An alleged home invader in the town of Blair, Wisconsin, was quickly stopped in his tracks by an armed homeowner after kicking in the front door of a home in the town. The incident occurred at about 1 am in the morning, with the homeowner responding quickly to the door-kicking home invader with gunfire, hospitalizing the alleged home invader.
According to Chief Kent Johnson, the police dispatch got a call from the armed homeowner’s wife at about 1:00 in the morning on Monday, January 1. According to the caller, an individual had broken into the family’s home by kicking in the door, and was then confronted by the armed homeowner, the caller’s husband, and shot.
The police then arrived at the scene with EMS, and the suspect was taken to the La Crosse, Wisconsin, Gundersen Health System. Further, the Blair Police Department said that there is no residual threat to the public, but that the same suspect is suspected of breaking into another home in the area earlier on the same night, News 8 Now reports.
WQOW, another local news outlet, added a few more details on what happened when the police arrived. According to it, the police arrived on the scene and found both that the door had been kicked in and that the suspect was lying on the floor in the garage.
WQOW also described how the suspect made it to the hospital system, noting that it was an ambulance that transported the wounded suspect the Gundersen Tri County Hospital in Whitehall, Wisconsin. From there, the suspect was then moved to the Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse.
Fortunately for the homeowner, Wisconsin is a Castle Doctrine state. That is helpful for the armed homeowner because that doctrine means that, in cases of self-defense that occur in the home, there is a legal presumption that deadly force can be used against a person who has broken into or is in the process of breaking into your home, car, or business while you are inside. Here, the door was broken in, meaning that there was a break-in, making the use of deadly force easier to defend.
Specifically, the law applies when “The person against whom the force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcibly entering the actor’s dwelling, motor vehicle, or place of business, the actor was present in the dwelling, motor vehicle, or place of business, and the actor knew or reasonably believed that an unlawful and forcible entry was occurring” or when “The person against whom the force was used was in the actor’s dwelling, motor vehicle, or place of business after unlawfully and forcibly entering it, the actor was present in the dwelling, motor vehicle, or place of business, and the actor knew or reasonably believed that the person had unlawfully and forcibly entered the dwelling, motor vehicle, or place of business.”
In such circumstances, “the court may not consider whether the actor had an opportunity to flee or retreat before he or she used force and shall presume that the actor reasonably believed that the force was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.”
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