POCATELLO—An intruder was shot by a local resident during a home invasion on the city’s north side late Wednesday night, Pocatello police said.
The shooting occurred during a home invasion by two adult male suspects around 10:30 p.m. at a residence on the 400 block of West Griffith Road, police said.
The suspects were confronted by the man who resides at the home and he subsequently shot one of the suspects, police said.
I am getting ready to go to the Industry Day at the Range.
I did not die on the trip up from Yuma to Las Vegas.
More to report later.
Dean Weingarten
Early on Monday morning, January 9, 2023, at about 5:30 a.m. on LaSalle Court, in Roseland, New Jersey, a team of two car thieves broke into an upper middle class home on a cul-de-sac next to Route 280. One of the thieves had checked out a white SUV next door, but the doors on the vehicle were locked.
At the residence where the incident occurred, shown as 5 Lasalle Court in the nbcnewyork.com video, one of the suspects discovered an unlocked window, which offered access to the garage, situated under the house.
The entry set off an alarm. The homeowner, as reported by the police, investigated and came face to face with the intruder. Exactly what happened next has not been reported in detail. The homeowner fired a shot and the intruder and accomplice fled in the vehicle they arrived in. The police believe that vehicle was already stolen. From abc7ny.com:
Mayor James Spango said the suspect entered the home's mudroom after getting in through an unsecured garage window.
Officials said the burglary suspect was looking for a key fob to steal a BMW parked in the resident's garage.
The terrified homeowner grabbed his handgun and fired a shot at the intruder. The bullet appeared to miss the suspect, but the thief jumped out of the same window he entered and got away in a vehicle waiting outside.
In the nbcnewyork.com video, the mayor emphatically says the homeowner will not be charged.
Video of the suspects outside the homes has been shown in news reports. Police say the home was likely targeted because of the proximity to Interstate 280. The .89 acre lot of the home which was targeted is bounded on the back side by an I-280 Interstate exchange.
New Jersey is one of the few states which require a person to retreat before using deadly force to defend oneself. There is a carveout in the law. You are not required to flee from or surrender your home.
The police dusted the sill of the window used for entry in an attempt to discover fingerprints.
Opinion:
There are several interesting questions raised by the reporting of this incident.
How do the police know the intruder was looking for a car key fob for the BMW in the driveway, when the suspects fled and have not been captured? Did the suspect tell the homeowner he was looking for the fob? Did the suspect threaten the homeowner with force?
Are homeowners with less income and more modest homes given the same consideration in self defense cases?
In this correspondent's experience, cases where there is a break-in, and nothing is stolen or damaged, and no one is hurt, seldom have police searching for fingerprints. Perhaps New Jersey police are more diligent than the average in the United States.
If people have information to inform our readers on the level of diligence by the police investigating crimes in New Jersey, please do so in the comments.
©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
MONTICELLO, Iowa — A man accused of breaking into someone's Monticello home was shot and killed on Wednesday morning, according to Monticello Police Chief Britt Smith.
A press release says Pattrick O'Brine, 30, was shot and killed at a home on South Sycamore in Monticello.
Police say the resident called 911 to report a break-in. Before officers arrived, that person armed themselves and shot the intruder.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - After further investigation from the State Attorney’s Office, the Medical Examiner, and Bay County Sheriff’s Office, circumstances and evidence have led them to believe the shooting was a justifiable use of force.
On Wednesday morning, Bay County Sheriff’s Office released the name of the man who was shot Tuesday morning at a home on North Bay Drive in the College Point area of Bay County.
Aaron Mravic-Lollie, age 23, was reportedly shot when the homeowner confronted him.
Deputies say the owner did not know Mravic-Lollie but discovered him within the home.
Lee David Wilkerson from Escambia County FL Sheriff's Office
The Escambia County Sheriff's Office reported an incident occurred on January 4, 2023, outside the Bingo Paradise hall in Pensacola, Florida. Two women were reported to be approaching the entrance. One of the women told deputies they had come to obtain jumper cables from her mother, who was in the bingo hall. Suspect Lee David Wilkerson, 38 years old, is reported to have got into an altercation with the women, pulled out a pistol, hit one of the women on the head with the pistol, then fired several shots as the women fled into the parking lot. From the Sheriff's Office:
Lee David Wilkerson was standing outside of the business when two females tried to enter. They became involved in an altercation at the entrance of the building. During the altercation, he retrieved a firearm from his side and hit one female victim in the head with it. He then began shooting in their direction and continued to fire into the parking lot as the victims fled.Wilkerson then tossed the firearm in a nearby dumpster, but not his meth. As Wilkerson tried to enter the building, two citizens who had witnessed the altercation pulled their concealed weapons, holding Wilkerson until deputies arrived.
