Posted on 02/05/2012 7:30:36 AM PST by marktwain
While a number of questions in the case remain unanswered, police on Friday acknowledged that drugs may have been the target of two men who reportedly burst into a southeast Eugene home on Thursday in what authorities deswcribe as a home-invasion robbery attempt gone wrong. One of the alleged intruders — a man whose name has not yet been released by police — was fatally shot by a 27-year-old man who lives at the house in the 3300 block of Stoney Ridge Road.
Police said they were working Friday to confirm the shooting victim’s identity and notify his family of his death.
Meanwhile, a second suspect in the incident is behind bars. He is identified as Darrin George Dubouch, 39, of Coburg.
Dubouch allegedly ran from the house after the shooting occurred. He was arrested a short time later, after a Springfield police dog found him hiding in a wooded area less than one-quarter mile from the home, authorities said.
Dubouch was arraigned Friday afternoon in Lane County Circuit Court on felony charges of second-degree robbery and first-degree burglary.
Eugene police Detective Matt Herbert said investigators are still trying to figure out if the shooter knew the two men who came to his home on Thursday.
Police do not suspect that Dubouch and his alleged accomplice randomly chose the Stoney Ridge Road home to burglarize.
“There’s reason to believe it’s a targeted incident,” Herbert said. He added that it is possible that drugs may have motivated the alleged crime.
A neighbor who spoke with The Register-Guard on condition of anonymity said the home where the shooting occurred was the site of a medical marijuana grow. The home’s owner, Steven Hertzberg, declined to comment when asked about that on Friday.
When asked during a news conference if medical marijuana was being grown at the house, Herbert paused before saying: “I don’t know yet.”
Herbert said the shooter told police that he grabbed a handgun after two men forced their way into his home while he was alone there.
The shooter is cooperating with police as they continue to investigate, Herbert said.
The shooter’s mother, Mara Hertzberg, identified the shooter during an interview, but it is The Register-Guard’s policy to not name crime victims in most cases.
Herbert said investigators “certainly” view the shooter as a crime victim. He added that it will be up to Lane County prosecutors to decide if the shooting was legal.
State law allows a person to protect himself by shooting at someone who is committing or attempting to commit a residential burglary.
Mara Hertzberg said Thursday following the shooting that she and her husband do not own guns. Herbert said he did not know who owns the gun that was used in the incident.
One bullet struck a neighboring house. Contacted by telephone, the home’s owners confirmed their house had been damaged by gunfire.
Neighbors said they heard several gunshots before seeing a man running down Stoney Ridge Road on Thursday afternoon. Police later identified that man as Dubouch.
In court on Friday, Dubouch appeared to have at least two large cuts on his face. Police said he had received medical treatment for injuries he sustained when a police dog bit him while helping officers take him into custody.
Dubouch is being held in the Lane County Jail on the robbery and burglary charges.
He is also being kept behind bars on a “federal hold” — likely because he remains on supervised release following a 1999 conviction in U.S. District Court for an armed bank robbery that occurred in Jackson County, court records show.
According to an article that appeared in the Medford Mail-Tribune in 1999, Dubouch was part of a loose-knit gang of criminals that held up several businesses in the Medford area in 1998.
Dubouch served nearly nine years in federal prison before he was released in 2008.
He has been convicted in state court of a number of additional crimes — including theft, methamphetamine possession and being a felon in possession of a firearm, court records show.
Weawwy?
Sounds more like a home invasion gone right.
A little more info in this story than the last one.
Still no description of the people involved.
How much hypocrisy can you print in one sentence?
“The shooter’s mother, Mara Hertzberg, identified the shooter during an interview, but it is The Register-Guard’s policy to not name crime victims in most cases.”
I guess that would make the shooter Mrs. HERTZBERG’s little boy....???
One thug dead, one behind bars.
Where exactly did something go “wrong”?
I estimate that 99% of the home invasions in modestly priced neighborhoods are tied to drugs and/or drug money suspected to be in the home.
The wrong part is that the story should have read “two dead, none behind bars to burden the taxpayers any longer.”
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