A Texas woman caught a man peeping in through her bedroom window around 11 PM last Friday. In fear of her life, she grabbed a rifle and shot it multiple times through the wall hitting the peeping tom multiple times. He died on the scene.
Police stated that she is cooperating with the investigation, and there have been no charges filed against her.
So was this a justified shooting? I guess in the end, if there are no charges filed, then it will be. But there are a few things we can touch on based on this incident.
The first thing that comes to mind is a disparity of force. It is unknown if the suspect had a weapon, but the fact that we have a male suspect versus a female suspect makes me believe that disparity of force comes into play in this incident.
But with the man being outside of her home, was he actually a threat at that time? Again, did he have a weapon? Did she see a weapon if he had one? Was he outside of her window with a knife telling her that he was going to come inside and rape her? We don’t know all of these details, but I would assume that could come into play to investigators.
We also never recommend just blindly shooting through a door or wall. The 4th rule of firearm safety is to know your target and what is beyond. You can know any of this if you are shooting through a wall. In this case, the woman hit the suspect, but where would those rounds have gone if she didn’t?
That is a lot of ‘ifs,’ and personally, I wouldn’t want to be in that situation after a self-defense shooting. I think the best advice for someone in this situation is to armed yourself with a firearm, hole up in a room, and call the police. Should the suspect enter the house, you are most likely justified in using a firearm in self-defense.