Inside the Bingo Hall, the manager is reported as telling the customers to get down. But two of the players pulled their personal defense weapons. The Armed Samaritans have not been described or identified. When the suspect attempted to enter the hall, they held him for the authorities. When the authorities arrested Wilkerson, they searched him and found a crystal substance in a zip loc bag which also contained a knife. They searched the area where Wilkerson is reported to have told them where he placed the pistol. They found a Taurus .380 Spectrum pistol in a dumpster. The pistol had an extended magazine with one round in the magazine. Another round appears to have been in the chamber, from the police photograph.
Wilkerson was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, firing a weapon in public, use/display of a firearm during a felony, aggravated battery/use of a deadly weapon, and trafficking of Methamphetamine. The firearm used was located by deputies in the nearby dumpster.
Wilkerson, as a convicted felon, is forbidden by law from possessing firearms or ammunition. The Spectrum is a popular pistol for concealed carry because of its light weight, small size, and lack of sharp edges. It had some problems in early releases, but seems to have reliably fired in this incident.
While the sheriff's office report uses the word "tossed", an image which appears to be of the pistol as found, in the Sheriff's office report, it appears the pistol was placed with some care.
"Tossed" may have been the term used by the suspect. The report is ambiguous about who used the term.
People who use meth are often paranoid and make poor decisions. Fortunately, no one was shot in the incident, and armed Samaritans were on hand to hold the suspect for police.
Opinion:
The armed Samaritans exersized good judgement in not searching the suspect. It is a dangerous job. As the police were on the way, and the subject subdued, they avoided possible danger and did not add complications to the collection of evidence.
©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
ELLIJAY, Ga. — An armed robbery suspect was subdued by three customers who were legally carrying concealed guns at an Ellijay gas station on Monday, police said.
Just before 6:30 p.m., a man walked into the Ideal Mart at 31 Old Northcutt Rd. pretending to be a customer buying an energy drink, according to police. As he walked up to the register, police said that he pulled up a pair of underwear he had on his neck to cover his face.
A customer inside the gas station then pulled out a pistol, he was legally carrying, and helped intervene during the attempted armed robbery, police said. A second customer went to his car, grabbed his pistol, and went back inside to help the first customer subdue the suspect.
The incident happened at about 7 a.m. in the 500 block of W. Euclid Avenue, near San Pedro Avenue.
According to an SAPD spokesperson, an apartment resident said a man kicked down the door in an attempt to burglarize it. Since the door was bolted, police said, that man had to use immense force to kick down the door.
The resident pulled out a gun and shot the intruder, police said. The suspected burglar was pronounced dead at the scene, and his name and age were not released.
Police said the resident acted in self-defense, and there have been calls to the apartment in the past.
Some details have been revealed about the polar bear attack by a sow and cub at Panarctic oil exploration station on King Christian Island in 1983. The attack was uncovered with a Freedom of Information Act request by AmmoLand, requested by this correspondent. It was previously reported on AmmoLand on September 7, 2022. In that article the ficticious names of Joe and Dave were used. Their true names were Dana and Gary. The person who witnessed the bear attack his colleague and who shot the bear, was Dana, who has since retired and lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He was only 18 at the time. He was able to apply and get a job as a roustabout because his father was a foreman at the Panarctic base camp. The victim was 30 years old. His name was Gary Edmond.
On December 18, 1983, the camp on King Christmas Island had only been open for a couple of days. There were no dogs at the camp to warn of polar bears. Ordinarily, dogs would have been present, and would have provided some warning.
Gary, who was mauled and nearly eaten by the polar bear, was new to the camp as well. He did not know where the incinerator was. He took a right turn instead of a left. That took him to the back of he camp were the sump was instead of to the incinerator. The bears were near the sump.
Dana grew up on a farm in northern Alberta. He had hunted deer before signing on to Panarctic, with his father's .303 British bolt action rifle. He knew how to operate a bolt action rifle, such as the one on King Christian Island. That rifle did not have optics, only open sights.
Dana with Buck killed North of Edmonton
It is a bad idea to keep a rifle with optics in a warm environment, then take it outside into extreme cold. The sudden exposure to cold can cause the inside of the scope to fog, or the thermal shock can cause lenses to crack or seals to be breached.
At the Panarctic camp on King Christian Island, Dana lost sight of Gary. Then he heard him yelling and saw him come back around the corner, with the bear after him. Dana rushed to the camp building. He knew where the only rifle on King Christian Island was kept. When he paused at the camp door, he looked back, and saw the bear swat Gary's legs. Gary went down.
