Homeowner Shot Teenage Intruder Over Twinkies

*sigh* That’s sad. If you really still feel threatened when you’re holding a lethal weapon in your hands (against unarmed children), you’ve got bigger problems than ending up in court.

Are snack foods really that important?

I agree Tempscire, even the most die hard pro gun fanatics will be hard pressed to justify this man and his actions.

@ascp: seriously? The kid was 13 and unarmed. Even if he was there to steal stuff, Gonzalez already had them on their knees. On top of that he shot them in the back so his life was probably not being threatened at the time. He could’ve easily turned them in to the cops. This was not defense, this was an execution.

Obviously you guys haven’t been robbed before. It’s a scary experience that can lead the most levelheaded people to otherwise erratic behaviour. Admittedly, they were only teenagers, but he’s a senior (63 year-old) facing four young men. It’s not hard to imagine how easy it would be for them to overpower him.
As well, you have to remember that this wasn’t premeditated. He didn’t start the encounter. He reacted out of instinct and I think the jury was right in acquitting him.

cant wait for the surviving kid to get a gun and kill that old fart.

Well… i don’t think it right that he shot the boys once they were on their knees and surrendered. He definitely should’ve called the cops or something, but really…. what did those kids expect.
Just b/c they’re younger doesn’t mean they couldn’t have done more damage and had weapons of their own.

I don’t fault the guy for protecting his property, but shooting one in the back when he didn’t have to is awful.
Unfortunatly, the surviving kids learned a tragic lesson. Hopefully they use it to make their lives better seeing that crime doesn’t pay.

NicoNico says:
“What he should have done was use the gun (unloaded!) to get them on their knees, then tie them up together or lock them in a secure room, and call the police. The police are there for a reason!”

Yeah.
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

Maybe he should have given them all a hug, too.

How naive can you be?

I am in favor of castle doctrine laws. But putting unarmed kids on their knees, then shooting in the back of the head is murder. No matter how you justify it.

Just because he got the drop on them while they were commiting a crime on his property doesn’t mean the situation was any less life threatening.

Age has nothing to do with it, and just because it was Twinkies they were after makes it no less a serious crime. Apparently Texas Law saw it his way this time.

Holy flipping crap. Comments from ppl like ascp and Joe make me completely dumbfounded.

He had them on their knees and shot a CHILD in the back. We’ve sent American soldiers to jail for treating prisoners and terrorists unfairly at Gitmo, this guys gets completely off innocent? Murdering over junk food???

Fourth time he’s had a break in? Hey, how about buying some better locks for your trailer? You can’t tell me shotguns and ammo are cheaper than deadbolts in Texas.

“how about buying some better locks for your trailer?”

Yeah right. It’s his fault they broke in. I hope y’all have someone break into your house. I’m sure you’ll automatically know that they mean you no harm and just want some cookies.

Hypocrites.

Okay, Jerse. Whatever. I knew of kids who used to steal stuff from the corner store. None of them grew up to be rapists and murderers.

Stealing Twinkies and setting kittens on fire are two different things. The first might not lead to anything. The second is a huge red flag that something is wrong… what you’d call “the criminal mind”.

I’m so glad I don’t live in Texas. I’d hate to think what these guys will try to get away with next. Shooting the neighbours’ toddler because she decided to pick the flowers in your garden? *shudder*

*Yawn*

While shooting a 15 year old in the back might be harsh, the man was within his rights in the state of Texas to shoot an intruder. The law presumes that anyone who enters into your dwelling is able and willing to cause you grievous harm and gives the benefit of the doubt to the person defending their property.

Even if the guy SHOULDN’T have shot the kid, that doesn’t mean the guy should be locked into a cage for doing so. That erodes one’s right to defend their dwelling and property- the next prosecution might be of a 17 year old “kid” coming in through the window… and the next an adult who turns out to be unarmed… then very quickly a man no longer has the right to defend his home. Given what I’ve heard, I couldn’t and wouldn’t have shot the kid, but if there were a group of them and they didn’t immediately comply with my orders restraining them from potentially harming me (hands in the air, or get on the floor, etc) then I’d feel I had little other choice.

I happen to live in the next town over (and can’t wait to move elsewhere), and believe me many people around here are vengeful and sadistic, so the jury’s decision comes as no surprise to me… this is the a$$hole of the USA and what happened here proves it.

