Burglar home invasion door break-in
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The homeowner, who asked to be identified by his nickname of “Lurch,” told FOX 8 Cleveland the home invasion happened around 7:30 in the morning March 29. He said he opened fire when the teen came crashing through his front glass door. 

The hurt teen rolled down the steps to the basement, where he allegedly grabbed a shovel.

“I shot him again,” Lurch said. He then kept an eye on the intruder until police arrived. “As far as I know, I hit him three times.” The suspect is reportedly 16 years old. …

Lurch believes the teen may have chosen his home because his truck is currently in the shop, instead of in the driveway like it usually is. 

“Fooled him, didn’t I?” Lurch asked as he laughed.

— Pilar Arias in 74-year-old Ohio Man Who Sleeps Near Gun Shoots Teenage Home Intruder: ‘I Shot Him Again’

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73 COMMENTS

    • Steve,

      By and large ALL handgun calibers are seriously lacking in their ability to immediately physically incapacitate a determined human attacker.

      As for better shot placement, that can be exceedingly difficult if both you and your attacker are moving, which is very likely. And if the defender normally wears corrective vision glasses and either was not wearing them (due to the attacker’s element of surprise) or they flew off (due to rapid movement in response to the attacker), that would also increase the difficulty of putting highly accurate shots on target.

      Speaking of generally anemic handgun “power” requiring highly accurate shots on target to immediately physically incapacitate an attacker, the target areas of the attacker which allow immediate incapacitation are incredibly small–the spinal cord which is about one-inch wide (and roughly 16-inches long) and the brain which presents a target area of roughly a four-inch diameter circle. Good luck trying to put shots into those small target areas when both you and your attacker are moving and your attacker is 12+ feet away.

      • King Dribblecup’s ” two shotgun blasts through the door” would have been a good recommendation in this particular instance- as the yoot was coming through it.

    • Shoot till there’s no movement…

      There is a joke (likely in very poor taste) about a young thug who attacked a “little old lady” armed with a 1911 handgun chambered in .45 ACP (that alone could be the punch line). Police arrive and ask the lady why the dead thug has seven bullet wounds. The lady replies that the thug moved every time she shot him so she kept shooting until she ran out of ammunition.

        • The dark side of “movement “ reminds me of what acquaintance cop told me once.
          They mistook a man choking on his tooth (they took him down in the cell and the bench knocked his teeth back) as “resisting”. They added down force on the 150 lb guy until the ribs came off the vertebrae. Then they thought the neurological death spasms were more resistance.
          The guy of course died. He had no record. He had been arrested for breaking a window. He was melting down as his kid died and was yelling and wailing and wouldn’t shut up so they did cell penetration with 7 guys including one alpha jerk and one new guy who didn’t want to look weak.
          Whenever I hear “stop resisting “ I think of that event.

  1. An armed and trained public is the best deterrent. If a ‘dude’ knows he will likely draw fire if he attempts to relieve a victim of his worldly goods, he probably won’t take the chance. Lots and lots and lots of case study material to support this.

    Gun control just makes us all potential victims. Sacramento proves this.

    • “If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore, what he must be taught to fear is his victim.” Colonel Jeff Cooper

  2. When will these home invaders realize that there is increasingly the fact a lot of home owners are arming themselves against these type of invasions.Especially senior citizens that are among the most vulnerable.

    • Jim,

      A lot of people–especially violent criminals–have depraved minds.

      And they are depraved in two aspects. The first (and obvious) aspect is that they have little or no regard for fellow human beings. The second aspect is that they do not acknowledge or care about the real world which means they do not recognize or respond to risk like rational people.

      That second aspect is very apparent when you consider urban Hellscapes where young thugs have an average life expectancy of something like 23 years–and they know it and accept it. A rational person would not accept an average life expectancy of 23 years. A rational person, knowing that they would have a life expectancy of only 23 years in an urban Hellscape, would leave that urban Hellscape. And yet our urban Hellscapes are filled with young thugs who never even attempt to leave.

      • @uncommon_sense

        “A lot of people–especially violent criminals–have depraved minds.”

        The term you are looking for, is in reality and actually and factually, “clinically insane’

      • Sadly, most 16-year-olds feel they’re invincible, and rarely consider the consequences of their actions.

        Often, possible criminal punishment is the furthest thing from a teenagers still developing brain.

        Think of all the safe driving promotions on TV, and many other efforts to help teenage drivers understand the dangers of the highway, and yet recently we still have six teenage girls killed in an auto accident when the 16-year-old driver went left of center into a semi.

        In these situation, I personally hold the parents responsible for failing to properly train and/or supervise their children.

