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Recently in West Virginia, Angie Steffey, who teaches high school English, was letting her dog out into the backyard when the dog started acting strangely accompanied by some weird noises in the yard. It could be my husband coming home from work an hour early, she thought. It wasn’t: when she looked out the window, she saw someone breaking into her car.

Angie called 911 and asked the man to leave. After he refused, she decided it might be a good idea to be armed in this situation.

“So, finally, I told the dispatcher ‘I’m going to get my gun’, and they didn’t want me to do that but I still continued to say that I was going to get my gun,” Steffey said.

That stopped the crime-in-progress real quick. When Angie stepped out onto the porch with the gun, the man ran off – but not without leaving a parting gift. Here’s the crystal meth he dropped on her seat:

Polite guy.

“He really needs to find the Lord and get his life straightened up,” said Angie. “He doesn’t have to live like that.”

You can watch the full news report, including some footage of the suspect (still at large) prowling around, here:

What would you have done in this situation?

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34 COMMENTS

    • It seems to be SOP. They do not want the homeowner holding a gun when the police arrive, either to protect the officers (an unlikely story) or to protect the homeowner from being shot by the police.

      • Seriously, “when seconds count the Popo are minutes away”. I’m going to have plenty of time to have my weapon back in my holster before they get there.

    • Dispatchers are not experts, they are now a days not law enforcement personnel and they make PLENTY of mistakes*. One might say “If you have a firearm get it” and another might say “don’t get your gun” even under the same circumstances.

      In some cases if the dispatcher knows the cops are a couple seconds away they might say something different than if they are a couple of minutes away.

      If you have the dispatcher on the line makes sure to describe yourself as the homeowner and the victim

      *Example the idiot bottom of the barrel civil servant dispatcher in Chicago pellet gun shooting of a minor by cops, where the people calling 911 repeatedly said they thought it was a toy or pellet gun, and the dispatcher never telling the dispatched police officers that salient fact.

      • You know, people bring that up as if it would have, or even should have, made any difference whatsoever. . . Why is that?
        “Hey, Officer Bob and Officer Ray, the neighbors all think that it’s only a pellet gun that the guy who looks like a full-grown adult male waving a gun around is waving around! You all go on in there, and assume that it really IS a pellet gun, OK? Yeah, that’s the ticket! Natch, those NEIGHBORS aren’t gonna go over and CHECK, because they COULD be wrong, but YOU can afford to take that chance! Trust them, they’re all firearm experts! If he points it right at you and pulls the trigger, make sure that you wait to see if it’s a pellet gun or not, OK?”
        Brilliant, Holmes. . .

    • Stop presenting firearms until you are clearly ready to fire –at that point in time. Stop confronting criminals with/without a weapon –when they have not threatened you with a weapon or physical bodily harm without.a weapon (disparity of force).

      Going outside on the porch was a huge mistake. Arm yourself, make the 911 call, if your able *lock-down the premises* and/or barricade yourself in the safest area you have access without going toward the perp; but advancing toward a perp that has not yet threatened you physically, in my opinion, is a huge mistake. I do not care what the law says about being legally able to protect your property with a firearm.

      Stay your @$$ inside keep your distance. Once the premises is illegally breached, the incoming threat has been established,

      **** Think**** what value could any item have been, even if it was the entire vehicle, that could not have been covered by the insurance?

      • Actually the perp has illegally breached the premise by being on the property and breaking into the car.
        Depends on the homeowner and the situation of what to do or not do. No one should be forced to retreat. I for one don’t want some junkie stealing my car while I cower in my house waiting for the cops.
        By the way try getting full value for whatever is taken, from the Insurance company.

      • Reported on a neighborhood blog: A homeowner observed someone breaking into her car and called the local police to report a theft in process. She actually got through to a police dispatcher (small suburban PD) who told her the department “didn’t have time to come stop a car break-in” and that she should do nothing and then make an insurance claim for the resultant damage to her car and loss of property. The cops ain’t commin’ . . .

    • It’s to avoid possible legal liability. By telling the citizen not to arm themselves, they hope to avoid any culpability in a potential civil case if someone . . . anyone is shot. They really don’t care if the citizen is murdered since that is simply a crime and they can’t get sued over it. Both myself, and then my son were LEOs for several years each. We both quit because of the idiocy of the administrative and CYA policies of our respective departments.

  1. Yet another gun DGU where not a shot was fired.

    How anyone can be opposed to this or criticize this… is beyond me.

    • The criticism is not due to any actual facts about defensive use. The real agenda is and always has been to disarm the population in order to make us unable to deal with a government gone rogue. Today’s release of the IG report should make it clear we’ve come pretty close to that point.

    • Because if she had had a gun, he would have taken it away and killed her with it.
      I know this for a fact, because Shannon Watts said so.

  2. But the news people and politicians told me a)teachers don’t like guns, b)teachers can’t handle the responsibility of guns, c)teachers with guns will shoot all the kids

    Clearly this incident in NRA funded propaganda to make Russians rich with Trump steaks. Somebody get Hogg to die-in at her home.

