A pair of would-be burglars got the surprise of a lifetime when their heist ended with them being held at gunpoint. According to 13WHAM ABC News, Alexandria Mosher,19, and Dominick Wood, 22, were taken into custody when a homeowner was alerted to strange activity at their home.
After watching security footage from their property, they raced home to find a strange car on their property and the lights inside their home flickering. That’s why deputies say that they decided to grab a shotgun and investigate. What happened next sounds like it was pulled from an action movie, because the homeowner called out to ask who was there before firing at the car, shooting the tires out.
Ontario County Sheriff’s Office says a short time after the shots were fired, one of the two made a call to 911, saying that they’d like to cooperate and exit the home without further incident.
The homeowner wasn’t charged for his part in the incident, but the sheriff’s department did advise people to understand Article 35 before using “deadly physical force” on intruders.
Mosher and Wood Were Found to Have the Homeowner’s Possessions When They Were Arrested
Undersheriff Michael Rago told 13WHAM ABC News what happened. “He was receiving live surveillance footage of two individuals entering a property that he owns,” Rago said of the homeowner. “He lives close by, and while he remained on the phone with the 911 center, he responded to the location.”
Once he arrived, he grabbed his shotgun and shot out the tires while waiting for police. When officers arrived, they took the pair into custody. They were both found to have items from inside the home in their possession, and they were eventually charged with second-degree burglary. After their arraignment, the pair of Lima residents were released, but they will have to come back to stand trial at a later date.
The Undersheriff Cautions Homeowners Against Responding This Way
Rago wanted to remind homeowners that things don’t always go the way they did in this example, citing Article 35. According to the New York State Senate, Article 35 is known as Defense of Justification, and it covers a variety of incidents when someone would be justified in using physical force to defend themselves or their property.
While it sounds like this incident didn’t fall under the coverage of the Article since there was no physical violence, Rago seemed to want homeowners to think twice before assuming they will be protected if something similar happens to them.
“At the end of the day… We don’t need more victims. We don’t need victims injured,” Rago told the reporter. “We don’t need suspects or defendants injured. It just comes back to being a good witness for law enforcement.”
This situation comes hot on the heels of one in New South Wales, Australia, where a woman kidnapped a burglar, assaulted them with a baseball bat, and then forced them to take her to where the rest of her belongings had been stashed. Although unlike the New York case, this woman was arrested for her actions, highlighting just how many different outcomes there can be when homeowners take the law into their own hands.