This is a long story. If the reader chooses to read through, it will give an insight into an actual crime that recently took place in a small town. The facts come from the victim and the neighbors. One is encouraged to read it with a desire to gain insight into the mindsets being manipulated by an event.

A man I know quite well was put into a dangerous situation due to his neighbor’s house being burglarized. This person, we can call him “Jim,” lives in a very quiet section of a very small town. The little town does not even have a traffic light, so it is smaller than those one traffic light towns we often hear about. Another house, just two doors up from the victim’s house, has always been an issue because of the occupants. No real trouble, just suspicions. It is a familiar house to neighborhoods across the country. The place where things just do not seem quite right.

An older couple (grandparents) opened their home to a grandchild in her twenties. The girl brings home a fiance. A nice guy; even helpful. Then other people start to show up. They hang out on the porch. Cars pull up. Some of them are old jalopies while some of them are worth about as much as the house they are parked in front of. No direct evidence of criminal activity, just little things such as another neighbor noticing the amount of traffic at the front door of the house. Not that it is a steady stream, just a bit odd for the tone set by the rest of the neighborhood.

Jim sees it all. He has been there about a decade and does not bother anyone. He is helpful when he can be and neighbors, including ones at the suspicious house, are friendly toward him. Jim talks to the granddaughter and her fiance. They have never shared a harsh word. Jim also has a good rapport with the grandmother and grandfather. He even had a discussion with the  girl’s fiance about illness and job loss. Both Jim and the young man had something happen that caused them to lose jobs. The young man was seriously injured, and Jim got sick.

A few days ago, Jim got a call. The man on the phone had his home burglarized and was calling Jim to ask him if he has seen anything unusual. Jim lives just across the street. The man is gone for days at a time due to his work. He and his wife have another home a few miles away. The man’s wife stopped at their house across from Jim’s the other morning to find the door jimmied and the house ransacked. Jim’s neighbor said that several guns were missing along with a big screen TV and possibly other items. He was not sure because he had not gone through everything in the house yet.

That is disturbing in itself. However, the rest of the story is even more disturbing.

Jim’s neighbor, the victim of an invasion into his home and of theft, was in a panic. It is a natural thing for the fear of recurrence to develop. The sense of violation of the sanctity of one’s castle makes the fear even worse. Regardless of the facts of the matter, most people feel safest at home. When that safety is compromised, it generates feelings that there is no place of refuge from the stress and violence of the rest of the world. Sleep is no longer peaceful. Window and door locks are checked and rechecked. Eyes peer out from behind window blinds in dark rooms completing regular surveillance checks of what is outside, looking for suspicious activity. Ears turn toward the slightest sound that can be interpreted as an intruder attempting to make entry.

Jim indicated that his neighbor had disconnected thoughts and a wild look in his eyes. One of fear similar to the one of prey animals when in battle for their lives against predators trying to eat them. The problem with fear is that it leads to irrational behavior. That big cerebral cortex of higher brain functions in human beings when coupled with primal instincts does not always come up with good solutions. This was where Jim’s neighbor was headed.

A couple of days after the burglary, Jim discovered that his victim neighbor decided to sneak back home when it would look like he would be away again. The man reported to have stayed up at night, hiding outside his home behind an object waiting to see if anything would happen. As reported by the neighbor to Jim, something did indeed happen. The young man who lives two doors up with his fiance was seen by Jim’s neighbor walking toward the house that was robbed in the middle of the night. The man was said to have been carrying a bag of tools. The victim neighbor stood up when he heard noise, and the man saw him. The former burglary victim was now standing in his yard with a loaded 12 gauge shotgun confronting another man who was on his property in the middle of the night.

The homeowner asked the trespasser what he was doing. The man was reported to have simply said, “Nothing dude,” while turning and quickly exiting the property. The neighbor with the 12 gauge is reported to have fired a shot toward the ground in the direction of the man, supposedly to just scare him. The direction of the shot was Jim’s house. There is a bright spot in the pavement of the road outside of Jim’s house where the shot hit the ground.

