps were both shot with a .38, and it looks like one shot each, based on the police statement of recovering “two spent shells”. She had another .38 in the house, and a Remington 870 shotty.

    On a darker note, it looks like there *were* considerable amounts of drugs in the home. The police found LSD sheets, psilocybin mushrooms, etc. and various paraphernalia (vacuum sealers, etc.). It’s probably why the perps hit her house. The cops found Xanax in their car, so they may have been either dealers or dopeheads (or both) looking to score.

    Still a legit DGU, IMHO. Whatever else she may be involved in, she had the right to defend herself against a pair of men breaking into her house in the middle of the night. Though she may well end up losing that right if she’s charged and convicted on serious drug charges.

    https://tucson.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/drugs-guns-found-in-home-of-tucson-woman-who-shot/article_1e23a3c8-5dcb-5db4-9bff-f3e5295fe5c3.html

  16. Me & my Chiladas & fireball, nuff said , screw off, the lady did good. They won’t bother nobody again…good ending….Cheers 🍺🍺🥃

  17. I predict this will be ruled a bad shoot. The perps were breaking in, not already in.. they were fertilizing the backyard, not the kitchen floor.. so she opened up on them before they posed a lethal threat. Good shot placement though, single round each.. wonder if it was a 38 spc or a 38acp since news generally can’t tell the difference. since they found spent shells, I would think an semiauto..

    • My uncle the judge told me, long ago, when you shoot someone climbing in your window, make dang sure they fall IN to the house.

      • My lawyer…also a judge said waiting until they are inside isn’t necessary and dragging them in the house is tampering with evidence. The law says (in short) if you or someone you are with feels they are in physical danger, then lethal force may be used. The Washington State RCWs say NOTHING about a person breaking in and entering or breaking in before stopping the threat. Personally since I even home carry much of the time, I’ll wait until that point that I am damn sure they are breaking in and not just some drunk beating on the door of the wrong house at which time I have a variety of 30 caliber semi-auto weapons that I’d be all too thrilled to use.
        Your states specific statutes may vary. Check your laws before shooting.

        RCW 9A.16.050
        Homicide—By other person—When justifiable.
        Homicide is also justifiable when committed either:
        (1) In the lawful defense of the slayer, or his or her husband, wife, parent, child, brother, or sister, or of any other person in his or her presence or company, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design on the part of the person slain to commit a felony or to do some great personal injury to the slayer or to any such person, and there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished; or
        (2) In the actual resistance of an attempt to commit a felony upon the slayer, in his or her presence, or upon or in a dwelling, or other place of abode, in which he or she is.

      • I suspect AZ is similar to Texas, at night time lethal force is a acceptable response to someone trying to enter your home, even if you kill them outside the home. Regardless of potential of facing charges on drug possession, she still has the right of self defense. Unlikely she will face murder/ manslaughter charges. Might be charged with discharged of a firearm and drug charges, buts since the police don’t have a warrant, anything found might be considered fruit of the poisonous tree…

        • They probably did get a warrant. On investigations such as this, they seek a warrant to search…so that they are on firm legal grounds with evidence gathered

    • AZ allows lethal force to prevent a “Forcible Felony”. Burglary or forcible entry of an occupied structure at night counts.

  19. Having a firearm does not make you safe, knowing how to use it might save your life. A moot point after the National Socialist Party takes over, killing in self defense with a firearm will be an automatic murder conviction. No need to ban firearms, if you own one, you’re a criminal, subject to arrest at any time. Constitution? The United Socialist Republic will abolish that first.

  20. Bleeding-heart knee-jerk liberals say “Don’t shoot criminals — call 911!”
    1. Law enforcement will arrive in time to investigate the crime scene, including drawing a chalk outline of your corpse. They WILL NOT arrive in time to protect you.
    2. The courts have ruled that law enforcement has NO DUTY to protect you.
    3. If a hoodlum is arrested, he might not be found guilty. If he is found guilty, he might not be imprisoned. If he is imprisoned, he might be released someday. In any of those events, he could victimize you or someone else — but no dead hoodlum has ever victimized anybody.

    Some people don’t want to be victimized.
    They will shoot you.
    It will hurt.
    You might die, in pain.
    Be kind to yourself: Don’t victimize people.

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