Dana charged in, woke up the radio radio operator and informed him what was going on. Dana came out with the rifle, a .308 or 30-06 bolt action. He fired a couple of shots in the air. They were not very loud as the report dissipated upward into the cold, arctic, air.
Alerted by the radio operator, everyone at the camp came to help search for Gary and the polar bear. Dana pointed out where he thought the bear had gone, when it dragged Gary back around the corner. The driver of the front end loader went looking, and found the bear and Gary first. The operator fought for Gary, using the front end loader and its forks, in a scene which might have been made for an movie about aliens.
Dana waited for the foreman to show up in the pickup truck. When it showed up, he jumped in, carrying the rifle. Dana was the only armed person in the camp. The operator of the front end loader had confronted the bear. They heard the front end loader honking.
As the foreman and Dana approached the front end loader, they saw the polar bears leaving. Dana shot the sow and destroyed its jaw, then it was gone. The yearling cub was about 30-40 yards away. The cub ran off as well.
After Gary was medevaced back to Edmonton and the wounded bear had been killed by Eskimos brought in for the purpose, Panarctic offered to short circuit Dana's shift to go home almost two weeks early. Dana decided to stay.
Dana regretted the decision to stay at King Christian Island. He had to be out and about to do his work. it was always dark in December and January far north of the arctic circle. He continually imagined a polar bear, just out of sight, in the perpetual dark, such as when he was putting out smudge cans of toilet paper and diesel fuel for runway lights.
Only one gun was on the site. He was not allowed to take the company gun with him. No one was allowed to have or carry sidearms at Panarctic sites.
Dana stayed working for Panarctic for another 6 or 7 years, then quit to be closer to home. He had gotten married. He eventually became a welder, but had a cardiac arrest two years ago and is now retired.
He is still a hunter. He harvested two deer and a moose last season. He uses a .338 Winchester Magnum in a Browning bolt action Medallion rifle with a Boss muzzle brake attachment and a Burris Eliminator scope.
Gary, the man who was mauled, underwent a lot of surgeries. His scalp was hanging off in strips, Dana saw tendons and bones in his arm.
Dana said he never wanted to go through a bear attack again.
Dana is unhappy with the current Trudeau administration's push to ban and confiscate guns. He said nearly everyone he knows voted against Prime Minister Trudeau.
Many in Canada's western provinces treasure their ability to keep and use firearms.
Dana has wondered why there was so little coverage about the polar bear attack at the Panarctic station in 1983.
Opinion: The government did not want the serious danger of polar bears made more obvious in the eyes of the public. There was little coverage of the polar bear attack. There was a short article published in the Edmonton Journal, on page 1, on December 20, 1983. Details of the attack would never have been known, aside from local coverage, if not for the Freedom of Information Act request conceived by this correspondent and executed by AmmoLand.
©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Hunter’s job with Per Mar Security is to keep the public space a peaceful one. It’s not easy. “We do have the shelter down here and you have a lot of mental illness in the homeless community” he says, “and that’s just a sad fact.”
Last week two people walked repeatedly in front of the Hubbell Tower Apartments door. Manager Shay Lindberg—her young child at her side–finally opened it, asking if there was a problem. One of the people grabbed her child. A struggle ensued, but Lindberg was armed.
Sergeant Paul Parizek of the Des Moines Police Department says this is one example of a lawfully-possessed gun doing something well. “It certainly looks like the big turning point here, the pivotal piece to keeping her child safe was the fact that she was lawfully-armed with a handgun, and she produced it and told them ‘let go of my kid.’”
“I’m putting the cap back on the gas tank, and I hear my door,” Williams said. “Once I hear my door, I see the light inside my car, and I see a man jumping over to the driver side.”
That’s when adrenaline took over, and she leaped into action.
“I just start hitting him and hitting him. He had his arm up, but he kept going, and he was reaching,” Williams said. “I thought, ‘I have my purse, I’m concealed and carry, my gun is there.’ I grab it. He saw me taking it out of the clip, and he panicked.”
HAMMOND - A convicted felon was shot to death after he forced his way into a house while armed with a shovel and lug wrench, deputies said.
According to the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office, deputies found Robert Rheams, 51, dead at the home on Klein Road after responding to a reported home invasion early Sunday morning. Deputies later learned the victim was there with her two young children when Rheams got into the home.
Officials said the burglary suspect was looking for a key fob to steal a BMW parked in the resident's garage.
