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Armed Self Defense in The News
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
'Scrappy' woman corners escapees
By Jim Holland, Journal Staff Writer
WOOD -- Two escapees from a Chamberlain school for troubled teenagers managed to evade capture during a 12-hour vehicle theft binge in eastern and southcentral South Dakota Wednesday night.
But then they encountered a determined woman wielding a shotgun.
"I called 911 and said we have the fugitives," said Sena Lauritsen, 55, recalling a wild Thursday morning at her rural home, southwest of Wood on the Mellette-Todd County line.
"I asked (authorities on the phone) if I could hold a gun on them and they said yes, if I wasn't afraid to," she said.
"I wasn't afraid."
The two boys, Pete Paul Fast Horse, 16, of Wood, and Jeremy Feltman, 15, of Sioux Falls, were on the lam after breaking out a window at the Chamberlain Academy at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to the South Dakota Highway Patrol.
The boys allegedly made their getaway in a Chevrolet Beretta stolen in Chamberlain, then headed for Sioux Falls.
A Chevy Cavalier and Ford Explorer were later reported stolen in Sioux Falls.
The pair abandoned the Explorer and Cavalier in a rural Todd County farmyard, stealing a 1997 Ford four-wheel-drive owned by Calvin Collins, the Highway Patrol said.
Randy Roede, a South Dakota state trapper from Murdo, saw the pair driving north into Mellette County. Attempts to reach Roede and Collins for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
Fast Horse was at the wheel and Feltman was sitting on the tailgate when they sped through a county road T-intersection and crashed into an embankment. The Ford was destroyed. The boys fled on foot.
Authorities giving chase alerted neighbors. Collins called Lauritsen.
"I have wonderful neighbors who told me there were fugitives headed toward my place," she said.
Lauritsen grabbed the keys from her old Cadillac parked in the yard, locked her doors and headed upstairs where a bedroom window offered a good view.
She wasn't alone. Friends from Seattle, a family of four, were visiting. Lauritsen had planned to take them swimming before the fugitives were reported nearby.
Collins called again to say the fugitives had been seen farther north. Lauritsen and her visitors had decided to resume their swimming trip when they saw the boys approaching the house about 11 a.m. Thursday.
Lauritsen admitted being angry when one of the boys rattled a patio door. That's when she called 911 and grabbed a 20-gauge, semi-automatic shotgun loaded with four shells.
"It's my rabbit gun," she said.
She yelled at the boys and pointed the gun at them through the closed glass door.
"I wasn't going to open the door. I told them what to do and they did it," she said.
Lauritsen said she didn't want to shoot, but she was ready to protect herself and her home.
"This is my little bit of heaven. They had no right to invade it," she said.
The boys said nothing as she held them at bay, hands in the air, for about 20 minutes until Jones County Sheriff Chris Jung arrived to take them into custody.
"They were all wet from coming through the stock ponds, They had no shoes. They looked pathetic," she said.
"Some mother should have loved them."
Lauritsen said the incident is the talk of the town in Wood, population 73. She's taking some pretty serious ribbing in stride, including being tagged with the nickname "Vigilante Mama."
Her husband, Dennis, who was not home at the time, has since given her lots of hugs. Her visitors were frightened, but brave, she said.
"I'm proud of what I did," she said.
She chuckled when a reporter told her of a Highway Patrol report incorrectly describing her as a "scrappy, 90-year-old woman."
"I'm not 90," she said. "But I am scrappy."
Questions or Comments? Contact reporter Jim Holland at 394-8415, or jim.holland@rapidcityjournal.com.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/display/inn_news/news03.txt
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Edited by - Josey1 on 06/30/2002 06:11:43
By Jim Holland, Journal Staff Writer
WOOD -- Two escapees from a Chamberlain school for troubled teenagers managed to evade capture during a 12-hour vehicle theft binge in eastern and southcentral South Dakota Wednesday night.
But then they encountered a determined woman wielding a shotgun.
"I called 911 and said we have the fugitives," said Sena Lauritsen, 55, recalling a wild Thursday morning at her rural home, southwest of Wood on the Mellette-Todd County line.
"I asked (authorities on the phone) if I could hold a gun on them and they said yes, if I wasn't afraid to," she said.
"I wasn't afraid."
The two boys, Pete Paul Fast Horse, 16, of Wood, and Jeremy Feltman, 15, of Sioux Falls, were on the lam after breaking out a window at the Chamberlain Academy at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to the South Dakota Highway Patrol.
The boys allegedly made their getaway in a Chevrolet Beretta stolen in Chamberlain, then headed for Sioux Falls.
A Chevy Cavalier and Ford Explorer were later reported stolen in Sioux Falls.
The pair abandoned the Explorer and Cavalier in a rural Todd County farmyard, stealing a 1997 Ford four-wheel-drive owned by Calvin Collins, the Highway Patrol said.
