Homeowner Shoots Intruder Dead While He Was Climbing Out Window: Was This Handled Correctly?

MIAMI-DADE, FLORIDA — A 54-year-old homeowner returned home when she was notified that her alarm system was going off. When she arrived, she found a teenager crawling out of her window. She used her concealed carry pistol to engage the suspect and by the time police arrived, he was pronounced dead.

CBS Miami reports that the woman is cooperating with the Miami-Dade police in the investigation. The police urged the public that it’s best to not try to handle situations like this themselves and instead hold back and wait for police to arrive, however, the question for the concealed carry community: was this situation handled correctly?

The burglar was attempting to escape through the window but it’s unknown to what degree an altercation occurred prior to the police arriving. It’s possible he threatened harm to the homeowner or any number of things which won’t be necessarily covered in the news report.

With few details, the police confirm that some form of confrontation occurred prior to shots being fired. While people may try to paint this scenario as a clear-cut “able to be avoided” situation, that’s not the way I’m interpreting it.

When you get a notification that your home’s burglar alarm is going off, you’re naturally going to want to investigate prior to calling in the police. There’s a whole host of reasons a burglar alarm system can get tripped — only one of those reasons is because there’s an uninvited person inside your home.

As she was armed, she likely took it upon herself to investigate the situation when she encountered the burglar. She’s on her property. She has every right to be on her property. And more importantly, she shouldn’t have to wait for someone else to arrive and handle it if she feels she has it. I will say that pursuing the burglar alone is dangerous because there’s absolutely no way for her to know how many burglars (or accomplices) are on the property or ready to be called into action. She essentially could have walked herself right into a trap. Also, she got lucky that the burglar was out in the open and caught flat-footed when she arrived. He could have just as easily ambushed her in her own home or any number of other possibilities.

Ultimately, I would advise contacting the police for the simple reason that it’s not worth losing your life to some opportunistic thug. However, I can’t fault her in the way she handled the situation if it turns out that the burglar in any way, shape, or form threatened, intimated, or tried to act violent towards her. If he didn’t want that outcome, he should have pursued a different line of work. As for her, she has to live with the consequences of her actions — as do we all. Act accordingly.