A family in Kent, Washington is safe and sound today thanks to the quick thinking and support for the Second Amendment displayed by one family member.
Police in the city were called out to a home just after 3 a.m. on Monday morning on reports of shots fired. When the got to the scene, they found a deceased suspect and five family members who were understandably shaken up. According to authorities, the couple who own the home were there with their daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild when their daughter was woken up by strange noises coming from the first floor.
“Woke up her husband – he’s the one that went down after retrieving his firearm from the safe next to his bed… he went downstairs and that’s when she heard the shots and the suspect was shot and we responded,” said Kent Police Assistant Chief Jarod Kasner.
Officers found a man on the floor, shot multiple times, with a gun nearby.
No family members were hurt.
Police say the intruder was armed and was likely with at least one other person.
“We believe the suspect wasn’t alone. The caller believes that there were other people in the house,” said Kasner.
If the home invader did have an accomplice, they took off running once shots were fired.
Authorities say they haven’t figured out why the intruder picked this particular residence in what neighbors describe as a quiet, peaceful place. Whatever the reason, it turned out to be a fatal mistake for the home invader.
“It’s just terrifying,” Sarah, who live sin the neighborhood, said. “We have kids here, two schools, we’ve got a middle school, an elementary school.”
And other residents in the area said their neighborhood is otherwise safe, and said this came as a shock.
“I don’t ever have to worry about my eight and four year old playing outside and riding around the bike,” Abdul said. “So it’s pretty safe.”
Home invasions can happen anywhere, and at any time. Even a gated community is no guarantee of safety. It may very well have been random chance that the suspect or suspects in Kent decided to target a home with an armed citizen inside, and its entirely possible that innocent victims could have been injured or killed if the home invaders had picked a neighboring house instead.
It is terrifying to realize that your community isn’t as safe and protected as you thought it was. Now the question for folks like Sarah and Abdul is what they plan on doing with that knowledge. Will they just keep their fingers crossed and pray that this was an isolated incident? Will they look at adding security features to their home like exterior lights or a burglar alarm? Will they decide that if, God forbid, they’re ever the victim of a home invasion like their neighbors, they want to be able to fight back?
At the very least, I hope this incident leads to neighbors looking for ways to keep their homes more secure. Still, windows can be broken and doors can be kicked in. Making it more difficult to break in to a home is important, but it doesn’t negate the need to have a plan if an intruder does make it inside. Having a firearm for self-defense could mean the difference between life and death, and I’m grateful there was at least one resident who was able to access their gun and protect their loved ones when armed strangers invaded their home.
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