Key Takeaways
- A resident shot a stranger, Hunter A. Jarvis, who entered their home uninvited at 4:39 a.m. in South Glens Falls, NY.
- Jarvis faces a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass but remains in stable condition after surgery for a gunshot wound.
- State Police indicated that the resident likely will not face charges due to New York’s laws on self-defense within one’s home.
- The case raises questions about Jarvis’s conduct and the circumstances leading to the shooting, but only the trespass charge currently applies.
- A court date is set for Jarvis on Oct. 14, and he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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SOUTH GLENS FALLS, NY — A resident of a Main Street home shot a 20-year-old stranger who walked through the door at 4:39 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6, and State Police say there is no indication the resident will be charged.
Hunter A. Jarvis of Hudson Falls was still at Albany Medical Center on Tuesday evening when State Police announced he had been charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass, as reported by the Times Union. He was taken there with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the leg and was in stable condition following surgery Wednesday morning, according to State Police spokeswoman Trooper Stephanie O’Neil.
Four people were inside the home at 46 Main St. None of them knew Jarvis. He came in through the door without permission or invitation, O’Neil said. One of the residents shot him. No one else was hurt.
“As of right now there’s no indication the individual will be charged,” O’Neil said of the resident. The investigation remains open, including the question of why Jarvis entered the home in the first place.
State Police have not described what happened between the moment Jarvis came through the door and the moment the resident fired. That gap matters, and I am not going to fill it. What the record shows so far is a stranger inside an occupied home before dawn and a resident who stopped him with one wound to the leg.
The charge against Jarvis is worth understanding. O’Neil said he is not facing burglary, at least for now, because he did not force his way in. That is a question about Jarvis’s conduct and the condition of the door. It is a separate question from what the resident reasonably believed at 4:39 a.m. when an unknown man appeared inside the house with three other people present. The charging decision for the intruder and the legal position of the person who shot him are two different analyses, and police have been clear that the second one is leaning toward no charges.
New York does not have a stand your ground law. Outside your home, you have a duty to retreat before using deadly force if you can do so safely. Inside your own home, that duty disappears as long as you were not the initial aggressor, and the law also recognizes a reasonable belief that someone is breaking in to commit a crime. That home exception is the whole reason this resident is not sitting in a cell today.
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The lesson I take from this one is about mindset more than hardware. The firearm was already in the house. What the resident had to supply was the decision that a stranger standing inside the home before dawn is a threat to the people in it, not a situation to wait out. That decision has to be made ahead of time, because at 4:39 a.m. there is no time to make it.
Jarvis was issued a ticket to appear in Moreau Town Court on Oct. 14. The criminal trespass charge is an allegation, and he is presumed innocent unless convicted. The resident has not been identified, State Police have not said what kind of firearm was used, and no formal charging decision regarding the resident has been announced.