The terrified homeowner grabbed his handgun and fired a shot at the intruder. The bullet appeared to miss the suspect, but the thief jumped out of the same window he entered and got away in a vehicle waiting outside.
He says several relatives were attending a family function at the home when Scott Blackwell’s behavior suddenly changed.
“He was armed with a weapon and it was more of a welfare check is what they were asking for. Within a few minutes the situation turned deadly,” Reid explained.
When deputies arrived they found Scott and his wife Cindy shot to death inside. “Mr. Blackwell ended up shooting and killing his wife and in turn a family member ended up shooting and killing him,” he said.
Image by Joyce Hinds, 2017, facebook, as warning to cat owners near Boston
In 2022, the officials of Nahant, Massachusetts started noticing they had a coyote problem. The coyotes had become so disdainful of people they had snatched, killed and eaten three pets directly from leashes. Numerous other pets were killed and eaten. No one knows precisely how many. From December 15, 2022, abcnews.go.com:
Local officials said eight to 12 coyotes inhabit Nahant, a densely settled town of about 3,300 people on a peninsula about 15 miles north of Boston. The animals have killed pets, including three that were taken straight from leashes held by their owners, said Antonio Barletta, the town administrator.
Coyotes populations are on the rise all over the country. They are causing problems, killing pets and livestock and even attacking the occasional person, from California to Texas, to now Massachusetts. Several coyote attacks against people prompted a program to drastically reduce the coyote population in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Nahant town officials decided they needed to reduce the coyote population. They decided to hire federal agents of he Department of Agriculture. From cbsnews.com:
NAHANT - The town of Nahant will become the first community in Massachusetts to bring in trained marksmen to shoot and kill habituated coyotes. Town officials voted Wednesday night to enter into an agreement with the United States Department of Agriculture.
"We have risen to a level of public safety threat in the town," said resident Vivien Gere who lost her dog Snoopy to an aggressive coyote back in June. "I had him on a short leash and the coyote just took him off the leash and slaughtered him and ran off with him right in front of me."
(skip)
Nahant is a densely populated, square mile peninsula where coyotes have multiplied and gotten used to humans. Officials say trapping has proven ineffective, and local law enforcement doesn't have the necessary training.
Trapping of coyotes, using traditional leg-hold traps, is very effective, given a skilled trapper. But Massachusetts banned the use of leg-hold traps in 1996. The ban was by initiative and passed with 54.7% of the vote. Massachusetts law prevents the hunting of the coyotes and trapping is only allowed by professionals. From necn.com:
But Tom O'Shea with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife says coyotes can't be hunted in Nahant and they can only be trapped by professionals.
Pet owners and animal lovers are upset at the widespread killing of their pets by animals who see the pets as just another food source. From extra.ie:
'It was heartbreaking,' she told the publication. 'He proceeded cruising down my street, carrying this cat in his mouth, and went in and out of people’s yards like he was trying to get back to his den.
Other animal lovers insist there is no reason to be alarmed. From May 1, 2022 msn.com:
“I feel like why get upset?” Ford said. “Let them live. But a lot of people won’t agree with me on that.”
But Suzanne Walsh would.
“My feeling is, if we’re responsible pet owners and we’re aware and treat coyotes with respect, we’ll all get along fine,” she said.
Cleveland Amory lived in Nahant. Amory was a famous and rabid "animal rights" promoter who pushed for the hunting of hunters.
Amory proposed, on air and during viewers' breakfast hour, the formation of a hunt club where human hunters would be tracked down and killed for sport, arguing that killing hunters in cold blood would be humane and kind owing to their overpopulation.
Estimated household income in Nahant is $103K with an average home value of over $500,000.
Opinion:
Officials believe there are eight to twelve coyotes on Nahant. That is one or two family groups. With an intense hunting and trapping campaign, the coyote problem could be eliminated until the next intrepid mated pair make it to the coyote heaven from the mainland. The coyotes have plenty of water, no danger from humans, no natural predators, and plenty of food provided by the clueless humans, often in the form of pets.
There are about 470,000 carry permits in Massachusetts, out of a population of about 5.5 million adults. A permit holder might be hesitant to shoot a coyote in a densely populated area such as Nahant.
©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Police in the northern part of California’s central valley say that an ax-wielding man was shot after allegedly attacking a property owner who has a concealed-carry permit.
In a Facebook post, the Merced County Sheriff’s Department says deputies received a call Tuesday evening of an assault taking place in the city of Dos Palos, California.
On the way to the scene of the incident, deputies were informed by dispatch that the victim was a legally permitted CCW holder who shot the adult male in self-defense.
