MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE — Memphis police were called to a residential block of Sherwood Forest in response to a shooting at a residence. Occupants of the residence report a man attempting to gain entry through their front door. When one of the occupants encountered him, he was screaming and reaching into his jacket. The occupant shot him.
Another person in the home attempted to strike the suspect with his pistol to stop him from fleeing the scene, according to Local Memphis News. That didn’t work. The suspect fled and attempted to break into another home while he was already previously shot. Police detained him at that home.
While police were investigating the scene, they discovered yet another homeowner who reported that the suspect broke into her home. She heard him enter, scream, and then leave.
Police identified the suspect as Emmanuel Lane, 28. The three separate incidents all occurred around 2:30 a.m.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say drugs were involved. If not drugs, then some very severe psychological problems may have been at play. It’s not normal human behavior to repeatedly walk into other people’s homes, scream, and then leave.
The man was taken to a hospital and was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. It is sincerely my hope that he’s able to get some sort of treatment because breaking into people’s homes to upset them is no way to go through life.
Just a little while back, we had another story involving a man high on methamphetamines. He entered a business and threatened the owner and customers with a rock. After he was shot, he wandered around outside until police picked him up.
There’s a common trend with methamphetamines. The user gets whacked out of his mind, acts psychotic, and people have a hard time interpreting this as a temporary condition. And it’s hard to interpret someone’s actions as temporary when he is acting in a threatening manner, intruding onto private property, and even directly threatening force.
Meth. It’s a hell of a drug.
For this story, each homeowner took a different approach. The first one stayed in her room and waited for the intruder to leave. The second one responded with justifiable use of deadly force per Tennessee regulations. And the third, likely confused as hell as to why there’s a bleeding man attempting to break into his home, simply called police and waited for them to handle it.
Which one was the correct answer? Whichever keeps you safe. When some folk get high on meth or PCP or any number of other hard street drugs, they can act erratically and violently. This is a bad combination when you add home invasion into the mix. Protect yourself accordingly, don’t put yourself in harm’s way any more than you absolutely need to, and definitely notify authorities.