If you’re going to break into a store with larceny in your heart, you probably don’t expect much resistance at 2:00 am. But a Conroe, Texas burglar’s luck ran out recently when he smashed the window of an auto body shop with a crow bar.
It’s not clear why the business owner and his son were there at oh-my-God-thirty, but they were.
As chron.com reports . . .
“(The business owner) had been burglarized before so he locked his son inside the went out to check what was happening,” (Assistant District Attorney Donna) Berkey said.
The burglar brought just a crow bar to what he probably didn’t expect to become a gunfight.
Once outside, the business owner was confronted by a man with a crowbar and the business owner fired a handgun several times striking the man at least twice. Berkey said the man ran about 150 feet before collapsing.
Thirty-nine-year-old Thomas Dillard won’t be breaking into any more businesses in Conroe. Or anywhere else. Dillard was dead when law enforcement arrived.
The business owner, of course, had a right to defend himself.
According to information from the DA’s office, a business owner, regardless of whether they are licensed to carry, is in lawful possession of a gun because of the castle doctrine. The castle doctrine is an exception to a rule in place in some jurisdictions that requires a defendant to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense. The castle exception states that if a defendant is in his home or business he is not required to retreat prior to using deadly force in self-defense.