        • Miner49er,

          Your comments regarding teenagers errant sense of invulnerability are correct. Nevertheless, that does not translate to having no regard for their fellow humans. That is strictly from a depraved mind.

          Perhaps more to the point, the sad fact of life is that many adults, whose brains are fully developed, have depraved minds and thus have no regard for their fellow humans. I am speaking from first-hand experience: depraved people have targeted me more than once. Second-hand experience also confirms that sad fact.

      • A rational person would not accept an average life expectancy of 23 years.

        Much as I usually agree with you, uncommon, I’m going to quibble this because such people used to be my neighbors and I spent time talking to them… well, we spent time talking past each other, mostly.

        I won’t bother with a typically long response but I’ll say the following:

        If you haven’t lived in one of these neighborhoods for an extended period of time then you can’t understand the fatalistic attitude. These people are not irrational, they’re rational actors in an irrational system.

        And they’re not wrong. I had this conversation on a porch ~2009 where these people tried to understand me having a four year plan of going to school and I tried to understand them not having such a thing.

        It took me awhile of talking to them while everyone drank shitty beer while shitty weed was passed around to even begin to understand that their “I’ll be dead or locked up, so what’s the point?” attitude was actually quite logical.

        Of the six guys I was talking to one got popped and went to prison for dealing beak and another was dead. Both within six months of the conversation. The dead guy didn’t even do anything, his brother did.

        And virtually no one who talks about this has a clue what they’re on about. Not cops, not DA’s, not the “organizers” or “advocates”, and certainly not politicians. The reality is, if you live there, you rapidly come to the conclusion that no one in a position to help these people gives a fuck about them. And you come to that conclusion because it’s true.

        • 9…I do understand your situational experience, and the “logic” of the fatalism you describe. What I don’t understand is why the people you talked with work so hard to keep other people in da hood from having a different outlook and trying to get out of da hood.

          Knowing that the logic of a person bent on suicide is predicated on a shifted concept of reality, the kids in da hood seems to be the same: “Nothing will ever change, and I want out!”. Suicide seems to be the only rational solution; suicide quickly, or waiting for someone else finish the job.

          No one can control all the circumstances to be faced, but everyone, regardless, can control their response. Basing a life on whether or not someone else cares about you is simply avoiding responsibility for choices made in face of circumstances.

        • They’re constantly told they can’t be anything else because [insert excuse talking point]. If you want your child to grow up believing they can’t do something, then be sure to tell them that. I made a comment on another article today about mothers. That applies here as well.

        • I think Dude has a valid point.

          I’ll also point out that a great many of these people simply lack any sort of hope for the future.

          When you’ve got three siblings, you’re the oldest at 14, the neighborhood is run by gangs, mom’s a complete fuckup, dad’s not around and you’re presented with two choices: Wait another couple of years to make minimum wage or start slinging drugs now (before adult charges are a real worry) and having enough to take care of your siblings and have sneaker money, what do you think most teens will take?

          Especially when the older guys have cars, chains, clothes, girls, and respect the kinda thing these kids NEVER get from anyone. Yeah, you look at the older guys and half are dead and a third are locked up but… what else is there? McD’s?

          That’s a damned seductive trap.

          Combine that with the ruthless discipline that gangs use, their power and the decentralized nature of cliques/sets and you’ve got a real mess that takes, much as I don’t like the term, a “holistic” (in the legit medical sense, not the hand waving crystals of power sense) approach to fix.

          This is one of the things I note about hip hop and rap. It varies quite a bit, obviously, but a lot of it is most certainly not glorifying the gangster lifestyle. I don’t see how you can listen to Death Around the Corner (Tupac) or Respect (Biggie) and think they’re glorifying anything. Tupac’s talking about the kind of attitude I’m referencing and Biggie is talking about getting locked up for slinging drugs and how jail set him straight in that regard.

          IMHO, most of that doesn’t glorify anything. It’s basically a narrative about where someone came from. A place most people can’t imagine and don’t want to end up.

          Then of course there’s intelligent rap telling people to stay out of the “life” and selling that “there’s hope” message through media. GangStarr was really good at that. Ditto groups like De La Soul or Blackalicious. Really, they’re more common than the bullshit candy rap that gets a lot of media play.

          If I’m entirely honest, dealing with people in such a neighborhood is easier in some regards than “real life” is. There’s a lot less petty bullshit in a place where running your mouth is a great way to get dead. Respect is earned the hard way too.

          I find it moderately amusing how many people claim to hate the gangster lifestyle but talk just like gangsters do without realizing it. I also find it sardonically amusing that, in many regards, gangsters are some of the most honest people you’ll ever meet.

