DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA — A father protected his 4-year-old son by shooting and killing one of four teenagers who violently broke through the front door. Investigators have arrested the other three following their attempt to flee the scene. All four teenagers are believed to have had the day off from school.
According to the news report submitted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the four teenagers first knocked on the man’s door and when he didn’t answer, they broke it down and commenced to robbing the place. The man fled with his 4-year-old upstairs and attempted to hide in a closet. When two of the teenagers broke off from the pack and headed upstairs, he was left with no choice but to protect himself and his son.
“I was in the house at the time when I heard the gun fire,” one neighbor said to a reporter from AJC. “I heard the gun fire and came outside.”
This recent attempted burglary comes as no surprise to neighbors who have reported a sharp increase in theft and home invasions.
“There’s a rash of burglaries going on around here real bad and the people are tired of it,” a neighbor told Channel 2. “People just tired of their houses [being] broken [into] around here and they not putting up with it anymore.”
In this particular case, it appears the homeowner made every reasonable attempt to avoid conflict.
“Two guys went into the wrong home and they were met by a home owner protecting himself and a 4-year-old,” DeKalb County Police Chief Dr. Cedric L. Alexander told the station.
This father acted to the highest degree of care in this particular situation. Dealing with superior numbers, an unknown probability of weapons, he chose to give these men every opportunity to not enter into a fight. When faced with no other opportunity to do so, he shot and killed one of them.
We’re increasingly dealing with teenagers who are unafraid or just too ignorant of the consequences for their actions. Four kids out of school for the day deciding to knock off an occupied home? Sounds like the sort of people that wouldn’t feel bad at all about running into an unarmed home owner and his son. And for three of them, they can refine their strategy in county lock-up where they’ll eventually be tried as adults.