Homeowner Opens Fire on Home Intruder

Photo via KOMO
Photo via KOMO
Photo via KOMO

In Shoreline, WA, a homeowner in fear for his family’s safety was forced to open fire on a suspected burglar who was smashing windows and trying to kick in the door to his home early Thursday, police said.

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The drama unfolded at about 2:50 a.m. when the 44-year-old husband, his wife and two daughters, age 19 and 11, were awakened by the noises of an unknown home intruder yelling and kicking at the front door of their home in the 100 block of NE 174th Street, according to Shoreline police.

The homeowner grabbed his 9-mm handgun as his oldest daughter called 911 and the family locked themselves in a back bedroom of the house, said Sgt. Jason Houck of the King County Sheriff’s Office.

The daughter told 911 dispatchers that the family had seen and heard a shirtless man kicking at their doors, yelling profanities and trying to break in. She then told dispatchers they could hear the sound of glass shattering at the front of the house.

The husband, hearing the breaking glass, left the bedroom with his gun. He went to the front of the home, where he saw the suspect standing just outside the front window and door, which were broken out by lawn furniture that the suspect had thrown through.

As the suspect began advancing toward the homeowner from just outside the smashed-out door and windows, the homeowner fired two rounds, hitting the suspect once in the upper right thigh, Houck said.

Responding officers heard the two gunshots as they approached the house. They ran up and found the suspect just outside the front of the house with a serious gunshot wound to his upper leg.

The suspect, a 41-year-old man, was losing a lot of blood as officers approached. They applied a tourniquet to stop or at least slow the bleeding until medics could get to the scene and take the suspect to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he was rushed into surgery and is expected to survive.

The suspect, who lives in the same neighborhood as the incident, will be booked into the King County Jail for investigation of burglary after he is released from the hospital, Houck said.

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Police say the homeowner and his family were shaken up by the ordeal. No charges of any kind are expected to be filed against the homeowner.

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