A frightening drama played out in a Pompano Beach home just after midnight on Sunday morning when authorities said an interuder was shot by a homeowner.
According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, a man broke into a house by smashing the front window. The woman who lives there by herself picked up a gun and shot the intruder.
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Sharon Kerrigan saw it all from her porch across the street.
“I’m like the eye watch out here, always out here, I don’t know you, I’m watchin’ you, you know?” Kerrigan said.
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She came outside to smoke a cigarette around midnight and saw the crime unfold.
“This guy came down the road, barefoot, looking behind him like somebody’s after him, and he veered right, went to try her doorknob, couldn’t get in that way, pulled the screen down, just stated busting out the glass, and crawled through the window, and I called 911,” Kerrigan said, adding that she thought the man was “wacked out on something.”
Then Kerrigan heard a gunshot. The woman had confronted the intruder inside her home.
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“Glad she did, older woman in this day and age, gotta have some type of protection.” Kerrigan said.
So is the woman who shot the intruder covered by Florida’s Stand Your Ground law?
“The current version of Stand Your Ground, which has developed over the years is based on the law of protecting your castle, you’re entitled to use the same amount of force that was used against you or you’re perceiving is being used against you to defend your home or castle,” said former prosecutor David Weinstein.
Weinstein was asked if under these circumstances, with the man clearly committing a crime by breaking into her house, if the woman had justification under Florida law to shoot him.
“It depends, Ari, and it depends on the facts, because this is a very fact-specific law,” Weinstein replied. “That’s why, under our current regime of Stand Your Ground, nobody is arrested right away, law enforcement collects all the evidence, they then make a referral to the state attorney’s office.”
So prosecutors will carefully examine the evidence before making a determination. As for the suspect, he was arrested and taken to the hospital. Based on what neighbors said, he had wounds that were not life-threatening because they saw him standing in handcuffs before paramedics arrived.