  3. I haven’t lived in WV since the 80’s. My place of birth. Back then the Wayne County sheriff said in a tv interview after a woman shot and killed her attacker that he could not promise his deputies or State Troopers could get to a life or death emergency in less than an hour.

    His solution was to tell everybody that lived in Wayne county to have a gun and know how to use it.

    He was a democrat, as was most of the state at that time.

  4. She should have listened to the dispatcher. If she gets prosecuted for brandishing or related, it will be hard to argue that she had nowhere to retreat to and had to use her weapon regardless of the perp’s drug status. A broken window & a few stolen goods are not worth a criminal record. Best thing to do is to listen to the dispatcher and make a video of the crime for insurance claims later.

    • You break into my house or any vehicle that I own and I will OWN YOU. Is your life really so worthless as to take a one way trip to the county morgue, I would hope that your life means more to you. As for waiting for first responders, my firearm will do the talking at this point. If said potential criminal gives up, lies face down and wait for the police all the better. I however do not believe that this would happen. I might not have much, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let somebody just take it. That don’t work anymore.

  5. Nice try. The meth was dropped by the bugler and he ran off, I think not. The Japanese during WW2 called it “Ice” for a reason. Having used crystal methamphetamine I can justly state that while high on it you fear nothing, and your strength and reflexes are increased five fold. I seriously doubt that the perpetrator dropped the meth and was afraid of a woman with a firearm. Change the drug to heroin and it might be believable.

  6. “Angie called 911 and asked the man to leave.”

    According to Michael Bloomberg Isn’t this the maximum action a citizen should take?

  7. Has the teacher been run out of the academy yet? What’s the over / under in her career survival pool?

  8. if she wasn’t threaten with bodily harm and she shot him she would have been charged. But people are tired of being victims and will sometimes act wrong. I have taught many people how to shoot and I tell them to make a list of all their assets ,because that is what it will cost them if they are not 100% right in using deadly force. Every police dept in our country will look at it with a fine tooth comb,and the DA if he or she is trying to make a name for themselves look out!!

  9. Do research from 1980’s Supreme Court rulings: Police are not responsible to protect individual.
    Police are not responsible for your safety
    Supporting Case Law

    CAROLYN WARREN v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (1981)
    “The trial judges correctly dis­missed both complaints. In a care­ fully reasoned Memorandum Opinion, Judge Hannon based his decision in No. 79­6 on “the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide pub­lic services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.”
    Source: http://gunrightsalert.com/documents/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia_444_A_2d_1.pdf

    DESHANEY v. WINNEBAGO CTY. SOC. SERVS. DEPT. (1989)
    “the Clause imposes no duty on the State to provide members of the general public with adequate protective services.”
    Source: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=489&invol=189

    More Case Law Evidence

    Hartzler v. City of San Jose, (1975) 46 Cal.App.3d 6, 120 Cal.Rptr. 5
    Davidson v. City of Westminister, (1982) 32 Cal.3d 197, 185 Cal.Rptr. 252
    Westbrooks v. State, (1985) 173 Cal.App.3d 1203, 219 Cal.Rtr. 674
    Ne Casek v. City of Los Angeles, (1965) 233 Cal.App.2d 131, 43 Cal.Rptr. 294
    Susman v. City of Los Angeles, et al (1969) 269 Cal.App.2d 803, 75 Cal.Rptr.
    240
    Antique Arts Corp. v. City of Torrence, (1974) 39 Cal.App.3d 588, 114
    Cal.Rptr. 332
    Bowers v. DeVito, (1982) 686 F.2d 616. (No federal constitutional
    requirements that police provide protection.)
    Calgorides v. Mobile, (1985) 475 So.2d 560.
    Davidson v. Westminister, (1982) 32 Cal.3d 197, 185 Cal.Rep. 252.
    Stone v. State, (1980) 106 Cal.App. 3d 924, 165 Cal.Rep. 339.
    Morgan v. District of Columbia, (1983) 468 A.2d 1306.
    Warren v. District of Columbia, (1983) 444 A.2d 1.
    Sapp v. Tallahassee, (1977) 348 So.2d 363, cert. denied 354 So.2d 985.
    Keane v. Chicago, (1968) 98 ILL.App.2d 460, 240 N.E.2d 321.
    Jamison v. Chicago, (1977) 48 ILL.App.3d 567.
    Simpson’s Food Fair v. Evansville, 272 N.E.2d 871.
    Silver v. Minneapolis, (1969) 170 N.W.2d 206.
    Wuetrich v. Delia, (1978) 155 N.J.Super. 324, 382 A.2d 929.
    Chapman v. Philadelphia, (1981) 290 Pa.Super. 281, 434 A.2d 753.
    Morris v. Musser, (1984) 84 Pa.Cmwth. 170, 478 A.2d 937.
    Weiner v. Metropolitan Authority, and Shernov v. New York Transit Authority,
    (1982) 55 N.Y. 2d 175, 948 N.Y.S. 141.

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