Deputies said they spoke with a witness who was inside the business calling out bingo numbers. The witness said he heard a commotion outside, at which time he turned around and saw Wilkerson pull a firearm from his pants and begin shooting. The witness said he told everyone in the building to get on the ground. According to the arrest report, two minutes later, Wilkerson came into the business and then two citizens pulled concealed weapons and held Wilkerson at gun point until deputies arrived.
During the investigation, other deputies on scene discovered “numerous” .380 caliber shell casings in the parking lot and near the front entrance to the business. Deputies said a firearm was located in the dumpster where Wilkerson said he threw the gun.
On June 30, 2022, four plaintiffs filed suit against the District of Columbia, claiming their right to bear arms, protected by the Second Amendment, are being violated by the District of Columbia's ban on the carry of concealed weapons on public transportation in the district. The case cites the previous cases of Heller, McDonald, Caetano, Wrenn, and Palmer. The crux of the argument presented, from the complaint, is this:
Under the Second Amendment, the District of Columbia retains the ability presumptively to regulate consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation the manner of carrying arms, including handguns, and may prohibit certain arms in narrowly defined sensitive places, and prohibit the carrying of arms that are not within the scope of Second Amendment’s protection,such as unusually dangerous arms, and disqualify specific, particularly dangerous individuals from carrying arms. See Bruen, slip. op.at 13;Heller,554 U.S. at 627;Wrenn, 864 F.3d at 662-63 & n. 5. However, when such regulations impinge on the ability of law-abiding persons to protect themselves and their loved ones, such laws are invalid unless supported by the text of the Second Amendment or by historical analogues existing at the time of the founding. Bruen, slip op. at 13.
On December 28, 2022, Federal Judge Randolf D. Moss, of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, has denied the plaintiffs in Angelo v. DC motion for a preliminary and permanent injunction on the District of Columbia's ban on the carry of concealed weapons on public transportation. His decision depends on the District of Columbia precedence that mere threat of prosecution is not sufficient to establish standing to sue in the District of Columbia. From the opinion and order:
As a result, even under the standard set forth in United Farm Workers, the Court is unpersuaded that Plaintiffs have shown that they face a “credible threat of prosecution” or civil fine. See 442 U.S. at 298 (“[P]ersons having no fears of state prosecution except those that are imaginary or speculative, are not to be accepted as appropriate plaintiffs.” (quoting Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 42 (1971))).
In sum, then, Plaintiffs have failed to allege that they satisfy the imminence requirement as articulated by the D.C. Circuit in Navegar and Seegars; have failed to persuade the Court that the D.C. Circuit’s precedents are no longer good law or do not control this case; and, indeed, have failed to offer any evidence regarding whether and how § 7-2509.07(a)(6) is enforced. Because “an inability to establish a substantial likelihood of standing requires denial of the motion for preliminary injunction,” Food & Water Watch, 808 F.3d at 913, the Court will deny Plaintiffs’ motion for temporary and permanent injunctive relief.
In effect, Judge Moss is stating a plaintiff will need to be arrested for violating the District of Columbia's ban on carrying concealed weapons in order to challenge the ban. From law.cornell.edu/constitution:
Although the Court has been inconsistent, it has now settled upon the rule that, “at an irreducible minimum,” the constitutional requisites under Article III for the existence of standing are that the plaintiff must personally have:
1) suffered some actual or threatened injury;
2) that injury can fairly be traced to the challenged action of the defendant; and
3) that the injury is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision.
The plaintiffs in the case allege the threatened injury is clear and traceable to the DC ban on the concealed carry of arms on public transportation.
It is unknown if the case will be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
CLOVIS, N.M. — A man who was seriously injured in a New Year’s Day shooting in Clovis has died, officials said. The Ninth Judicial District Attorney’s Office said the shooter, Ian Michael Downs, 30, of Littlefield, Texas, acted in self-defense.
According to a press release Thursday evening, Downs was initially charged with Aggravated Battery and the charge was changed to Murder when the victim, Oscar Trujillo, 28, passed away.
The DA’s office said law enforcement were able to collect video from doorbell cameras and other security cameras during the investigation. No camera captured the entire event, officials said, but investigators were able to confirm Downs’s side of the story after reviewing multiple videos.
GRINNELL, Iowa —
Police in Grinnell say a shooting at an apartment complex was self-defense.
Grinnell police say Cody McCall and Logan Moline broke into the victim's apartment on Dec. 29 and attacked him.
Criminal complaints show McCall tried to stab the victim in the throat with a kitchen knife.
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