Posted on 07/19/2003 6:08:35 AM PDT by GailA
Sixth home shooting bloodies thief N. Memphis woman gives $200, then 2 shots from .32
By Bill Dries dries@gomemphis.com July 19, 2003
A woman gave a home invasion robber $200 before dawn Friday, then pulled a gun from her china cabinet and shot at him twice when the robber demanded even more money.
Police found a trail of blood inside and outside the house at 906 Meagher in North Memphis and were looking for a suspect at local hospitals Friday.
The shooting is at least the sixth incident since June in which a Memphis homeowner or resident has shot or shot at attackers. Like the other incidents, it will be reviewed by state prosecutors.
This is what happened about 2 a.m. Friday, according to a police report:
The robber took a screen off a back room window of the house, raised the window and crawled inside. He confronted the homeowner, Estella Schaefer, 65, and demanded money. He apparently was not armed.
It took Schaefer 15-20 minutes to look for money as he waited and she then gave him $200 in cash.
The robber told Schaefer, "'I know you've got more money than that. Someone told me,'" the police report says.
That's when Schaefer reached into her china cabinet and pulled a .32-caliber black revolver, shooting twice at the robber as he ran toward her to take the gun away from her.
He failed to get the gun, but Schaefer was cut on her left knuckle during the struggle. She declined medical assistance.
The robber ran out a side door and north on Meagher.
Police found a trail of blood going out of the house and for about half a block on a sidewalk on Meagher. They believe the robber was wounded.
Schaefer, who could not be reached by The Commercial Appeal for comment, told police that she didn't know if she hit the robber with either shot and had never seen him before.
Police described him as a black man in his mid- to late 20s, standing 5-foot-7 and weighing about 200 pounds.
A wave of shootings involving confrontations at people's homes began June 13 when David Ronald Washington, 44, was shot to death after breaking into a home at 3980 Wildwind Cove. He was the man police have identified as the East Memphis "cat burglar."
That same day, Kevin Martrell Humphrey, 19, was shot to death and a second suspect was injured when they tried to force their way into a home at 2959 Lark.
On July 9, William Ronnie Payne, 45, was shot and killed after trying to force his way into a home at 4212 Warbonnet.
Ricky Ricardo Wilborn, 21, was killed and Ali R. Ford, 24, was critically wounded July 11 when a man police say they robbed at an East Memphis ATM shot them as they took him by force back to his house at 4555 Dunn to get more money.
All of those shootings were ruled justified after a case-by-case review by the District Attorney General's Office.
However, police on Tuesday charged Joseph Jones Jr., 22, with two counts of reckless endangerment after he fired six blasts from a 12-gauge shotgun at a man he caught breaking into his shed at 1427 Leflore Place.
Jones didn't hit the burglar, but one of the shotgun blasts shattered a bedroom window at the house next door, narrowly missing two children who had been asleep in the room.
Jones claimed the burglar was armed and that the burglar shot at him as he fled.
Hopefully they'll find what's left of him in a creekbed or drainage ditch somewhere, after he's all bled out.
If $700 is too steep the Kel-Tec P-11 is about half that. Imo due to their excessive trigger pull these are <15m weapons. An ankle draw at that range may not be practical.
For missing? Seriously he needs more training. Missing, or wether the bad guy shot at him, is immaterial to the reckless endangerment charge, you have to know the target and what's beyond it. Still it would be better if he'd at least hit the burglar.
People tend to shoot consistently high in the dark for some reason, or so I've read.
Aaah shoot, you should have let the old guy have his way. Now if you could have found a Corsair, with it's .50s still installed, somewhere for him to do the deed with.... that would have been sweet.
Indeed. My confidence in the .45 is based on personal experience, at the receiving end. About 20 years ago, a co-worker and I agreed to go to the firing range together. We met at my house and, as we were getting into the car, he proudly displayed his new M1911. Somehow, it discharged. I saw the flash and felt what I thought was muzzle blast on the outside of my left thigh. I was not knocked off my feet but I did rock backward and had to struggle to maintain my balance. I looked down and saw a ragged hole, with blood actually spurting out and soaking my blue jeans. I sat down heavily on the curb and said, quite calmly, "You shot me, you ****ing idiot. Call an ambulance."
I did not feel any pain at first, just a numbness like the aftermath of an electric shock. The co-worker panicked and started running around in circles. He declared that he could take me to the hospital and there was no need for an ambulance. I started to feel faint and the pain was starting to set in, like a red-hot poker rammed through my leg and being twisted around. I got up and struggled into the house with my last ounce of strength. It had been all of 45 seconds since the gun went off. I got to the phone and called police emergency (we didn't have 911 service yet) and told them that I had been shot. I dropped the phone and collapsed on the couch.
