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Young prowler shot breaking
and entering
Excerpted from story that
originally ran here
as: By Bill Hendricks 04/18/2001 A used car dealer probably won't face criminal
charges for shooting a 12-year-old boy he caught breaking into the business with
two other youths, a police spokesman said Tuesday.
While saying that detectives haven't completed
their investigation into the near-fatal encounter early Monday, police Sgt.
Gabriel Trevino noted that state law gives property owners the right to use
deadly force to protect their homes and businesses from thieves and vandals.
No decision has been made on whether to seek
criminal charges in the case, Trevino said.
Police took statements from the car lot
operator and two youths who entered the building along with the 12-year-old boy.
No arrests were made.
One of the boys, 16-year-old Arthur Medrano,
said in an interview that he and the two other youths climbed a fence and
entered the car lot office hoping to find property they could sell.
State law, Trevino added, gives property owners
even greater discretion when the owner perceives a threat to property at night.
According to a police report, car lot operator
Gabriel Corona Jr. said he shot the boy with a shotgun after he heard someone
enter the building about 2:30 a.m.
Corona's father said that his son feared for
his life when he fired at shadowy figures that he saw coming toward him in the
darkness. The father said his son didn't learn until hours later that the
intruder he had shot was only 12 years old.
The wounded boy, Gomer Silva, was listed in
good condition Tuesday at Wilford Hall Medical Center.
Bleeding from shotgun pellet wounds to his
right side, the youngster was admitted to Wilford Hall early Monday in critical
condition.
Former District Attorney Steve Hilbig said
state law allows people to defend their property but at the same time gives the
district attorney room to seek criminal charges when prosecutors believe the
property owner used excessive force. In some of the most intensely publicized cases
in recent years, Bexar County and South Texas juries have acquitted property
owners charged with crimes after they killed people who came onto their
property.
Five years ago, a jury acquitted a retired San
Antonio police officer charged with aggravated assault in the shooting death of
one teen-ager and wounding of another teen.
The officer, still on the force at the time of
the shooting, and his 16-year-old son were alleged to have fired on the two
teen-agers from their rooftop.
Jurors told prosecutors after acquitting the
retired officer that they found he and his son were justified in using deadly
force to protect their home and property.
That same year, two men and a woman were
charged in the death of a 17-year-old boy who was shot in the back while running
away from a nightclub building the youth had marked with graffiti.
Lawyer Jay Norton, who represented the woman in
that case, said Tuesday that all charges had been dismissed after investigation
showed the fatal shot hadn't been fired at the fleeing youngster but instead had
ricocheted off an object before inflicting the fatal wound.
At the same time, Norton said that if the
charge hadn't been dropped, he was ready to argue that state law gave his client
the right to use lethal force in a case where property had been damaged in the
gloom of night.
Norton said property owners in Texas have
stronger legal protections to defend their homes than residents in some other
states.
In a more recent case, a Uvalde County jury
acquitted country music performer Johnny Rodriguez on a murder charge in the
shooting death of a man inside the Rodriguez home in Sabinal.
Norton, who represented Rodriguez, said in a
final statement to the jury that "you have the right to be safe in your own
home," and his partner, lawyer Alan Brown, told the panel that the right to
be safe in your home and property was fundamental in American life. NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
Section 107, this material is distributed, without profit, for research or
educational purposes. We do our best, as well, to give credit to the original
news source who published these Guns Save Lives stories out of respect and
appreciation for their willingness to spread the word that Guns Save Lives. God
Bless the Americans that publish these stories - for assisting Americans in
hearing the truth. |
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