We preach it all the time. Home carry. It’s important. No matter how rosy you’re rose colored glasses may be, you’ll never have time to get to your gun if something happens because it will happen fast. An unidentified man in Antioch, California knows that now. . .
He was home with his son, minding his own business last night, and heard his doorbell ring. When he didn’t answer immediately (he was peeking out the window to see who was there), the man on his doorstep began to kick the door in. We’ll let sfgate.com take it from there.
“(The homeowner) just jumps the guy and realizes the guy has a gun,” (Antioch police Lt. Diane) Aguinaga said. “He somehow (got) it away from him” and shot the intruder three times in the torso, then called police, she said.
The intruder died at the scene, and his semiautomatic handgun was recovered. He was identified as 18-year-old Jeremiah Stovall of Antioch, who police say had a criminal history that included weapons violations.
The resident and his son were not hurt. Their names were not released. Police said the man would not be arrested.
Two accomplices were waiting outside. One’s been arrested, the other is still ‘at large’ as the police like to say.
The article goes out of its way to establish how unusual this kind of thing is for that particular neighborhood. Kind of.
It was the second violent incident in as many months in a neighborhood unaccustomed to such mayhem. In January, a shooting at a sweet 16 party less than a mile away on Wilmont Court left six people wounded, including a 13-year-old boy.
“This neighborhood at one time was considered the primo neighborhood, right next to the golf course,” said (Chronicle photographer Lance) Iversen, referring to the Lone Tree Golf Course. “We’ve never had any violence, and now all of a sudden we’ve had two shootings.”
The shooting was the second time in recent months that a home intruder has been shot to death in Antioch.
On Nov. 5, the owner of a vacant home on the 200 block of West 17th Street shot and killed a burglar after catching the man stealing copper wire.
Maybe the neighborhood’s not so primo any more. In any case, we couldn’t be happier with the outcome of this particular episode. But you can’t count on being able to tackle an armed home invader and disarm him. No, better to make sure you have the means to defend yourself and your family and keep that tool readily at hand. As in strapped to your side. No matter how quiet (or formerly so) your neighborhood is.