The police were reported to have been called for the initial burglary and for the event after the burglary. The rest of the details are spotty because it appears that the story never made it into the local papers. The police, as reported by the burglary victim, did not enter his home to see the evidence of the burglary. The town has a part time police department. That department was called first, but no officers were on duty. Such is the case for many small towns across America today. They cannot afford full time police protection.

State patrol officers were called after there was no response from the local police. The state officers are reported to have advised the victim to follow up with the local police when they are back on duty since the initial report went to them. The victim said it took about two hours for the state officers to show up. They are stretched thin too with few officers patrolling vast rural, highway and suburban areas. The truth of the matter is that there was little they could do after the burglary. There were no witnesses and unlike TV, a crime unit is not going to show up and take pictures and fingerprints for a burglary, especially since no people were home and no one was injured.

Do not get me wrong, the police did an excellent job. The real work went on behind the scenes. The police are not stupid. They know what homes in the neighborhood are housing the people committing the bulk of crimes. They know who the drug dealers are and who the vandals are. However, they are bound to follow the rules of law and evidence. The victim of the burglary was reported to have advised officers after the shooting incident to just go and kick in the door to the house up the street and go inside and retrieve his stuff. The officers obviously could not do that, and neither should they ever be allowed. Sure, it would have been great for the victim of the burglary, but such freedom of the police would set a terrible precedent for the future.

The police did a little good old investigating and were able to return to the suspect’s house. They were reported to have arrested another man staying in the house because there was a warrant out on him. The man that the burglary victim shot at was not taken, and it was reported that he may be charged with defiant trespass. Also reported by the burglary victim was that some of the stolen items were retrieved from the house along with a cache of illegal drugs. The victim said the police found some of the guns at a pawn shop and a pistol at the house of another drug dealer who lives in the small town. The other drug dealer was reported to have fled when the cops showed up but left behind one of the burglary victim’s stolen pistols. Obviously someone has spilled the beans to the police as to where the stolen items were disposed of.

The burglary victim is still in a panic. He is trying to retrieve his recovered items because they are being held as evidence. He also is talking about schemes of building an impenetrable room inside the house and how he is going to invest in a gun safe. Talk is now going toward alarm systems and cameras. Responding after the fact is sadly built into the nature of most of us. Proactive measures cost money and take time and effort to implement. The natural course is the easy route. However, it is rarely the prudent one.

The most fascinating thing this author heard out of all the stories being passed back and forth among other residents of the houses close by to the burglary victim was one from the victim himself. The man said that the grandmother came out of the house after the shooting incident. One can only surmise the conversation that went on when the man ran into the house after almost being on the receiving end of shot from a 12 gauge. The burglary victim reported that the grandmother told him that he should lock his doors and not make his house so inviting. Incredible, but it fits with the mindset because the grandmother is also a victim.

The young man decided of his own free will to go onto the property of another man in the middle of the night. Since the confrontation occurred outside, it is impossible to say with 100 percent certainty what the trespasser’s intent was. Although, we can say we have a good idea what it was. The grandmother knows the man like all the rest of the people in the neighborhood did. She knows him the same way the burglary victim did before the incident. The man was nice to talk to. He would help you out if you needed it. He would make it a point to wave as he passed by. He was there through a very serious illness of the grandfather. From all appearances, he was a good guy.

The burglary victim saw another side to the man’s nature revealed in the middle of one special night. A side that can exist in anyone. The rumors are that the man is hooked on prescription painkillers. Maybe it goes back to the serious injury he sustained that caused him to lose his job. A lifetime of circumstances and a degradation in impulse control can lead even good guys to do bad things. Often a criminal such as this will rationalize the control factors away. If the man is dependent on illegal drugs, his thoughts may have been that it was a victimless crime. Surely the neighbor has insurance on the items. (He did not.) Plus, he and his wife are not there so it is just material things that will be stolen. There is no chance of anyone really being hurt. The house is a soft target, easy to take. Remember, Grandma told him he should lock his doors.