          And if you live there you know why people don’t like the cops too, another facet that makes this a PITA to deal with. And not just the bangers either, the regular people don’t trust the cops for reasons that should be pretty obvious. That’s one of those things that really ticks me off with the way ACAB hijacks what I personally see as a legit beef that locals have with political policing.

          Police in such an area have an impossible job, because their bosses really don’t know or care how to fix the problem so long as they can fund raise and harvest votes off the issue. Cops are the public face of that kinda fuckery in such a neighborhood and, as such, they’re not popular.

          It’s one of those things that’s never going to get fixed because, really, no one cares to see past their own political dogma and actually do something about it.

  3. “Why would I surrender when I can win this gunfight with this here shovel!!”

  4. He’s talking way too much but since he’s 74YO he pretty safely in the geriatic zone that protects him from the typical Lefty overzealous DA.

    • Good for Lurch! I’m pretty old but I’m not laughing. I do get tired of “he was only a kid” BS…

    • Line from Hotel California, “you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave!”

  5. Home Invaders Have Rights Too !!!
    Require all “Gun Free” homes to have exterior signage notifying Home Invaders that they can safely enter without the risk of being shot. 6″ high black letters on yellow background, mounted on all exterior doors.

    • I prefer “Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.” posted at all entrances.

      • I like the one a guy here locally has. It says

        “Trespassers: If you get close enough to read this sign it means I’m still deciding which gun to use.”

        • One of my neighbors is a little bit more subtle… ” Notice : There is NOTHING on these premises worth dying over.”

        • The one I have halfway down my driveway says” if you are reading this sign you are in range”

    • Soft juicy contents.
      Come on in🙂
      Or maybe this is a trick?
      Then the would be home invader notices the dozen empty cases at the doorway and the backstop.

    • I read about what was called a redneck security system. It consisted of a well worn pair of size 12 work boots, a couple of gigantic dog dishes labeled “Spike” and “Killer”, and a note on the door which read, “Gone for more ammo. Back soon. Don’t go in the house. The dogs are inside and they tore up the mailman real bad yesterday.”

      Lurch did well although I agree he should stop talking about the incident.

  6. Us old farts need a mechanical advantage when dealing with aggressive and dangerous young farts.

    I don’t give a damn what the law says. I’m armed.

  7. I’d suggest Lurch stop talking to the media or anyone else who’d encourage him to actor even hint in a celebratory manner.

    Lurch is likely an OWG, what’s the thug- err, kid? Makes no difference to anyone around here, but this site isn’t primarily filled with prosecutors or bottomfeeders (of the legal persuasion), either.

    The rest of you can all do high 5s for something someone else did.

    • Ain’t him. When he got doxxed here I went to his face book page. He’s a young, uneducated man that lives in his mommy’s basement. Canton Ohio.

      • So typical reddit socialism fan, just needs to work at Starbucks to hit bingo on my leftist scorecard.

        • Fapping off to the “Reds” fanfic about American S0cia1ists winning a second civil war in the 1930s.

      • Just knowing that much, I cannot understand why so many folks acknowledge his presence here on TTAG. He really doesn’t deserve the attention he gets.

  8. Old Saying:

    “Before you decide an ‘old man’ is an easy target, you better know what kind of young man he was.”

    • Furthermore…….

      If the old timer only owns one or two firearms, he DAMN SURE knows how to use them.

      My father in law (in his 80s) served in the Korean War, still has his 1911.
      We had a big 4th of July shooting day/cookout at the shooting property in ’20.
      Handed him my Para Expert 14.45 wideframe 1911, he proceeded to ring a full size steel silhouette (50 ft away) with over 1/2 the shots.

  9. So it’s perfectly OK for a sixteen year old kid to be killed then? There is NO MENTION as to whether or not this youth was armed or the nature of the actual threat rather than a gun happy old codger just looking for an excuse to shoot somebody? The chances are that they kid would have made himself scarce if he we as merely threatened. .38 LUGER?. As far as I know there is no such animal as a .38 LUGER. Only a few original 7.65 calbre, a few original Low Power 9mm [originall know as the Mk1z in the UK] and the ubiquitous Mk2Z 9mm Parabellum. Seems to me that the old bugger is so unskilled that he should not be allowed anywhere near a fire arm.
    Sometime’s from this side of the pond most Amereicans are seem to be looking for th opportunity to shoot somebody. What a way to bloody live!!
    Just saying.

