An intruder, Charles Lanard Allen, 40, forced his way into a San Antonio home on Lamar Street and pointed a handgun at a 40-year-old resident. A struggle ensued, the gun discharged, and a third man inside the house opened fire. Allen fled and died from a gunshot wound; the resident was hospitalized with injuries to his ankle and arm.
The medical examiner ruled Allen’s death a homicide, a classification describing the cause rather than legal culpability. The man who fired the shots left before police arrived and is being sought as a suspect, while investigators continue examining the incident with no charges announced yet.
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SAN ANTONIO, TX — A man who forced his way into an East Side home Thursday night and pointed a handgun at a resident was shot and killed by another man inside the house, according to the San Antonio Police Department.
The account comes from a preliminary police report, as reported by the San Antonio Express-News. Charles Lanard Allen, 40, knocked on the door of a home in the 1000 block of Lamar Street around 9:15 p.m. and forced his way inside.
Allen pointed a handgun at a 40-year-old man who lived there. The resident grabbed for the weapon. The two struggled. The gun went off. A third man inside the home opened fire.
Allen yelled that he had been shot and ran out. Responding officers found him dead with a gunshot wound to the chest. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide, which is a medical classification meaning one person killed another, not a finding on whether the shooting was lawful.
The 40-year-old resident left the home and was later taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound to the ankle and a graze wound on his arm. Police have not said which weapon fired those rounds.
A forced entry followed by a handgun pointed at the man who lives there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm by any reading, and the struggle over that gun left no room to wait. On the facts police have released, the third man fired at an armed intruder in the middle of that fight.
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Then he left. A sergeant at the scene called him “the other suspect” and said he remains at large. That word choice is the consequence of walking away. The man who stayed at a scene and called 911 is a witness whose account is on the record from the first minutes. The man who left is a suspect that police are looking for, and investigators are working from a dead body, a wounded resident, and an empty house instead of his version of what happened.
No charging decision has been announced. Police said the investigation is ongoing.
