By Brandon via concealednation.org
An Arkansas man went over to his elderly neighbor’s home after he saw two men enter who shouldn’t have been there. His neighbor, a wheelchair-bound friend of 36 years, could have been in trouble and he wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to get hurt or killed by the intruders. That man, Charles Dorsey, grabbed his gun and entered his neighbors home . . .
He found the intruders and held the them at gunpoint as they were trying to steal items. Dorsey told his sister to call 911 while he kept the two there until police arrived. At some point, Dorsey says that he felt threatened and fired a shot at one of the suspects, hitting him in the arm.
The two men face charges of theft and burglary. The condition of the suspect who was shot is not immediately known. Dorsey will not be charged with anything.
We have seen neighbors getting involved in home invasions in the past, often times when they know their neighbors are out of town. However in this case, Dorsey was unsure whether his neighbor was home and didn’t want to take a chance that she could be injured or killed by the intruders.
If my neighbors were away, I’d stay in my home and call 911 to report the invasion. If I were Dorsey in this particular situation though, I would have done the same thing in order to protect my elderly neighbor and friend.
If my dad’s neighbors called 911 every time a suspicious person entered his house while he was away, I’d get very friendly with the county sheriff. I’d make new friends, but they’d probably stop responding to calls for *other* suspicious people at that address.
Calling 911 for everything is a catch-22 problem.
Are you saying you need to learn to consort with a higher class of acquaintances?
Money can’t buy good neighbors like that.
I’m sure stuff like this happens in NYC every day……………….not
NYC Echo
Hello……….
STFU!
Good lord stop the autoplay of the d@mned ads. There making this site un-usable!!!!!!
Where?
I agree LCB…
Ad Block Plus for Chrome cleared that up for me….
Yep. I got a count of 12 ads blocked here.
+1. Ad Blocker Plus blocked seven ads on this page, this visit, alone. I have 113,329 blocked in total and I think a lot of them are from this site. My problem with it is that it has to be part of what slows this site down. I generally have high bandwidth, no problems. But occasionally my ISP slows down and this site has the worst performance of any site I visit.
There’s a new ad malware out there call Roll Around Ads, that my desktop picked up yesterday. Seems impervious to adblock. I was able to get rid of it on Firefox by uninstalling the program using Control Panel and then refreshing Firefox.
Been there, minus gun; lived in California at the time, and had a knife.
Fortunately, the bastard was a wanny and folded. Stupid, in retrospect; should’ve grabbed the crossbow.
Still, the only thing that stops a bad guy is a good guy.
An American Citizen; the only first responder that truly can make us all safe.
The only one that in the end, responding together, can keep us all free.
Bravo! The more this happens the stronger the message.
entering someone else’s house through a killing funnel (front door), not knowing what is waiting inside seems exceptionaly risky under any circumstance. bringing a gun to a location where imminent threat is not determinable seems exceptionally risky under any circumstance. if the BGs had not been instantly visible, the GG would have been faced with a house-clearing problem. people, we are not adequately trained or licensed to do combat operations in unfamiliar terrain. defense is defense; actively hunting humans is not self-defense. these type scenarios are fortunately rare, but statistics are against anyone attempting to go on the offensive. sooner or later, there will be a blood-bath that could have been avoided. call 911, monitor the situation, maintain a secure position.
I don’t agree. I’m 57 yr old, retired US Army and DAV. I live in a land lease community. My neighbor across the street is 83 try old. She is sharp as a tack but I have seen solicitation at her door that she looks over to my house. When that happens I’m there fast. If I see a problem I bring my ccw permit (never leave home without it,I live in Illinois) and a gun. As I leave my house I call 911. When you have elderly neighbors, you have to look after them.
watching out for neighbors is good, just doesn’t mean you should go on the offensive vs. defensive. there are too many possible bad outcomes, and only one good one (that there is nothing to be concerned with, after all). call 911, be a good observer. go check on someone when they are not seen for a day or two (unless you know they are on vacation/in the hospital). house-clearing is not for amateurs and once-upon-a-time combat veteran. showing-up with a gun could quickly result in the death/severe injury of the person you are concerned about. is it really necessary to detail all the risks of charging-in without really good intel and backup?
Every situation is different. The points you make are valid, and part of the total picture to take into consideration before acting.
But for a blood family member or a close friend I would act immediately, regardless of the number of possible bad guys.
Most bad guys are not trained combat “operatives”
. When they are confronted with an armed response, they mostly don’t respond as a trained combat team.
So that is why we see over and over that when a gaggle of bad guys in a robbery situation are confronted with armed resistance, they immediately turn tail and run, A-holes and Elbows is all we see out of what ever exit is available.
In the end, the police are mostly for drawing a chalk line around a body, taking pictures and interviewing witnesses.
So I’ll take my chances, even if as a consequence, that chalk line is around my body.
would you agree BGs entering for robbery is an entirely different situation? you kinda know where they are (and maybe even how many). entering an unfamiliar house, you do not know where they are, but coming thru the door simplifies the BGs’ targeting problem. and since they are also unfamiliar with the house, you are now blocking their preferred line of withdrawal, forcing them to stand and deliver. (and the problems with entering a neighbor’s house present the same problems for the homeowner trying to clear his own house…not trained, not prepared, not aware of what is happening in every location in the home).
Who said he was entering an unfamiliar house?? They had been neighbors for decades, every possibility he had been in the house many times.
would you a person is truly familiar with a house he/she does not live in? would a neighbor have “cased the joint” in such detail as to know all the openings, angles, sight lines, hidden obstacles, furniture placement (all the time), etc? all it would take is one modification of the configuration to create confusion and error. it may be that you can feel assured you would have control in any of your neighbor’s homes. not sure such can be said for the general public. not sure “taking care of my neighbor” is a life theory that should be recommended for others.
