Houston Property Owner Ends Up in Cuffs After Confronting Squatters With a Gun

A 74-year-old woman ended up in handcuffs after allegedly pointing an unloaded gun at several homeless individuals who were camped out in front of a vacant building she owns. While Anastasia Malavanso was eventually released without being charged, she questions why she was ever treated like a criminal, telling the Houston Chronicle that she has a right to protect her property. 

She does, and in some circumstances she could even use lethal force to protect that property. But Texas law doesn’t grant property owners the right to whip out a gun on anyone who steps foot onto their property, and in this case it’s clear from Malavanso’s own recounting of the experience that the individuals she flashed a gun at were not threatening her in any way. 

Malavanso says she got a call on August 12 about several men sleeping in front of an unoccupied building that she owns, and she drove there to confront the men. She also called the Houston PD’s non-emergency number, but said no officers had arrived when she showed up at the property 

“I brought an unloaded gun. It did not have a magazine in it, but I needed something,” Malavanso said. “I’m 74 years old. I can’t fight these people.”

That was a huge mistake on Malavanso’s part. An unloaded firearm offers no protection. As she said, she can’t fend off a physical assault, so what good did she think an unloaded handgun would do if these individuals had attacked her?

According to Malavanso, when she arrived at the building she got out of her car and pointed her unloaded pistol at one of the three men who were outside, telling him he had “two minutes to gather his belongings and leave.” She told the Chronicle that one of the three men became “very belligerent” and started to walk towards her before he spotted the gun, at which point he joined the other two men in leaving the area. 

Malavanso was lucky, because if that man had decided he wasn’t leaving without a fight he would have quickly had the upper hand. 

When police did arrive, Malavanso says they ordered her to her knees, and when she told them she couldn’t comply because a knee replacement an officer “pushed her against the building and handcuffed her.”

“They picked me up, still handcuffed, and threw me in the back of their SUV,” Malavanso said. “It was 90-plus degrees in there. They kept me in there for an hour—an hour and a half.”

According to Malavanso, officers told her she was being detained for questioning rather than arrested. She said she was eventually released without being charged.

“Why are they treating me as the criminal? I’m not the criminal,” Malavanso said. “I have a right to protect my property.”

I feel for Malavanso, who says she’s been dealing with vagrants and squatters at the property for quite some time. But she very well could have been arrested and charged with any number of crimes, and despite her complaints about how the police treated her at the scene, I think they also cut her a break. 

Under Texas law, “displaying a firearm or deadly weapon in a public place in a manner calculated to alarm” can be charged as disorderly conduct, which is a Class C misdemeanor. Pointing a firearm “at or in the direction of another person,” even if you believe the gun is unloaded, creates a legal presumption of recklessness and imminent danger, which is a Class A misdemeanor in the Lone Star State. 

According to Malavanso, she brought her unloaded gun with her as a tool to help convince the men outside her building to leave. When she got out of her car she pointed her gun at one of them, not because he was aggressive and she was afraid for her life, but because she wanted him to be afraid for his own safety so he’d comply with her demands. 

Even when using non-deadly force to defend property, a Texan must have a reasonable belief that the force deployed is immediately necessary. Criminal trespassing, by itself, doesn’t constitute a threat, and there’s no indication that any of the three men actually did threaten Malavanso. 

If she could have been charged with a crime, why wasn’t she? Well, for one thing, we’re talking about misdemeanor offenses allegedly committed by a 74-year-old woman against three individuals who weren’t around to be interviewed by police and would be unlikely to show up in court to testify against her. What Malavanso did might technically be a crime, but would it really have been in the best interest of justice to arrest her and haul her off to jail? I don’t think so. 

I really do sympathize with her, but I can’t endorse her actions. She put herself at risk by choosing to confront the three vagrants, and to rely on an unloaded firearm for protection. She immediately brandished the gun in an attempt to scare the men into leaving instead of simply telling them that police were on their way and they needed to vacate the premises. I’m glad that she’s not facing any charges, but Malavanso still made some pretty serious mistakes, both legally and in terms of self-protection. 

Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.

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