Posted on 10/10/2006 6:53:41 PM PDT by keepthefaith
Police said a 14-year-old boy was defending himself and his mother when he shot and killed an intruder Monday afternoon at their home on Ocean Drive.
Capt. John Houston said the 14-year-old boy, whose name was not released, was home from school after becoming ill, and his 46-year-old mother, Rose Ann Kozlowski, had just returned from the grocery store when she was confronted by a man with a knife.
Cmdr. Jesse Garcia confirmed during a news conference that police received a call from one of the residents of 4221 Ocean Drive at 12:55 p.m. and responded to a report of a man tying them up and holding them at knifepoint.
The man, only identified as a black man in his 30s or 40s, led the mother and son to the upstairs master bedroom, where he bound their hands with men's ties and ransacked the house for valuables.
"He packed up her SUV in the garage with those items. He threatened to kill them repeatedly," Houston said. After the robber caught the woman trying to untie herself once, she was able to free herself and her son and find her husband's pistol in a security box under the bed. She tried to shut double doors to the bedroom as the man tried to push them open and her son held the gun.
"She was using all her strength to push them," Houston said, adding that the boy aimed at the man through a space in the door and fired one shot.
"He shot once and hit him in the head, killing him instantly," Houston said. "He took a life-saving measure to save his mother and himself."
Soon after the incident, police cars lined Ocean Drive near the house, which is between Ocean View Place and Aberdeen Avenue, and neighbors stood nearby watching officers investigate.
Houston said police also are investigating the possibility the man had an accomplice because neighbors reported seeing two black men in a green 1970s four-door sedan, possibly a Lincoln Continental, driving slowly around the neighborhood a couple hours before the incident.
(me being a pacificist for the day) works well also. A huge "Hooray" for this young boy!
If you count the rifle my husband's grandmother gave him many moons ago, I could answer YES. I doubt if he ever used it and I surely haven't.
Obviously gun owners have to learn how to shoot their guns.
On the subject, I pass on this anecdote: One of my brothers gave our mother a Saturday Night Special when she was in her 60s or 70s. It was registered in the name of whoever gave/sold it to my brother, and eventually this guy asked my bro. to return it.
Mom, now in her 80s and crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, refused to let go of it. She told my brother it was in her safe deposit box. It was not; I had joint access to that box, and besides, I also knew where she kept the gun.
After our mother died at the age of 87, I gave my brother the gun.
This is exactly why "safe storage" gun laws are a terrible idea. The safest storage is that which makes a home defense firearm most readily available in an emergency like this.
The police probably took the gun as "evidence" and now they're defenseless if the accomplice returns now or in the future to avenge his dead buddie.
I hope they have another gun or can get one.
My thoughts, exactly!
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