William Cornwell and his wife were rudely awoken about 4:00 a.m. Saturday by pounding on the front door of their Winter Haven, Florida home. A drunken Christopher Deese wanted in after first breaking into a neighbor’s house. Cornwell grabbed his gun and told Deese to take off, but to no avail. That’s when Cornwell made his one big mistake . . .
According to orlandosentinel.com, Cornwell wasn’t content with warning Deese off through the closed door. Unfortunately, his screen door wasn’t much more effective a barrier than it would have been in a submarine.
Cornwell, 33, who works as a security guard, opened his door and continued yelling at the man through a screen door.
Instead of heeding the warnings, the man ran into the home where Cornwell’s two children, ages 3 and 6, were sleeping.
But as tanked as Deese was, the gun in Cornwell’s hand didn’t make much of an impression on him. Not until Conrwell fired it, anyway.
Cornwell then fumbled with the gun, and a shot went off into the floor. Deputies said Deese then stopped briefly, took off his shirt and yelled, “You wanna fight?,” and charged at Cornwell.
A bullet from Cornwell’s gun pierced Deese’s chest, killing him.
And that’s kinda why those who know about these things suggest aiming for center of mass. In the aftermath, it didn’t take Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd long to pronounce it a righteous shoot.
“If there ever was a justified shooting, this is it,” Judd said. “This is a classic ‘Castle Doctrine’ case … The mistake the suspect made by breaking into that home was a fatal one.”
It probably won’t surprise locals that Sheriff Grady sees this as a cut and dried defensive gun use. Judd’s known for being pretty plain spoken. In an earlier case, when asked why a fugitive who’d killed one cop and wounded another was shot 68 times, he replied simply, “That’s all the bullets we had or we would have shot him more.” Any other questions? [h/t Joey Maier]