Randy Roede, a South Dakota state trapper from Murdo, saw the pair driving north into Mellette County. Attempts to reach Roede and Collins for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
Fast Horse was at the wheel and Feltman was sitting on the tailgate when they sped through a county road T-intersection and crashed into an embankment. The Ford was destroyed. The boys fled on foot.
Authorities giving chase alerted neighbors. Collins called Lauritsen.
"I have wonderful neighbors who told me there were fugitives headed toward my place," she said.
Lauritsen grabbed the keys from her old Cadillac parked in the yard, locked her doors and headed upstairs where a bedroom window offered a good view.
She wasn't alone. Friends from Seattle, a family of four, were visiting. Lauritsen had planned to take them swimming before the fugitives were reported nearby.
Collins called again to say the fugitives had been seen farther north. Lauritsen and her visitors had decided to resume their swimming trip when they saw the boys approaching the house about 11 a.m. Thursday.
Lauritsen admitted being angry when one of the boys rattled a patio door. That's when she called 911 and grabbed a 20-gauge, semi-automatic shotgun loaded with four shells.
"It's my rabbit gun," she said.
She yelled at the boys and pointed the gun at them through the closed glass door.
"I wasn't going to open the door. I told them what to do and they did it," she said.
Lauritsen said she didn't want to shoot, but she was ready to protect herself and her home.
"This is my little bit of heaven. They had no right to invade it," she said.
The boys said nothing as she held them at bay, hands in the air, for about 20 minutes until Jones County Sheriff Chris Jung arrived to take them into custody.
"They were all wet from coming through the stock ponds, They had no shoes. They looked pathetic," she said.
"Some mother should have loved them."
Lauritsen said the incident is the talk of the town in Wood, population 73. She's taking some pretty serious ribbing in stride, including being tagged with the nickname "Vigilante Mama."
Her husband, Dennis, who was not home at the time, has since given her lots of hugs. Her visitors were frightened, but brave, she said.
"I'm proud of what I did," she said.
She chuckled when a reporter told her of a Highway Patrol report incorrectly describing her as a "scrappy, 90-year-old woman."
"I'm not 90," she said. "But I am scrappy."
Questions or Comments? Contact reporter Jim Holland at 394-8415, or jim.holland@rapidcityjournal.com.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/display/inn_news/news03.txt
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Edited by - Josey1 on 06/30/2002 06:11:43
Comments
Saturday, June 29, 2002
BY KATHY STEVENS
Of The Post and Courier Staff
MONCKS CORNER-Charlie Williams' three-week quest to catch a thief apparently paid off this week when he prevented a suspected burglar from entering a South Live Oak Drive laundermat.
"I opened the door with my right hand and shoved a shotgun in his face with my left," Williams said Friday. "He begged me not to call police, but I think he was scared I was going to shoot him."
Twice this month, thieves broke into C&W Laundromat stealing some $300 from a vending machine. Williams reported the thefts to Moncks Corner police, but figured they had their hands full.
So he grabbed the Remington and a few sleeping bags from his Pinopolis home and set up camp on the concrete floor behind a row of dryers and waited.
Most nights, he meandered to Afterhours, Williams' members-only nightclub located behind the laundermat. Just after closing , he would return to his campsite to bed down for the night.
"I turned on the air conditioning and just stayed there," he said. "It was pretty cozy."
Williams did the same Thursday just after 3 a.m. About an hour after tucking himself - and the shotgun - into bed, he heard someone at the front door. He called 911 and walked slowly toward a front window.
Williams watched a masked man dressed in black attempt to pry open the front door with a screwdriver while dodging headlamps of passing drivers.
"Every time a car drove by, he'd hide on the side of the building. Then he'd come back and work on the door."
Williams planned to confront the burglar when he got inside but apparently grew impatient and opened the door himself. "His eyes got real big when I shoved that gun in his face."
He ordered the man to the floor until authorities arrived.
Moncks Corner police arrested Joshua Scott Raynor, an 18-year-old who lives about two blocks north of the laundermat. Raynor was arraigned Friday morning on charges of burglary second-degree and possession of burglar tools.
According to State Law Enforcement Division records, Raynor's criminal record includes grand larceny, receipt of stolen goods and theft of electrical current. He recently completed an 18-month prison term for an April 2001 conviction and is on probation. Raynor remains jailed at Berkeley County Detention Center in lieu of $4,500 bail.
http://www.charleston.net/pub/news/local/29shotgun.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Dan Horn, dhorn@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A Cincinnati man was found not guilty of murder Friday after a jury concluded he was defending himself when he shot a man twice in the back.
Darrell Coad, 21, had argued that his life was in danger when he opened fire Nov. 21 on Michael E. James Jr.