I have lived in my present home and location for eight years. Prior to that I live in an old subdivision in South Jersey for 13 years. All the homes in either location have basically the same floor plan with some variants. Having been invited to homes at my South Jersey home, I knew the lay outs and had to help neighbors . At my present location, I live in a land lease community. All home are modular or sectional homes. They all have nearly the same layout. And I have been in the ones that surround my home and I know pretty much all of the neighbors or they know me ( I’m an ordained minister Who carries a gun).
bless you, pastor !! thank you for bucking the trend. your situation is unique, and you seem comfortable blundering into a dangerous situation without really knowing just who the BGs are, ir/what they are armed with,where they are, whether they are an effective/experienced team, whether they have the front door covered against rescuers, whether the occupant is a hostage (i.e. shield). i could not in good faith recommend anyone do as you suggest. again, possible bad outcomes are legion, good outcome one, or maybe two. your neighbor is graced with a “friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
No problem. I did enough training in building clearing in the military (20yrs Army)to last a lifetime. Since I retired 20 years ago I have attended, participated in or observed defensive training to feel confident. It’s a matter of being observant and aware of your surroundings. If you observe bg going into a home, you also note the number, what they are wearing, what are they carrying. In that you can reasonablely surmise what types of arms they may be carrying. I would always call 911 but it takes Leo to arrive. One last thing I would always do is keep a tactical approach and keep in touch with Leo with my phone. If the number of bg is more than a couple of course I may just observe. But I can also just “innocently” knock on the the neighbors door to “discuss” a topic and have the element of surprise .nothing like catching a bg by surprise.
I know you will most likely disagree, but we will agree to disagree, but I have confidence in the training I’ve had. And of course I answer to a much higher power than most. You all take care and God bless.
Yes, a unique circumstance. Would you recommend someone not as capable charge to the rescue?
Elderly, wheelchair-bound neighbor. Two strange men breaking into his house. Nothing more needs to be said. You do whatever needs to be done to protect your neighbor.
prior to entering the neighbor’s home, did the GG know:
1. precisely where the BGs went?
2. precisely if they were armed?
3. precisely the types and number of weapons?
4. the ability of the BGs to effectively operate as a team?
5. the points of cover available to the GG?
6. the likelihood of being able to subdue two BGs?
6. an effective method of subduing two BGs?
remember the GG who stopped the male shooter in a walmart, only to be killed by the female
companion…who the GG did not know existed, or where located? point here is the GG got dead, and the BGs went on unimpeded. heroic try by the GG, but a useless death.
George, you go on living your life as an operationally operating operator. I’ll side with the people willing to take risks to look after their neighbors in need.
thanx. happy that you and others are happy to charge into a situation not knowing the setup/layout (although one commenter explained his extensive training and thorough knowledge of his neighbor’s home…making a unique situation). guess my first law of self-defense (escape and evade) overrides concern for safety of others i cannot reasonably expect to help. not sure what operating as an operating operator means, but reckon it is not a compliment. but to make the picture clearer, all my neighbors 12 houses up and down the street are rabid anti-gunners. which, i don’t know, sorta takes away the interest in being a hero. as mentioned somewhere else here, not knowing the score can lead to being surprisingly dead. not thanks. self-defense means me self (and immediate family at home or with me). defense of others is way down the list of priorities.
I wish things were like when I was a kid 50years ago. But they are not. Plenty of suspicious people around the neighborhood. Unless I knew for sure I would just call 911. Where I live they are very quick on the scene(sometimes TOO quick). The old lady has a priceless friend…
I like that “At some point, Dorsey says that he felt threatened and fired a shot at one of the suspects, hitting him in the arm” and that he is not being charged with anything. I would really like to know the details of of what the BG did to make Dorsey feel threatened and what the shooting layout was.
There is a tendency to think that the right to shoot is always at the initial encounter. Once you have the drop, they are not threatening the elderly neighbor and they don’t have weapons, then it really becomes a grey area if you are protecting life, which is legal, or property, which is not, especially since it was not even Dorsey’s property.
Also, I’m interested that he hit the BG in the arm, which from the drop, either means he’s a really bad shot, which I doubt, or he was shooting to wound, not shooting to stop, which is a legal grey areas also. If the BGs just wanted to leave at that point, Dorsey could not have used lethal force to stop them and if he felt threatened, he should have shot COM. I agree with what he did and I’m glad he is not being charged, although I think he may have a lawsuit coming. If I knew the details, it would definitely go in my “mental rolodex.”
We don’t “call 911” much out here… we tend to take care of ourselves and watch out for our neighbors. Just an example…
One day I came home from town and found a message on my answering machine. A neighbor said he was calling everyone to advise them to be aware and wary of people driving around in an old unmarked, white van with no windows. He said they pulled into every driveway from the bottom of the hill to the top, and pulled out rapidly in some cases. He’d talked to the people where that happened, and was told that as soon as those in the van saw people, they went away fast. He thought they were casing the neighborhood, looking for vulnerable places to break into.
I called him back to thank him and said I’d be watching carefully. He knows I don’t open the door to strangers anyway, and he knows I’m well armed. He just takes extra precautions because he knows I’m not young anymore and have some physical issues.
The white van never returned, far as I know, and nobody here has had a break in for the ten years I’ve lived here. If it were not for the occasional cattle rustler and bar fight, our poor sheriff would be in the same boat with the Matag repairman. 🙂
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