At that point, the pain was unbearable, I could not move, and I was barely concious. Panic was setting in, I knew rationally that help was seconds away and I would be alright, but my lower brain was telling me that I was bleeding to death in a hurry.
I heard sirens a minute or so later and realized that I had failed to tell the emergency operator that the shooting had been an accident. The neighbors told me later that about 4 cop cars had converged on the house from different directions, to find my clueless co-worker standing in the front yard with his .45 still in hand. They levelled their guns on him, threw him to the ground, cuffed him, and then came looking for me. I had revived a little when the cops burst into the living room and found me, though the pain had gotten even worse. I considered letting my co-worker meditate on gun safety in the county jail for a while, but quickly dismissed that idea and told the cops the truth. They were very, very sympathetic and encouraging.
As I was being loaded into the ambulance one of the cops said, "Sheesh, a .45. Well, partner, if it's any comfort, I've seen people get hurt a lot worse with those things." He was quite right, it was a very minor wound by .45 standards. The bullet had passed cleanly through my thigh muscle without hitting a major artery or a bone, but I still required a transfusion and 2 days in the hospital. The co-worker was charged with illegally discharging a firearm and disorderly conduct resulting in bodily injury. He got probation on the condition that he pay the various costs, a matter of several thousand dollars. The cops found the bullet in the front yard, almost undamaged, and brought it to me in the hospital. I still have it.
A 9mm in the hands of someone prepared to shoot will do just fine and I don't have to worry about killing my neighbor.
What is the world coming to when it's not even safe to rob people's homes anymore? :^)
The 9mm also is a bear to reload because of the tapered case.
The best thing for apartment dwellers, though, is probably a shotgun, with #1 shot not rifled slugs.
My dad was in the combat engineers in N. Africa and Italy from 42 to 44, and then in Greece supervising the elections and getting shot at by Communists until 46. As a non combat arm (ha!) he was issued the M-1 Carbine, but he threw it away and carried a Garand and a 1911A1. He said he saw plenty of wounded GIs that had been shot by the Kraut Lugers or Walthers, but he never saw a live German with a .45 hole in him.
I repeat for emphasis, you are one lucky man. (And your coworker was an idiot, but you know that.)
Couldn't have been running too fast for too long.
Yeah...I can identify....the same can be said about my area: Miami-Dade County, FL. If anything, it's gotten worse down here. But I can't tell you how many times I have run off a potential mugger (teams even) by happening to "flash the piece" at just the proper moment.
Although once I actually was present for the full show. I was leaving a downtown lunch spot, known with the lawyers with two close buds of mine and this real low life, runs up and yanks something like an old FIE 38 snubnose...looked to me like the cylinder was out of alignment with the forcing cone....and screams "Gimme yo money!!" and my friends start LAUGHING like fools...and I'm giggling as they pull their FBI credentials along with that wonderful team of Mr Smith and Mr Wesson....I thought the poor schmuck was going to vapor lock on the spot. I'd always heard about black guys turning white and thought it to be a myth. Not so.....
ROFLMAO! Have you read the FR thread about the "exchange of rifle fire" between north and south Korea this week? LOL, NO CASUALTIES on either side! I understand the commies not having enough ammo or functioning rifles to practice...but, in my day if an Infantry Officer came back with such a story, he'd have been either laughed out of the Officer's Club or forced to buy the considerably sized bar a "round....." Probably a SHOT!
I've only had to pull it out and take cover behind a solid object, never had to actually draw down on somebody. On the other hand, my husband was filling up the car at the truck stop about 11 one night - after two hours of open mat aikido practice - when some big dude jumps out from behind the gas pump and yells, "Gimme yo money!" (Do they go to mugger school to learn to say that or what?) First thing hubby does is notice the guy's hands are empty, then he just laughs at him. He's thinking, "Gee I just came from open mat, I'm nice and loose, and I've got a 1911A1 in the back of my belt, and this guy wants my money!" Only decision was whether to break his arm, run his head into the pump, or fill him full of holes - as it turns out, the guy didn't like hubby's aura or something, 'cause he turned around and ran.
He's lucky he didn't meet me - I'm too small and poorly trained in aikido to let anybody big get within ten feet of me. He would have gotten about as far as "Gimme yo - " and he would have been ventilated. I can't afford to take chances like that (I'm not 6'6 and 240 # either). :-)
The old guy has always been known for building PITTS stunt planes in his garage and flying them....all that dogfighting made him a pretty big hit at some of the air shows some time back. The last plane he built from a kit was a HALF SIZED CORSAIR and he had hard points with the ability to remote mount AR15s and fire them from the cockpit. It had about an 800HP motor and was just too much for him. He wrecked it trying to grease it in on a grass field at too much speed. He wasn't hurt....but the plane was a mess.
To give him his full due: This man is so smart...he's an engineer and has a Ph.d in Nuclear Physics...used to run a nuke power plant before being retired as a senior VP for a power company....
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