He claimed that Mr. James, who had just been released from prison, had severely beaten him the day before and would have killed him if he had not acted first.
Mr. Coad's attorney, Kenneth Lawson, told the 12 jurors in Common Pleas Court that his client had to choose between murder charges or his own funeral.
"It's better to be judged by 12," Mr. Lawson said, "than carried out by six."
Hamilton County prosecutors had argued that Mr. Coad hunted down Mr. James and shot him in retaliation for the argument the day before.
They noted that of the three shots Mr. Coad fired, two struck Mr. James in the back.
The shooting occurred at 11:25 a.m. in the street in the 1400 block of Vine in Over-the-Rhine. Mr. James, 24, was pronounced dead shortly after arrival at University Hospital.
Police said the two men had been seen arguing about 10 minutes before the shooting.
Mr. Lawson said Mr. James attacked his client because he thought Mr. Coad had broken into his car while he was in prison.
Mr. Coad bought a gun for protection and was attempting to get out of the neighborhood when he again encountered Mr. James, Mr. Lawson said.
He said Mr. Coad was convinced that Mr. James, who was unarmed, intended to kill him.
"Whether he was armed or not, I wouldn't take any chance with him," Mr. Lawson said.
http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/06/29/loc_jury_agrees_shooting.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By JAMAAL ABDUL-ALIM
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: June 27, 2002
Greenfield - A man who tried to rob a Greenfield gun shop at knifepoint Thursday afternoon was shot in the chest by the shop owner, police said.
The victim, identified only as a 57-year-old Greenfield man, was taken to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa, according to police.
Police have yet to interview the victim because the shooting left him unconscious, Detective Sgt. Paul Schlecht said.
Schlecht said later Thursday that the man's wound was not life threatening. The man's condition was not available Thursday evening from Froedtert.
Schlecht said the shooting took place at about 3 p.m. inside Buckhorn Guns, one of four businesses located in a plaza in the 2700 block of W. Ramsey Ave.
The parking lot of the plaza was surrounded by yellow police tape Thursday afternoon as police investigated the shooting.
Schlecht said he did not know what the suspect demanded but said there is nothing to indicate the account of the incident that the store owner gave police was not true.
He said the store owner, 44, shot the man once in the chest and that apparently no one else was inside the store when the shooting took place. The store owner was not injured.
Schlecht said the case is being referred to the Milwaukee County district attorney's office, which will review the actions of the suspect and the shop owner. A case review could happen today, he said.
Jessica Hansen of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun02/55103.asp
Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on June 28, 2002.
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
June 29, 2002
BY ANNIE SWEENEY AND ANA MENDIETA STAFF REPORTERS
Last fall, Maritza Baez was warned.
"He told me he's capable of doing what he wants to me," Baez said of her husband.
"He told me he doesn't want to see me with anyone. He said he would kill if he found out. He said no one would find out.''
Baez reported those threats to authorities and got an order of protection against him.
The order was still in effect Thursday when Baez--eight months pregnant and reportedly living with her new boyfriend--was shot dead outside a restaurant she ran in the Logan Square neighborhood, less than a mile from her home on a quiet, tree-lined street. Her unborn child, a baby girl, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section at Illinois Masonic Medical Center. She remained in critical condition Friday.
Baez's estranged husband was being questioned by police Friday but had not been charged by evening.
A manager at a restaurant where Baez's husband worked said he had been there as recently as Tuesday. The manager said he was shocked to hear the man might be involved in the shooting, calling him a good worker.
Outside Baez's neat frame apartment building in the 2600 block of North Drake, a bouquet of a dozen red roses had been slipped inside a grate on the window.
La Caleza, the restaurant Baez ran in the 2500 block of North Milwaukee where she was shot, was shuttered. The restaurant, popular in the area, advertised "Mexi-rican" and Venezuelan foods, including empanadas, pasteles, tacos and tortas.
Baez, 36, was sitting inside her Toyota Camry outside the restaurant about noon Thursday when the gunman struck. Gilbert Garcia was buying food from vendors across the street when he heard the crack of a shot.
He saw a man walking away from the Toyota and holding an automatic gun. The man slowly walked about 20 feet, got into his own car and drove north on Milwaukee. He didn't peel away or hurry from the area, Garcia said.
Garcia went to Baez's car, which was shifted in reverse. She was slumped over the steering wheel.
Ald. Vilma Colom (35th) said Baez was from Venezuela and had family in the Logan Square neighborhood.
Neighbors said Baez lived at the Drake address with her boyfriend, a Chicago police officer, her sister and her son. A woman who owned a building in the 2900 block of North Hamlin said Baez lived in her building until last October. She said her daughter attended school with Baez's son.
"[He] was very excited because he was going to have a sister,'' said the woman, who would not give her name.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-dead29.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Dave Orrick Daily Herald Legal Affairs Writer
Posted on June 29, 2002
In a phenomenon that has experts puzzled, people killed each other last year in Illinois more often than in the previous year, and at a higher rate than the rest of the country.
