A Florida homeowner shot a naked, mud-covered man who had allegedly broken into his house Wednesday morning.
In a Thursday interview with WJAX-TV, William Kerr said that he had been heading to his office after his wife had started preparing to head out for an appointment, when he spotted the intruder.
“I got the door open about a foot, and I see this guy standing there. He’s got my rifle … BB rifle – he’s standing there with the rifle like this, the butt facing me, and he’s fixing to clock me,” Kerr said, recollecting the moment when he first learned that there was a stranger inside.
Kerr said he quickly shut the door as soon as he saw him. “I heard him messing with the other door in the room. So, I’m thinking, ‘Oh man, Tina’s out there in the car fixing to go.’”
To protect himself and his wife, Kerr ran to his kitchen, took out a cleaver and went out the door. “By the time I went out the door, he’s already at the mailbox,” Kerr said, according to WJAX-TV.
“I got a next-door neighbor with a little kid; the lady across the street is kind of elderly,” Kerr said.
Worried that the naked man could harm his neighbors, Kerr decided to chase the man down the street, even though police were there at the time and Kerr had indicated the intruder’s location to them by pointing at him.
“There’s a privacy fence in that lot. Well, I drive down a little bit, and I see him, and he’s broken off a piece of this privacy fence … ‘Come on out … the police officers are driving up the street. They’ll be here in just a second,’” Kerr recollected telling the man.
Do you think Kerr did the right thing by following the suspect out?
Kerr said that the intruder got up and began trying to hit Kerr with a three-foot-long and several inch thick stick. That was when Kerr pulled out his weapon.
Kerr said he had aimed for the man’s hands when he shot him, in hopes of getting the intruder to drop the stick.
Just after Kerr shot the intruder, an officer drove down the street. “I wave him down. I’m like, ‘He’s right here!’ And he tried to run, still,” the homeowner said.
The man who was shot underwent surgery for his injuries. “I hope the best for him. I don’t hope anything bad,” Kerr told the news station. “It was a traumatic situation on both our part.”
The homeowner told WJAX-TV that the intruder had also stolen $400 — money that Kerr said he would have gladly given the man should he have requested help.
Before the intruder went to Kerr’s home, he was spotted by another neighbor who saw him walking up his dock, naked and muddy.
The neighbor, according to the news station, handed the man some shorts, water and food before calling 911. However, the man left the area near the neighbor’s home and went towards Kerr’s.
“He was jacked up on something. He was dirty as heck,” Kerr described to WJAX-TV. “The time he tried to ram me in there he was going, ‘Wooo! Wooo!’ And even when he was swinging the stick, he was like ‘Wooo!’ And his eyes were like golf balls.”
“He just looked like he was possessed, and he was acting like he was possessed,” Kerr said.
Police detained Kerr for questioning and later released him. It was unclear if he would face any charges, according to WJAX-TV. Kerr claimed self-defense.
“If you are in imminent fear of death or great bodily harm, you can probably defend yourself and claim self-defense,” WJAX Law and Safety Expert Dale Carson said. However, according to Carson, it would be difficult to prove that one was in “imminent fear of death or great bodily harm.”
“My advice would be, don’t follow people out of your house. Call law enforcement and allow them to manage it. Because if you get involved, there’s a possibility that you could ultimately be charged with manslaughter or even murder,” Carson said.
