Posted on 12/15/2007 6:46:46 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
With his dog shot dead, his wife tied to a chair and his 16-month-old child asleep in a nearby bedroom, a West Valley City man took a gamble to end a home invasion robbery Thursday night.
As he was being dragged at gunpoint around his home in search of valuables to steal, the man snatched a gun from one of the invaders and pulled the trigger.
Jesse James Montoya, a suspected gang member, fell to the floor dead. A second home invader and a female accomplice fled the scene, and police were still looking for them.
Shortly after a woman knocked on the door, two men forced their way into a home, in the 3500 South block of 4400 West, about 10:20 p.m. Thursday, police said.
The invaders shot and killed the family's Great Dane dog, taped the homeowner's wife to a chair, and one of the intruders took the husband around the house at gunpoint looking for valuables, police said.
That's when the homeowner snatched the gun from Montoya and shot him, said West Valley City police Lt. Lamonte Cox. According to court records, Montoya was charged with second-degree felony attempted murder in 1994. He was also charged and pleaded guilty to third-degree felony aggravated assault the same year.
West Valley City police Sgt. Bill Merritt said investigators are determining how the robbers chose their victims. The homeowner said he hadn't met or seen Montoya before, which sets the incident apart from other home invasion robberies, Merritt said.
Random home robberies are unusual, Merritt said.
"We're looking for a possible link [between the homeowner and robbers]," he said. "Very rarely is it a random hit."
The homeowner on Friday evening declined an interview request through a relative, who said the man's attorney advised him not to speak to the media about the incident.
The couple's baby was not hurt, Cox said.
Interesting “blame the victim” angle in the article, though...
What? Since when?
I missed that, elaborate.
Better start gettind used to it. Our society allows these scum out to attack innocent people.
"We're looking for a possible link [between the homeowner and robbers]," he said. ">Very rarely is it a random hit."
The homeowner on Friday evening declined an interview request through a relative, who said the man's attorney advised him not to speak to the media about the incident.
The inference was that the invaders and the homeowner knew each other, possibly through some sort of criminal activity.
Don’t forget the limp judges, and POS juries.
Despite the homeowners assertions that he didn’t know any of the perps, he is still being investigated for links to the perps because the police Sgt. has a prejudice that there must be some connection...
Possible slam, rather covert.
Good work. Sorry about the Great Dane. Thank God the man’s family is okay.
Too bad the other perps made it out alive.
Man guilty of felony assault in 1994 and on the streets with a gun 2 1/2 years later.
Is any home robbery “random”? The perps knew what they were doing. It was no accident, no consequence of Brownian Motion.
Why does it matter so much how the perps chose their victims? Note that the article does not seem to fret over whether this was a hate crime. It doesn’t ask where these thugs came from, or whether they were even US citizens.
The article does reveal that our great justice system did nothing to prevent this crime, even though the good (i.e., dead) thug had already committed serious crimes.
Our “justice system” does not sufficiently protect citizens, even in their homes. We coddle the criminals, let them off early from soft, short sentences, and have effectively or actually prevented capital punishment. It becomes more and more the responsibility of the individual to protect himself and his/her family.
A large dog is a help, but in this case the criminals shot the family pet. No neighbors heard that? That another thing the police should be checking out.
I agree it was covert, but I read it the same way that Bellicosity did even before the comments. It seemed to me that the police were hinting that the armed home invasion was really a drug dealer trying to get money out of a junkie, or something similar. We shall see.
Too bad the female accomplice didn’t get taken out of the gene pool.
What a horrible story, and on the 7th anniversary of the vile Wichita rapes/mass murders. I am so glad the man was able to fight back. Otherwise he, his wife, and the baby probably would have ended up dead and this would have been another sickening outrage. I wonder if the victims were white. If so then we can be sure this would never be reported outside the local area. Though at least we on FR are able to keep informed by seeing news from around the nation.
Of course the Cheshire CT home invasion rape/killings was a huge national story. It was OK with the media in that case since the perpetrators and victims all were white.
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away...
"Hello, my name is Jesse James Montoya. You shot me; I'm prepared to die."
You mean the other way around. Dealers have money stashed around the house, junkies don't
Even if it wasa a dealer robbing a junkie, the same laws apply, so why is the history important? Does a junkie not have a right to defend himself? I think the PD needs to take a chill pill and move on to start documenting the history of another crime.
Yes, the cop wants to try to put across the notion that the homeowner was perhaps some kind of criminal himself. Of course, he’s doing so with no clue that he is slandering the man without cause. If I were the victime, I’d sue the crap out of his department for that.
The larger issue, though, is that the government doesn’t want us to know that they are doing such a crappy job of providing any kind of protection and/or security for the citizens that things like this can happen to anyone at any time. I would also think the fact of the Great Dane being there would preclude the perps having any knowledge of the situation inside the house. If they knew the guy had a dog of that size, would they have busted in to start with?
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