Armed woman prevents grand theft auto

Unlike the video game, armed civilians don’t always get carjacked.

A day after a burglar ransacked her Garrard Street home, a 30-year-old woman fired 10 gunshots into her 2010 Jeep Wrangler late Friday to thwart a thief’s attempt to steal the vehicle.

It’s unknown if the would-be thief was wounded as the vehicle rolled next door to a home in Columbus.

“She emptied the magazine into the Jeep,” said Darrell Rhoaden, a neighbor. “It was pretty intense. I saw the guy in the vehicle. It was dark out. I think I saw him leaning away from the driver’s side or else he would be dead.”

Rhoaden said the vehicle theft attempt may have been related to a burglary at the home on Thursday. A slim man entered the home, ransacked the place and took a laptop. He apparently made off with her keys to the Jeep and returned around 10:05 p.m. Friday.

The woman’s home is right behind Rhoaden’s bedroom window.

“I heard her hollering, ‘What are you doing? I have a gun,'” he said.

Thinking his neighbor was in trouble, Rhoaden said he jumped up and looked out the window.

“I saw the Jeep rolling backward down the driveway,” he said. “I called the cops, then I heard the gunshots.”

With the police on the phone, Rhoaden said he told police that shots had been fired. He ran to his neighbor’s home and saw a bullet hole in the headrest of the vehicle that had stopped in another neighbor’s yard. The suspect had jumped out and fled.

Rhoaden said the woman couldn’t have been more than 3 feet from the suspect before she started firing.

The woman was found shaking on the corner of her driveway.

“She was crying and screaming,” he said.

The area was soon filled with nearly a dozen Columbus police officers, at least four patrol officers and seven detectives. In a report on the attempt to steal the Jeep, police never mentioned any details about a gun or shots fired.

The thief was described as black man who weighs about 165 pounds. He was wearing a white T-shirt, cargo pants and black tennis shoes.

The woman was unavailable for comment late Saturday.
Source: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/07/26/3218984/columbus-woman-empties-the-magazine.html?sp=/99/164/

Even if your shots miss the target, you can still manage to scare the bad guy away.

Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/07/26/3218984/columbus-woman-empties-the-magazine.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy

2 Responses to Armed woman prevents grand theft auto

  1. Not a good “shoot” my friend. Unless associated with another crime (kidnapping for instance) deadly force can’t be used simply to defend property against someone else’s interference with that property, even if that interference is unlawful and even if there is no other way to prevent that interference. See State v. Metcalfe, 212 N.W. 382 (Iowa 1927).

  2. In my understanding of the law, not a good “shoot” in this piece, my friends.

    Unless associated with another crime (kidnapping for instance) deadly force can’t be used simply to defend property against someone else’s interference with that property, even if that interference is unlawful and even if there is no other way to prevent that interference. See State v. Metcalfe, 212 N.W. 382 (Iowa 1927).

    I know the law here in AZ doesn’t allow you to “defend your car in your driveway” with deadly force, unless possibly a situation exists where your child is in it, and someone is stealing it, and even then you risk hitting an innocent. Now you may present your weapon, and “threaten force” but use of it can be only if you feel your personal physical well-being is threatened (say if they tried to ram you).

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