Positivity: Homeowner said ‘do not move.’ Burglar was in no spot to argue.
From St. Paul, Minnesota (HT Powerline):
St. Paul man’s gun goes off as he foils a home invasion
Article Last Updated: 05/02/2008 10:21:18 AM CDTThe security alarm sounded in Jon Sokol’s St. Paul home early Wednesday while he and his wife were asleep.
He looked up the stairs from their lower-level bedroom and saw a man, dressed all in black, walk by. Sokol, 49, grabbed a revolver — he started keeping a gun in the home after it was burglarized 20 years ago — and went upstairs, Sokol said Thursday.
The burglar, who Sokol thinks was hiding behind a door, hit him in the forehead when he got upstairs. The gun went off, and the burglar flew back a few feet, landing on the floor, Sokol said.
“I held him at gunpoint, and I told him: ‘Do not move. Don’t you dare move — otherwise I will shoot,’ ” Sokol said. “He did not move.”
Police arrived and found a 31-year-old man who was feigning “unconsciousness but finally responded to police and said he had not been shot,” according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday against Michael Gregory Spencer, of St. Paul, by the Ramsey County attorney’s office.
Spencer was charged with first-degree burglary of an occupied dwelling and first-degree burglary with assault of a person. He had been convicted of a St. Paul burglary in October and sent to the Ramsey County Workhouse.
Sokol and his wife moved into their home, blocks from Concordia University, about 20 years ago. Soon after, it was burglarized while his wife, Joan, was home alone with their then-young children.
“Within the last five years, we just started feeling safe again,” he said.
Sokol got a gun for home protection after the first burglary.
“So many people are so against guns, and I’m not saying it’s the greatest thing in the world and you can conquer anything, but in this particular case I believe it saved Joan and my life,” Sokol said. “I don’t know what his true meaning was in this house. You read or see on the news about people getting shot and killed in their homes.
“The only thing going through my head was, ‘I need to protect us.’” …..
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