Tried every measure
Mr. Baker believes that, too.
He had lived in his modest neighborhood just north of Dallas Love Field for 15 years without a problem when burglars began stealing his equipment – five times in two months.
JIM MAHONEY / DMN
Mr. Baker had been burglarized five times in two months at his home before shooting and killing an intruder. He stored his tools in his garage, protected behind a locked six-foot gate and next to a back yard bathed by a light so bright that a friend said it looked like the Texas Rangers’ ballpark.
It wasn’t enough to deter the thieves.
On an early October morning, Mr. Baker heard a noise – his Mexican red-headed parrot, Salvador, had squawked an emphatic “Hello,” something he does whenever someone passes by. Mr. Baker flipped on a closed-circuit monitor and saw a man walk into his garage.
Mr. Baker said he had seen the man before, on tapes of the earlier burglaries.
“If he needed a fast fix, he’d go into my garage and grab something and take it to his drug connection,” Mr. Baker said earlier this month.
That night, he decided to confront the intruder, identified as John Woodson, 46, of Dallas, who had a criminal record for various offenses, including burglary.
“I went out the front door and came through the gate, and when he started walking from the back of the garage toward me, that’s when I shot him,” Mr. Baker said.
When police arrived, a homicide detective watched the video and told Mr. Baker, “This is by the book.”
The case received international attention, largely because of Salvador, the parrot. But Dallas grand jurors treated it as Texas juries usually do: They declined to indict.
That’s one of the reasons county prosecutors argued against the castle law in committee hearings before it was approved. It really wasn’t necessary, they said, because more than a half-dozen self-defense provisions already existed in Texas law. And Texas juries almost always sided with the person protecting his own.
“In 25 years, I’ve never known a Harris County court to prosecute a homeowner or businessman for killing a burglar or robber,” Harris County Assistant District Attorney Bill Delmore told legislators. “We don’t do that.”
Jana McCown, an assistant district attorney for Williamson County, echoed that in her remarks.
“I can assure you that we don’t try to arrest homeowners or crime victims for protecting themselves against crime,” she said.
But the Legislature overwhelmingly supported Mr. Wentworth’s bill, and it was quickly signed into law.
They may not have prosecuted but they have taken homeowners to court to settle the matters all the same.
With the last 10 years or so there was a case on Fox 26 (in Houston Texas) where a guy had 2 men come to his door, one ended up jumping a fence and coming in through his back door. He grabbed his gun and shot the man on the internal staircase in his home. The other man fled in a car.
He was taken to court and the other suspect was eventually captured but never charged. Police refused to ID the other man citing privacy rights and when the man who faced possible trial for his shooting asked what he should do to prevent the other perp from coming back, he was told to circle the block a few times before he heads home each day.
What a joke.