Despite generally falling numbers of other violent crimes, homicides throughout in the suburbs, cities and farmlands here rose, according to figures being released today by the Illinois State Police.
In the collar counties, 59 homicides were logged in 2001, up 28.3 percent from 46 in 2000, figures show.
Suburban Cook County was up 15 percent, Chicago was up 5.5 percent, the state was up 9.8 percent, and rural counties were up 8.8 percent.
FBI figures released earlier this week show a 3.1 percent increase nationwide, not including the deaths from the Sept. 11 attacks.
In Illinois, people aren't committing murder in record numbers, and in many areas the increases are slight.
But when added up, the numbers can't be discarded as statistical quirks, several experts said.
"From my preliminary glance, particularly at the national numbers, it doesn't look like this is an Illinois reporting anomaly," said Denise Nitterhouse, an associate professor at DePaul University with a background in tracking crime trends. "And I am quite surprised and curious."
Pick any one community, and front-line police officers likely wouldn't have noticed the rise, the first after several years of falling homicide rates.
"The murder rate can really fluctuate in a community as small as ours," said Downers Grove Police Chief Robert Porter. "In our jurisdiction, we had one. Last year, we didn't have any. I would look at a statistic like that cautiously."
But Downers Grove isn't alone.
Rolling Meadows, Schaumburg, Hanover Park, Lombard, Glendale Heights, Elgin, Crystal Lake, Libertyville, Vernon Hills - all are among a long list of communities in the suburbs where more homicides occurred last year than in the year before, according to the figures, which are drawn fromonthly reports issued by every law enforcement agency in the state.
At the same time, violent crimes fell at rates such as 2.1 percent statewide, 3.5 percent in the Northwest suburbs and 4.7 percent in Lake County.
"It's a little mysterious because these things tend to rise and fall together, violence and murder," said criminologist Robert Sampson a professor at the University of Chicago.
Chip Coldren, former director of the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for Research in Law & Justice, said the mystery won't be solved anytime soon.
"There is speculation, but you really need a beat-by-beat neighborhood analysis of this to be sure what's causing it," he said. "These numbers can only provide hints."
Among the speculation that several experts offered as possible contributors:
The dismantling of the Chicago Housing Authority could be dispersing residents into the suburbs, while at the same time disrupting gang turf lines.
The slumping economy could lead to increases in all violent crimes, but only homicides have shown up in the figures.
"Another variable is handguns," said Greg Scott, assistant professor of sociology at DePaul University. "There doesn't seem to be much abatement of handguns."
Scott has studied communities in the suburbs where many of these factors surface, but tracing them to a net increase in homicides throughout the state is hard to account for, he acknowledged.
"All this is speculation," Sampson said. "There's no real hard data on any of this."
There were plenty of exceptions to the homicide increase. Homicides in Joliet and Aurora, for example fell sharply.
And the trend since the late 1990s of decreases in violent crimes, as well as property crimes, has slowed significantly in many areas, figures show.
Murders: Violent crime rates fall
http://www.dailyherald.com/search/main_story.asp?intID=3743677
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
June 28 2002 at 10:13AM
By Graeme Hosken
Six ruthless robbers stormed a Durban furniture store on Thursday night and gang-raped a staff member who tried to raise the alarm.
The 32-year-old woman was repeatedly raped after gang members caught her trying to press a panic button to alert the police.
The robbers made off with thousands of rands worth of goods.
Police said the highly traumatised woman was in a serious condition in hospital.
'They forced all of the staff into a back room'
The robbers struck as the manager of Oxford Furnitures, Anil Bhojraj, 31, and five staff members closed the Russell Street store for the night. Bhojraj and staff members Rajesh Singh, 28, Alfred Sibiya, 31, Sifiso Mqabi, 27, Francis Cele, 27 and the 32-year-old woman were forced back into the store.
The robbers pistol-whipped, kicked and punched the staff members until they collapsed onto the floor.
Grabbing cellphones, television sets and R1 000 in cash, the men loaded up their getaway vehicles.
Inspector Michael Read said one of the robbers spotted a staff member trying to press a panic button.
"They forced all of the staff into a back room before grabbing hold of the woman and hauling her to the offices on the next floor. The men tore her clothing off her and took turns raping her," he said.
Read said the robbers then went back downstairs where they urinated on the male members of staff. "They grabbed one of the staff and forced him to start a company vehicle. He left the anti-hijacking device on, forcing the robbers to abandon the vehicle."
The attackers then jumped into two other cars which they had parked nearby and raced off.
Read said that the woman was taken to hospital, where she was given anti-retroviral treatment.
http://www.itechnology.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=ct20020628101310747R161404&set_id=1
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878