Authorities in Onslow County, North Carolina have cleared a woman of any potential charges after she shot and killed her ex-boyfriend as he was attempting to break into her home while she and her two children were inside, ruling her actions a justified act of self-defense. 

According to officials, 28-year-old Colton Bush had an active Domestic Violence Protective Order that prohibited him from having any contact with the woman, but on the evening of Sunday, October 8th he called his ex more than two dozen times while sending her dozens of text messages as well. The messages stopped shortly after 10 p.m. that evening, but it wasn't long after that Bush showed up at the woman's home.

Officials say that night Bush told his mother that he was going back to jail and that he was wearing concrete boots to block his ankle monitor. Bush also called dispatch and said his court ordered ankle monitor was going to die and requested that his probation officer be notified. 

Bush showed up to the Bear Creek home just after midnight. Bush tried using a long screwdriver to try and open the door but was unsuccessful. He then entered the home through a window. 

On a video recording, the woman can be heard telling Bush to go away. Once he entered through the window, the woman fired five shots from a .380 caliber handgun. He was struck by all five shots.

The local sheriff says Bush had previously violated a protective order on two separate occasions and pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of breaking and entering as well as violating a domestic violence protective order in April of this year. It's unclear if Bush was sentenced to any jail time after his guilty plea or was instead placed immediately on probation, but he was back in court in August on another charge of violating a protective order. 

That case was dismissed by a judge when the victim failed to appear in court to testify, despite the objections of local prosecutors. If the local courts had cut Bush a break after his first arrest, I can understand why the woman might have been reluctant to go through the ordeal of testifying against him once more, but without her testimony it might have been impossible for prosecutors to produce any evidence that Bush had committed a crime. 

When the victim failed to appear in court, the judge dropped the domestic violence restraining order against Bush, but the woman successfully applied for a new protective order last month; one that was still active when Bush attempted to break into her home.

This incident not only highlights the importance of domestic abuse victims being able to protect and defend themselves, but also the struggles they face to find justice in the courts. Under North Carolina law, violating a domestic violence protective order is a misdemeanor offense punishable by, at most, 150 days in the local jail. With time off for good credit, that five-month sentence can be cut down to four months behind bars, which means that even if Bush had received the maximum sentence allowed he would have been released from custody long before he showed up at his ex's home earlier this month. 

It appears, however, that Bush was placed on probation and ordered to wear an ankle monitor after pleading guilty to breaking and entering and violating the domestic violence restraining order back in April. There's no way of knowing if jail time would have convinced Bush to leave his ex alone, but at the very least it would have provided some actual consequences for his actions, which might have influenced his behavior going forward.