LINKIntruder with major arrest record breaks into home.
Homeowner shoots intruder dead.
Cops show up and are forced to kill homeowner.
This is where the media would normally leave the story. Except for the preaching. "If you own a gun you are going to end up getting yourself killed!" That's what they say. The media. The Brady people.
Truth is though that in this case the homeowner was apparently crazy...
The Dallas Morning News reports police did not realize 57-year-old William Keith Hall was defending his home when they arrived, and that Hall ignored the officers’ repeated demands he drop his weapon.
Maj. Jeff Cotner tells the paper Hall pointed a pistol at police officers and witnesses on the scene, and that he had plenty of time to “de-escalate the situation.”
“He was given plenty of notice, and he didn’t choose a path other than to confront officers,” Cotner said.
Hall also allegedly pointed his gun at a contractor working on a house nearby who called 911 after hearing the shots.
The caller, later identified as David Humphrey, told authorities Hall was yelling at witnesses to get away from the man who allegedly broke into his home, identified as 30-year-old Jerry Wayne Hale, after he shot him. Humphrey said Hall tried to fire at the witnesses but his gun was apparently jammed.
I don't know about you but if I had just drilled an intruder and then noticed that the cops had arrived I would be putting my gun down. I would put it down very slowly and keep my hands in plain sight. I also would not attempt to shoot my neighbors. You know...people that I have seen living next door. Or contractors. Bystanders.
Sure, it did happen at night so maybe he was confused. Maybe he thought that a whole gang had come to rob him. But that doesn't excuse refusing the instructions of law enforcement telling him to put his gun down or pointing it at what must have been very obviously uniformed officers with very obvious cars with flashing lights.
So...he was insane and who knows? Maybe he would have gone on a rampage someday and shot up the neighborhood himself.
But the media will probably not play it that way. They will say that it was "guns" that did it. If only he hadn't owned a gun he would still be alive.
Maybe.
If the intruder didn't kill him. We'll never know.
What we do know is that he had to have been nuts to act the way he did.
But he did at least do society a favor and killed off a career criminal before he got himself killed.