KEY POINTS:
The distinctive "ka-chick" of a shell entering a pump-action shotgun's chamber rattled through the police emergency telephone line just before Joe Horn stepped out his front door.
Horn, 61, had phoned police when he saw two men break into his neighbour's home through a window in broad daylight. Now they were getting away with a bag of loot.
"Don't go outside the house," the police operator pleaded. "You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun."
"You want to make a bet?" Horn answered. "I'm going to kill them."
He did.
Admirers say Horn is a hero for killing the burglars, protecting his neighbourhood and sending a message to would-be criminals. Critics call him a loose cannon. His lawyer says Horn just feared for his life.
Prosecuting Horn could prove difficult in Texas, where few people sympathise with criminals. The case could test the state's self-defence laws, which allow people to use deadly force in certain situations to protect themselves, their property and their neighbours' property.
Horn was home in Pasadena, on November 14 when he heard glass breaking, said his lawyer, Tom Lambright. He looked out the window and saw 38-year-old Miguel Antonio DeJesus and 30-year-old Diego Ortiz using a crowbar to break out the rest of the glass. He grabbed a shotgun and called police, Lambright said.
Horn and the dispatcher spoke for several minutes, during which time he vowed not to let the burglars escape. Over and over, the dispatcher told him to stay inside. Horn repeatedly said he couldn't. When the men crawled back out the window carrying a bag, Horn began to sound increasingly frantic.
"Well, here it goes, buddy," Horn said as a shell clicked into the chamber. "You hear the shotgun clicking, and I'm going."
A few seconds passed.
"Move," Horn can be heard saying on the tape. "You're dead."
Boom. Click. Boom. Click. Boom.
Horn redialled police and told the dispatcher what he'd done.
Lambright said when one or both of them "made lunging movements," Horn fired in self-defence.
Family members of the two shooting victims have made few public statements.
Diamond Morgan, Ortiz's widow, told Houston television station KTRK that she was stunned by Horn's statements on the police tape. "He was so eager to shoot," she said.
Pasadena police planned to present their findings to Harris County prosecutors within the next two weeks, police spokesman Vance Mitchell said. At issue is whether it was reasonable for Horn to fear the men and whether his earlier threats on the telephone call showed he planned to kill them no matter what, said Fred C. Moss, who teaches criminal law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
- AP
