Mom who Shot Intruder in Child's Bedroom Faces Court of Public Opinion

A story we brought you yesterday on the 33-year-old Oregon mother who shot a home intruder in her daughter’s bedroom, is getting some traction today.

But not for reason you might think.

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While the homeowner waits to hear from the District Attorney’s office if she’ll face charges for defending her 10-year-old daughter from the 59-year-old man standing in her room, she faces the court of public opinion.

Online comments on the story out of Portland range from “So glad she was able to protect herself and her children”, to “It would have been better if she would have left the house and called the police”.

In Oregon, under state statute 161.209, citizens have the right to defend themselves or another person from what they believe to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force.

I’d say a strange man standing in your 10-year-old’s bedroom in the middle of the night would fit that bill, wouldn’t you?

The 59-year-old man who had broken into her home was not known to the homeowner and as a mother myself, I can’t imagine that the first thought she would have had would be to have a conversation with him in her daughter’s bedroom on whether he needed therapy or a ham sandwich.

These keyboard jockeys can say whatever they want in the court of public opinion but until they stand in that mother’s shoes, it’s just ignorant jaw-jackin because they don’t know what they would do.


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