Homeowner Talks Down A Deranged Neighbor That Broke Into Her Home — Gun Barrel Diplomacy 101

WATERBORO, MAINE — A mother of two was in for a rude awakening when her neighbor woke her up with a flashlight in her eyes at 12:30 a.m. She had her daughter in the bed next to her but knew she was able to fight back if need be.

“I have a gun,” she said to the intruder. “And I’m not afraid to use it.”

According to the Journal Tribune, once the intruder backed off, she recognized him as her next door neighbor.

“I didn’t know who it was at first, I just jumped up and told him I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it and you need to leave,” the woman said in the Facebook posting. “I realized who it was, a neighbor – our children go to school together.”

He allegedly was convinced to walk out into her backyard and remain there while she talked with a police dispatcher on the phone. She locked the back door and continued to talk with emergency dispatch when he walked back in through the front door. According to her, her neighbor was bleeding all over the place and speaking absolute nonsense to her children.

“He was bleeding everywhere, he had cut himself trying to peel back my back door,” the woman wrote. “He bled all over my house and told my children very strange things that they are still traumatized over. They were also terrified from all the blood.”

Police eventually arrived and charged the man with trespass and mischief and placed him under a $500 bond.

This woman was extremely diplomatic and even commented that others who had heard her story were much less enthusiastic about how she handled it. Here’s the thing — pulling the trigger is a personal choice. Ultimately, if you’re able to diffuse a situation without the necessity of a trigger pull, good on you.

Here’s the problem: this doesn’t sound like the type of situation that’s “one and done”. If this guy was so mentally unstable that he will get drunk and break into another person’s house and endanger her and her children, who’s got bets that we can expect that exact same thing to happen again? Worse, he seems so mentally unstable that there’s really no telling where he will decide to draw the line next time.

Negotiation, diplomacy, these are all great virtuous things to attempt to do with people who may be hostile. However, when it comes to neutralizing the threat, there’s nothing quite like a gun. Our recommendations would be get a restraining order. Between that and the prior criminal charges, you can make it abundantly clear that the next intrusion will be much less cordial and the charges much more severe.