A man in his 20s was shot in the buttocks by a neighbor after a dispute over squatting in a vacant home. The neighbor, 66, heard noises next door in the vacant house and went to investigate.The vigilante, policing-the-neighborhood attitude of some gun owners needs to be discouraged, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening in Washington. In fact, in this case it's the young squatter who will likely be charged.
“One of the doors looked like it was forced open,” Sgt. Cindi West said. “He found a guy in his 20s.”
That man refused to leave and the neighbor went back to his house and armed himself with a shotgun, then returned to again tell the younger man to leave, according to investigators. The younger man is not believed to have lived there.
There was a struggle, and “apparently during the struggle the suspect decided to take off running,” West said. “The homeowner tripped and shot him in the butt.
“That’s what he said, he had an accidental discharge.”
The man in his 20s was taken to Harborview Medical Center where they treated the birdshot wound. His injuries were not life-threatening.
Detectives from the Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit arrived at the scene just before 7 p.m. Neither the man in his 20s or the 66-year-old were arrested, though West said the younger man may be arrested for trespassing after he was treated at Harborview. Detectives were investigating the older man’s story.
Another fascinating aspect of this story is the similarity between the way this shooter claimed it was an accident and the way many shooters claim theirs was defensive.
Whenever the target of the shooting is a criminal, the so-called responsible gun owner can just about say anything he wants to get away with his own crimes. Naturally the pro-gun crowd denies this ever happens.
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