And Rightly So!

From the Forth Worth Star-Telegram comes this dramatic tale:

When two men smashed through the door of their house and one of them, weighing 300 pounds, thrust a Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun in her face, 34-year old Kellie Hoehn’s primal thought was that she wasn’t going to let them get to her children. Ignoring the gunman’s murderous threat “Don’t you scream, bitch, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off”, she indeed screamed for her husband Keith.

With his arrival into the room, the gunman turned his gun towards Keith. Kellie bravely reached out and managed to grab to grab the muzzle of the shotgun to deflect it upwards, triggering a ferocious life-and-death struggle.

“We just tackled him,” Keith said. “I’m 220 [pounds]. All I could do was try to hold onto that shotgun. “My wife was trying to keep the muzzle away from the kids’ rooms. I looked down and I saw he was pulling on the trigger the whole time. “I found out later that the safety was on — praise the Lord.”

Kellie let go long enough to grab a jar candle, Keith said, “and she popped him in the head.” Then she fought the attacker’s accomplice, who had a handgun.

Yes, another women courageously making a choice for life of her children, in this case, the life of her born-children.

Meanwhile their son grabbed his little sister and they hid in a closet with a pellet gun, Hoehn said. He finally seized the shotgun when the fracas spilled out onto the front lawn. He turned the safety off and shot Pierson, who had already gotten into a van. “My wife said he had a gun,” Keith Hoehn said. “I didn’t know if he was going to shoot us.”

Then he fired at Benoit [the original wielder of the shotgun]. “He got right back up,” Keith said, “and started charging me again. “Well, I shot him again, and I guess that was it.”

Pierson abandoned the van without driving off and instead ran a mile to property owned by BNSF Railway, where he was apprehended by railroad police while trying to clean himself in a fountain. He was taken to the hospital, in critical condition, but was expected to survive. Benoit, who was taken to the hospital from the crime scene, died soon after from gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen.

Both men had multiple past criminal offenses. Police later determined that the two had carried out a home invasion robbery earlier that evening, during which they had stolen valuables and also stolen the family’s minivan, which they drove to the Hoehn residence to attempt a second robbery. Clearly two hardened criminals.

Sometimes the choice for life also requires the taking of the lives of others who have forfeited their right to life…and in the process perhaps also saving the lives of unknown innocents who otherwise would have been future victims.