Ah America. Ah Texas. Ah Redneck Trash. Ah we are all doomed.

I am surprised at the amount of people who call “Breaking and Entering” a petty crime. I may be wrong, but I believe it is probably a felony. They were almost certainly not looking for food, but for anything of any value they could grab.

Was he justified in shooting them? Probably not. Why did he shoot them? Probably because, while they were on their knees, one of the kids said something that really pissed him off, and he pulled the trigger. That’s my guess. But, maybe not. Maybe one of the other kids lunged for him. There is no question he had every right to be scared, with four almost adults in his house. We know that children that age don’t have full moral faculties yet. He had no way to know that none of them would be armed, or that they wouldn’t try to swing around and take the rifle from him.

It doesn’t seem fair to me to punish someone severly for a situation which they didn’t ask for or initiate. I guess he could have just sat back and waited 15 minutes for police to show up, but, until he pulled the trigger, he acted in a reasonable way. How you react to a stressful situation should be criminally different from the situations you willfully initiate.

All in all, if I was the prosecutor, I would have pushed for a charge of manslaughter.

On a side note, I think someone should conduct a study on a connection between junk food and violent, irrational behaviour.

To everyone jumping to the conclusion that this guy is guilty:
Have you ever had the pleasure of confronting four intruders in your home? They were unarmed, you say? How the hell was this guy supposed to know that?!! They were kids?? Yeah, teenage kids committing crimes have never been known to be armed, act irrationally, or KILL people. Shot in the back “execution” style? We don’t know the details, so slow down on that jump to a conclusion. Sudden movements in tense situations lead to alot of unnecessarily dead people. (ask all the well trained police officers who have fumbled the same ball) I’m betting Mr Gonzalez had f*ckin’ had it with piece of sh*t criminals in his house, was scared, and had a chip on his shoulder. (all understandable) That being said, he obviously handled a difficult and infuriating situation poorly. He should have just held them at bay until police arrived. Then again, since we don’t know the details, who’s to say that wasn’t what he was trying to do, when one of the kids decided to make a break for it before the cops arrived, banking on the old man not shooting? That kid’s sudden movement opens up the situation to all kinds of interpretation. Point being, given our information, this is anything but an open and shut case.
To Cheeseduck: When you were a kid, they didn’t have metal detectors at school. “Calling the parents” doesn’t quite cut it for felony offenses.
To Jeremy: “Buy a better lock”?!! You give naive bleeding heart liberals a bad name.
To Mouserz: Can’t wait til you’re shot in the back robbing an old man.

I have determined through careful study that everyone who disagrees with me on this topic is a troll, who is seeking to make a funny. I can think of no other explanation for the outpouring of inflammatory, morally and logically inconsistent arguments.

I shall now laugh.

Ha ha ha.

You got me fellas, I almost believed you for a minute.

If someone breaks into your house and decides to have a cop of coffee while robbing it that doesn’t mean they were only looking to steal a little caffein. You people at neatorama really need to get your heads checked or maybe your houses robbed so you know what its like!

Christ, that certainly is overkill, but could have been avoided had they not broken into his trailer.

yay, i live in nuevo laredo, neatorama mention my town.

I live in this town, and this is a gross misrepresentation of what happened — these kids are vandals and gang members. They had broken into his house several times already

Crime will always go on. How we respond to it reveals something about our own humanity and respect for it (or lack thereof).

Americans enjoy their sense of themselves as pioneering, free-range sorts. They value their “freedom” and their scrappiness. That’s all well and good, if somewhat simplistic. But I feel like some of the responses here are born out of that kind of blind renegade spirit–a spirit that, while certainly useful at the dawn of our country and in all our various creative endeavors, has morphed in contexts such as this into a rigid, ignorant and dangerous attitude of fear masked as aggression.

I love this country, a lot. But we can be brave and righteous and compassionate all at the same time. Those who seek to justify a killing that was not strictly necessary are at the very least at risk, I think, of perverting the pride and spunk they associate with their national identity into a rather barbaric version of its former self– of disrespect, or at least lack of meaningful consideration, for human life.

being quoted brought a smile to my face JivesTheButler, thanks

Americans are sociopaths. One need not look any further than the comments on this article to understand this fact of life.

If only poetic justice were a law of physics and nature, then I would truly be a happy man.