Over the weekend, the Chronicle‘s Mike Snyder posted an interesting, balanced look at reactions to the Joe Horn case. Here is an excerpt:
He had the thief in his sights, but chose not to take the shot. More than a decade later, Bill Thomas of Kemah still agonizes over that decision.
“That night still lives in my mind like it was yesterday,” Thomas said, recalling the evening when he confronted a man he saw breaking into a van in the parking lot of a San Antonio motel.
Like Joe Horn of Pasadena, who some consider a hero for fatally shooting two men who broke into his neighbor’s house Nov. 14, Thomas was defending someone else’s property. Horn pulled the trigger of his shotgun three times; Thomas lowered his weapon, only to learn later that the thief he allowed to flee into the night may have gone on to rob a convenience store and kill a clerk.
Like many others who have publicly expressed support for Horn’s actions, Thomas is frustrated. Frustrated because police, he says, have all but shrugged off burglaries of his home and his truck. Frustrated because the nation’s porous borders make it possible for illegal immigrants such as the men Horn shot to prey on hard-working Americans.
This sense that private citizens must step in to do the job they believe their government is failing to do is a key factor driving the surge of public support for Horn, according to interviews with academic experts and a review of hundreds of comments on news articles, letters to the editor and radio talk-show conversations.
The rest of the story is here.
Various media outlets have reported that the Pasadena Police Department presented its findings in the case to the Harris County District Attorney’s office today.
(Old) Forum Comments (19)
