Texas Dad Defends Family After Costumed Stranger Tries to Force His Way Inside

A Texas man is in critical condition after being shot in what looks like a justifiable shooting based on a drunken mistake. 

Police in Houston say a costumed man returning home from a Halloween party may have been inebriated and confused the armed citizen's apartment door with his own early Thursday morning. 

Inside the second-floor apartment, a father was asleep on the couch while his girlfriend and their one-year-old child were in the bedroom.He woke up to the sound of someone rattling his doorknob, kicking the door frame, and insisting the home was his. 

Fearing an intruder, the resident grabbed his firearm, looked through the peephole, and saw a man outside.Speaking to FOX 26, the resident, who asked not to be identified, described the moments that led up to the gunfire:

"He's like, 'This is my house.' I'm like, 'This is not your house, bro,' and then he's trying to bum-rush in," the resident said.

The costumed man was able to make his way inside the apartment and allegedly assault the resident, which is when he drew his handgun and fired a single shot. 

Authorities say the armed citizen has been cooperative with investigators, and so far no charges have been filed against him. An attorney who spoke to Fox 26 in Houston thinks it's unlikely that the man will be charged at all. 

FOX 26 Legal Analyst Chris Tritico says Texas law does not require a resident to stop and evaluate an intruder's intentions in the middle of the night.

"At night, when someone's coming into your house, you do not have a duty to wait and decide if it's a mistake or if this is just some drunk guy," Tritico explained. "You can take action to defend your property and yourself, and that includes deadly force. In this circumstance, when it may have just been a mistake, the homeowner doesn't have to wait to decide. You can use deadly force."

If the resident's account is correct, it's not just that this was a mistaken attempt to gain entry into an apartment. There was a physical assault involved, which makes it even more reasonable for the armed citizen to believe that his life and the lives of his wife and child were in danger. 

I do hope the guy who was shot makes a full recovery. And if he really was so far under the influence of something that he didn't know where he lived, I also hope that he wasn't behind the wheel at any point after he left the Halloween party. 

It's an unfortunate situation all around, but the responsibility for what happened doesn't rest with the man who was awakened in the middle of the night by a stranger pounding on his door. He had every reason to believe his family was in danger, and every right to act accordingly.

There's a big difference between someone accidentally knocking on the wrong door and someone trying to force his way into an occupied apartment, especially after being told he's at the wrong address. Whatever the man's intentions, the resident had no way of knowing whether he was dealing with a confused drunk or a violent criminal, and he certainly wasn't obligated to be physically assaulted without protecting himself. 

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