    • Albert Hall:
      When some thug busts in your front door, you will not have TIME to threaten him and/or evaluate his armament status. It is safe to assume that he means to inflict great bodily harm and/or commit murder if someone gets in his way. That’s why most states in the US have what is commonly known as a “castle doctrine” law as in “…a man’s home is his castle.” And MOST AMERICANS ARE NOT LOOKING FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOOT SOMEBODY. That includes this old codger, who is decidedly NOT a bugger. So, watch your mouth!
      Finally Mr. hall, I feel sorry for you living in a shit hole where you are not allowed to have the means for self defense against marauders.

      • Postscript: The people who frequent this website are not particularly impressed by your claimed knowledge about firearms. Yes, we all know that there is no such thing as a .38 Lugar. The picture from the London Daily Mail (link attached by The Rookie) suggests that it is a revolver based on the shape of the grip (since the piece is holstered and not totally visible). However, I have no idea where the picture actually came from or if the picture is of the actual gun used in the related incident. And… there are a lot of journalists in this world who wouldn’t know a Lugar from a howitzer for that matter.

    • And from this side of the pond, I don’t give a rats ass what your opinion is. Break into my house and you will assume room temperature.

    • Absolutely right, Albert. Lurch sat there every day for the last 74 years gun in hand. Keeping the front door covered. Every day he told himself, ‘This is it. This is the day I get to kill someone.’

      Maybe the problem isn’t with America. Ever think about that? Maybe the problem is with countries that allow the criminal to do any thing he wants to the victim and then blame the victim if they fight back.

      • Now if “Lurch” put a sign on a screen door that said “big piles of crack inside defended by disabled elderly lady”, then that might be baiting.
        I’d still back him up.
        Don’t break into houses.

    • Legal immigration “says” the US has the most foreign born legal immigrants (46.6 million), with UK having 8.5 million.
      https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/highest-immigrant-population-in-the-world.html

      For 2019 (most recent source I could quickly find), Italy was number one for legal migrants in a calendar year, the US number two, UK number 6.
      https://news.yahoo.com/10-countries-most-immigrants-151829232.html

      One wonders why the hell hole described as “the United States” is so attractive to immigrants? Of course, we are talking legal immigrants. When it comes to illegal aliens, it boggles the mind that so many from the hell hole nations below the US southern border endure such hardship and danger to break into the US.

      The US has a culture that declares a home/residence as a person’s “Castle”. You should understand the concept of “Castle”, wherein the owner is sovereign ruler. Indeed, the US was founded on the concept that it is the people who are sovereign over government, and graciously delegate the central government certain, restricted, powers held by the sovereign people. When one crashes into a castle, the results are the jurisdiction of the sovereign castle owner.

      Go back in your own history and review what happened when people tried to break into the castle of the sovereign who built it, and owned the land as far as one could see.

    • Well “Albert” what would do to a home invader, which incidentally is FAR more likely in the UK where you subjects are disarmed?

      You might offer them a cup of tea but more likely you will drop your trousers, grab your ankles, and think of England.

    • Al
      There’s been a lot of thuggery in the akron area lately and the people are getting tired of it. When the CC law goes into effect June 13 I expect the number of shootings will go up for a short time. Once the herd gets thinned a little and the thugs realize why things will calm down.
      Age does not matter you break in you pay the price.

    • AH:

      not in disagreement with the thought

      but the welfare state has made the rise of crime “natural”

      and the good people must be allowed to stop the criminals

      as the police devolve into personal bodyguards for the politicans

  10. Non violent thieves bang on the door and shout to make sure no one is home.
    A person smashing through a door is not acting rationally.
    Housebreakers looking for quick grabs will do things like use a car Jack to quietly open a door, then swing it open, leave a bit to make sure no alarm, come back.
    A crack head will body slam a door then bite your face off then shit in the cooking pots and leave. Or similar. Oh, they may also rape your pets. Crack heads are not rational or living in reality much at all. Same for meth, etc. They tend to be extremely violent and insensitive to pain compliance. They need to be mechanically deactivated. Even after they have detoxed they will defend their actions as they will insist their delusions as valid.

  11. DUMB KID , HOWEVER SMART ENOUGH TO BREAK IN . WILL NEVER AGAIN .
    ME TOO , ONCE INSIDE HOME , AS THEY SAY ,SHOOT TO STOP THE THREAT .

  12. “shot […] multiple times”
    “suspect is reportedly 16 years old”
    “is”

    Was he using an NAA mini revolver?

  13. Serves the stupid kid right. And at Lurch’s age, life imprisonment is not much of a threat of punishment. LOL, I loved the “You Rang” comment. (I could not help it-and had to look it up again-but “Lurch” (aka, Ted Cassidy), was 6 ft 9 in tall)!

  14. never a good day when crimes are committed and someone has to be stopped leading to loss of life

    the welfare state has assured the usa of more tragedies that could have been avoided had
    we stay committed to a small government mentality

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