The Dallas/Ft. Worth area of Texas isn’t necessarily the most pristine and crime free locale in the state. Heck, I still have nightmares about the night I spent there earlier this year. But the one thing Dallas has going for it just about everywhere you go is a gun-loving population willing to defend themselves, something that two armed would-be burglars found out this Wednesday . . .
It was a bright and sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. On a quiet street in a red brick house, a young woman was home alone while her parents were working. All of a sudden, the sound of two men kicking down her door broke the tranquility of the day. And then she plugged them for their trouble. NBC picks up the story:
Dallas police said the woman was home alone when she heard a noise — two men had kicked in the front door of her house.
She confronted the two men as they reached the second-floor landing and shot at them several times, police said.
The intruders ran out the front door, and one of the men collapsed from a gunshot wound, police said.
He was transported to Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The other man is still on the run.
Investigators said a gun recovered at the home indicates that at least one of the intruders was armed.
This is a story that could have ended very differently. We’re talking about two men, who were confirmed to be armed at the time, breaking into a house. At the very least they had larceny in their hearts, but its not a stretch to think that kidnapping, rape or murder could have been on the agenda as well. And instead of a grieving father and a protracted manhunt, what we have is quite possibly my favorite quote ever from the father.
Charles Brown, the father of the 22-year-old woman who fired the shots, said he is proud of his daughter.
“Yeah, it is — it’s puffed out because I’m real proud of her because I taught her that,” he said. “I taught my girls that — to defend themselves when someone come to hurt them, and apparently she listened.
[…]
“I really don’t have a problem with what my baby done to them,” he said. “I just hate that she hesitated and didn’t get them both.”
This isn’t the first time the house had been broken into. The neighborhood has been going downhill according to Mr. Brown, with crime on the rise. But I get the feeling that the knowledge that the citizens are armed and ready to defend themselves will be a deterrent to future crime.