Of course, Grandma is just trying to place blame somewhere other than the good boy who her granddaughter loves and who helps around the house. Grandma was probably terrified and not even sure how to process that her granddaughter’s fiance was just shot at by a guy down the street. It is also unlikely that the perpetrator told Grandma the whole story.

Now, let us take a look at the fail points of this story , put together by information culled from those who live in the area. Jim, who had no involvement as a victim of the burglary or the perpetration of it, became a victim of risk when the man whose house was burglarized decided to squeeze off a shot from a 12 gauge. The projectiles from the shotgun could have easily penetrated Jim’s house and killed anyone inside. So far there is no report as to whether or not the District Attorney will file charges against the burglary victim. After all, he fired when his life was not being threatened.

The victim, if his doors indeed have been left unlocked, should lock his doors. It is not an excuse for the burglar to use in court. He cannot stand before the judge and say he did it because the victim invited him in by leaving the doors unlocked and expect leniency. Everyone has the right to leave their doors and windows wide open when they leave if they should so choose. However, it is not a prudent thing to do. The lack of locks, or good locks for that matter, made the house a softer target. The point is to not make one’s house the easiest target on the block for any criminal. The goal is to have a house that is passed over as a choice for criminals because it is too difficult to get into and too risky.

Effort should also be made to not make it obvious that there are good things to steal inside. Jim advised that the victim neighbor was quite willing to share information about his guns. Guns are a hugely popular item for theft. They can be sold for cash that exceeds their retail value. Criminals that cannot legally acquire a gun will pay a premium for stolen ones. Stolen guns cannot be traced to the criminal who uses them to commit a murder because the gun is not registered to him. A stolen handgun can fetch a good street price. Even old guns that are barely functional or are of little worth as defensive guns are high value items on the street. Also, most homes that contain guns actually have several of them, not just one. A criminal just targeting guns in a house can get enough to support a drug habit for a good amount of time by breaking into a house where he knows guns can be found.

The other fail point is that the homeowner was gone for days at a time due to his work. The fact that he has another home made this house vacant even more often. An alarm system with a yard sign along with good locks on a sturdy door may have made the thief choose another target. Staying at the house overnight at an irregular pattern would have been good too. Just a couple of lights or a TV left on may have helped. The victims have different vehicles so not coming and going in the same vehicle would have been a help too.

In situations like this one, it is important to separate out how people should respect property and what actually occurs. Of course we should be living in a world where the doors can be left unlocked and we can come and go as we please. However, the fact is that we do not live in such a world. With that knowledge now acquired, base security precautions on facts rather than ideology.

The most risky move for the victim of the burglary was to lie in wait outside for the criminal to come back. It actually turned out for the good in this situation. Think of what may have happened if the victim had waited inside and the man had made entry into the house. The shooting-to-scare incident should never have happened. However, as already mentioned, rational behavior was at a minimum for the victim of the crime. His immediate goal was to bring back peace of mind by catching the perpetrator of the violation and neutralizing the threat of it being caused again by the perpetrator.

The victim’s higher thinking was able to prevail to a degree. Somewhere in those rapidly occurring thoughts, as the adrenaline was surely pumping during that confrontation, was just the desire to scare the perpetrator and not kill him. Maybe he thought how the present situation was not a lethal threat encounter, and that there was no justifiable cause to shoot the man. Maybe he decided to wait outside and not inside because he did not want to have to kill anyone. We will never know. The fact is that other neighbors were put at risk because of the victim’s choice to pull the trigger in this situation.

Jim said he is looking out the window more often now. He is going to install more cameras too. He even mentioned about installing a ballistic panel into the back of the headboard of his bed. Jim said that someone set off a couple of commercial fireworks down the street from his home the other evening. It was just a couple of days after the shooting. They were the big ones that fill the sky with light and a loud explosion of sound. For some reason, he thought it was someone shooting a 12 gauge outside. He grabbed his pistol and took cover while trying to see what was going on outside. Fear spreads like a plague . . .

Cody S. Alderson is a long-time regular contributor to The United States Concealed Carry Association. He is a private consultant and author based in southwestern Pennsylvania. Cody invites you to visit his website at www.aldersonarts.com.