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Here is the quick version, this morning around 2:30 a.m. my wife was feeding one of our baby girls and saw a man walking down the street and up our driveway. She woke me up, I ran to kitchen to look out the window and there he was rummaging around in the bed of my truck.

I quietly went out the front door with my Walther PPS .40, and took cover behind my wife's car which was behind my truck. I yelled at the guy and he said "I am just taking a leak" seconds later he ran away from me into our back yard and jumped the fence and into my neighbors back yard. Wife was on the phone with 911, Harris County Sheriffs Department caught him about and hour later on another street.

He is 37 and lives on the street behind me, they said he was drunk and was not sure what he was up to. All I can say is that he is very lucky to be alive today.

What are your thoughts? Shoot? Do what I did and let him go? Needless to say I am pretty upset about the whole situation.

Call 911 and stay in the house. Confronting someone outside like that can be dangerous. Be a good witness from the window and stay where you are protected. You never know if they have an accomplice that is hiding in the bushes waiting for you to open the door, ambush you and then enter the house.

Keith B wrote:Call 911 and stay in the house. Confronting someone outside like that can be dangerous. Be a good witness from the window and stay where you are protected. you never know if they have an accomplice that is hiding in the bushes waiting for you to open the door and ambush you and then enter the house.

You can observe safely from your house. Going outside puts you at a disadvantage if there are more than 1 bg.

Good points, I guess I could have watched him from the window and wait for the police. They did get here within a couple of minutes.

Was there anything in the bed of your truck worth shooting him for? If so, I doubt it would be left in the bed.
I agree with you, no shoot.
While I logically agree with the other posters about not going outside, I know that I would have.

There was a $30,000 piece of medical equipment in the back! And some empty beer cans from a dove hunt!

nedmoore wrote:There was a $30,000 piece of medical equipment in the back! And some empty beer cans from a dove hunt!

I am sure he was just after the aluminum.

You did good to not shoot. Would still recommend hanging out inside where you have the advantage and can protect family from an intrusion. Glad the Sheriff responded so quickly and caught him. I will bet he was up to no good. At least they have information on him now and maybe they will at least charge him with Public Intoxication.

Okay after reading this some thigns dont add up...

He was from a street behind and jumped the fence to go home.. seems he must not have been to drunk to know his way

night time doing who knows what to a vehicle perfectly legal to protect your property

your a lot nicer than i would have been.

Mess with a man's property at night. ____________ you guys fill in the blank

Slice wrote:Okay after reading this some thigns dont add up...

He was from a street behind and jumped the fence to go home.. seems he must not have been to drunk to know his way

night time doing who knows what to a vehicle perfectly legal to protect your property

your a lot nicer than i would have been.

Mess with a man's property at night. ____________ you guys fill in the blank

Is your intent to stop him or simply shoot him?

You might have been justified to shoot, but in this case, you used great judgment and chose the wiser path.

- You are alive and well
- Your family is safe
- You are not missing anything
- You were not "questioned" by police last night
- You did not have to retain an attorney
- You are not worried about a grand jury
- You are not missing work today
- You are not in the news
- You do not have a knot in your stomach and a wound on your conscience to deal with (even if the BG was about to shoot you and you acted in absolute self-defense for the sake of preservation, most reasonable people will still go through a period of doubt / regret / remorse over a justified shooting)

I'd say it turned out pretty good.

I don't know what that $30,000 piece of medical equipment was exactly, but even if he had tried to take it and you had shot him, and even if it was a righteous shooting, you might easily have wound up spending that much in legal fees before all the smoke finally cleared. And then there remains the other possibility that you could have shot a man for peeing on your truck. That would not look good on your resumé.

Staying indoors and reporting to police would have been the wiser choice, even though I know from personal experience that it would have been hard to resist the temptation to go outside and confront him, having made that mistake myself in the past.

The Annoyed Man wrote:I don't know what that $30,000 piece of medical equipment was exactly, but even if he had tried to take it and you had shot him, and even if it was a righteous shooting, you might easily have wound up spending that much in legal fees before all the smoke finally cleared. And then there remains the other possibility that you could have shot a man for peeing on your truck. That would not look good on your resumé.

Staying indoors and reporting to police would have been the wiser choice, even though I know from personal experience that it would have been hard to resist the temptation to go outside and confront him, having made that mistake myself in the past.

He said what I was gonna say.

Don't doubt yourself if you are. As fickman said above along with the others, you got out of the situation with the least amount of "hassle" involved. Just stay alert in case the guy comes back around for another peek for whatever it was he may of had is eye on. And PLEASE, if you were serious about the medical equipment, get that out of the back of your truck and into the house if possible.

I think you did fine. You couldn't tell what he was doing exactly. You armed yourself, your wife was calling 911, you kept your distance and stayed behind concealment/cover, and you yelled at him which seems to have startled him well enough. I don't see anything wrong with what you did. Yeah, you might have stayed in the house, but that is one thing out of a dozen others that you did right.

Once I turned down my street and saw the police helicopter overheard, police looking off the bridge nearby, and patrol cars zipping around. I got home and my outside dogs were freaking. I saw a guy in jeans and a tanktop holding a gun at the back of my yard. I did get my gun but called the cops. I went out when the cops stopped in front of my house and said I saw this guy in my back yard. The tank top guy comes and the police said, "Better put a raid jacket on." then they both left.

If I was the do-then-think type I could have been in some deep poo.