The town of Lytle, Texas, located about 20 miles southwest of San Antonio, hasn't had a homicide in 13 years, according to local media. That changed on Sunday night, but based on the description of events from local police, it sounds like the fatal shooting is likely to be deemed justified and not murder.
Lytle Police Chief Richey Priest says he's asked for the Texas Rangers to get involved in the investigation, admitting that his department doesn't deal with homicides on a regular basis. While the shooting itself doesn't appear to be all that complicated, it was only the final act in what looks like a larger crime scene.
Priest said officers were called to a home on Butch Cassidy Street in the Saddle Ridge Estates subdivision for a disturbance after 10:30 p.m.
He said they found a child with knife wounds inside one home, then heard gunshots coming from another home a few doors down.
Shortly thereafter, he said the owner of the second home walked outside, telling officers he had just shot an intruder.
“He was more or less backed into a corner and didn’t have really any other options. It was a bad situation,” Priest said. “So, the homeowner was forced to use deadly force to protect him and his family.”
The young girl who was stabbed was taken to a local hospital, where her wounds were thankfully deemed non-life-threatening.
Priest hasn't officially confirmed that the individual who stabbed the girl was the man who was shot, but the evidence seems to be pointing in that direction.
Police said witnesses told them the man appeared to be “aggressive” and “out of control” as he made his way to the other home.
“Went in this house, a house or so down. Totally random, you know? No connection that anyone’s aware of,” Priest said.
He said it’s possible the shooting could qualify as self-defense, but that will be determined once the investigation is complete.
I realize that Priest wants to be cautious in talking to the media about the incident, but if he told reporters that the homeowner was backed into a corner, didn't really have any other options, and was "forced to use deadly force" to protect himself and his family, it sure sounds like self-defense is more of a certainty than a possibility.
There are still several unanswered questions, though. Did the man who was shot have a knife when he broke into the armed citizen's home? What was his connection, if any, to the young girl who was stabbed, or was that, too, apparently a random act?
According to the San Antonio News-Express, Saddle Ridge Estates is a newly developed, master planned community that "caters to first-time home buyers." D.H. Horton, the company that built the community, boasts on its website that "peace of mind is easy to come by" in the neighborhood, thanks to the "smart home" technology each house is equipped with.
While that may be true, I'd say real peace of mind comes from knowing that if someone breaks into your home with violence on their mind, you have the means to protect yourself. In this case police were already just a few doors away when the intruder broke in and the homeowner was forced to defend himself and his family, but that wasn't close enough to prevent the break-in.
Yelling to Alexa to call 911 is great, but unless every home comes with a cop in the closet, folks are still on their own until police arrive. I've got nothing against modern technology (for the most part), but it can't replace a good old fashioned firearm when it comes to keeping the bad guys at bay.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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