Woman Fires Gun At Two People Apple Picking

A 30-year-old Michigan woman is facing felony charges after firing her gun at two people who were trying to pick apples.

Two people identified as Stacey Smith, 25, and Donald Smith, 37, were on off-road vehicles and stopped at a fence line to pick apples from a tree that were hanging over onto their side. The woman, believed to be the property owner, approached the pair and yelled that the apples were on private property.

Heeding the warning, the pair dropped the apples and moved on to another apple tree around the corner, but that was not fenced in.

That’s when the woman apparently had enough and started firing shots at them.

Luckily no one was injured.

That woman, Shawn Rose Beeler, has been charged with felonious assault and felony firearm charges for the Sept. 15 incident.

Did the pair picking apples know they were on personal property? I don’t know.

Should you, as a property owner, be able to protect what’s yours? In most cases, yes.

Did the pair refuse to leave? I don’t know.

However discharging a firearm over a few stolen apples doesn’t sit well in my book. Maybe a call to the police would have been a more appropriate response.

What about you? Did the homeowner go too far with discharging a firearm?

Maybe an even better question to pose is this: If you were one of the apple pickers and believed you were not on private property, what would you have done if someone started firing in your direction?

Tricky situation with many possible outcomes.