*It May Not Be What you Think*
About 2 months ago a little problem arose near my home and I'd like to tell you folks a little about what happened.
I live in a rural part of Oklahoma just south of Tulsa. The neighbor across the street from me is a known criminal. He had his house raided by the local Sheriff's Office about a week prior to this incident. He was hiding a fugitive that escaped from a Deputy, was in possession of 2 stolen 4-wheelers, and also had a Meth Lab in his shed out back. Lovely guy huh? Well, this guy also owns a few dogs (1 Rottie, 1 Pit bull, and 1 German Shepard). His dogs get out on a frequent basis and come over in my yard and bark at me and my family. Due to the large size of these dogs we are usually forced to back away slowly and go inside. This went on 1 or 2 times a week for about 3 months. My 2 kids (Ages 6 & 7) went outside to ride their bikes for a while one afternoon but came in a few minutes later screaming. They said that the brown dog (Pit Bull) was in the yard and chasing them. At that point, I've had enough. I fetched my Remington 870 12 gauge loaded with some standard Remington 9 pellet 00 Buck that you can get at any Wal-Mart. I went outside to basically chase this dog off and scare it. When I went out on my porch, it was about 10 yards away near where my truck is parked. It growled at me when I came outside but when I shouldered my shotgun it turned to run. I didn't lead the dog as much as I would have liked to because I didn't want to hit my truck, but I fired one shot and the dog yelped and ran back to it's yard about 75 yards away. This dog was at a dead run and never slowed down. I figured I had hit this dog in the butt and I was a little ticked off at myself for not making a cleaner shot. I also didn't want the dog to escape because of the neighbor's history. Needless to say, I never saw this dog or any of his other dogs again on my property. Story doesn't end there though...
One week later I went to go to work and the neighbor was standing out in the street with a ball bat. I think to myself...what a fool, bringing a bat to a gunfight. I always carry my Glock 19 loaded with some nice 115 gr +P+ Speer Gold Dots when I go out. I do protection work part-time and this is my working gun. This charade kept up for almost a month. Every time I left to go to work he would be in the road with a ball bat trying to get me to drive by his house. I always went the other way because I knew I would end up killing this crackhead if I drove toward his house. I called the Sheriff's Dept and they came out and talked with me and told me not to be afraid and to go ahead and drive that way. They said to either run him over or shoot him if he forced me to stop. They said as long as I felt my life was in danger (and a crackhead with a ball bat meets that criteria) I could do what I felt I needed to do to end the threat. That's nice I thought, but you don't have to go to court after this and hire an attorney out of your own pocket and continue to live across the street from this crackhead's family.
After a month of me altering my route I got tired of it and did just what the deputy said to do. I drove down the road and sure enough, there was the crackhead..only he dropped the ball bat when he saw me coming. He stood out in the road and flagged me down forcing me stop. I had already unholsterd my gun and knew how to handle a situation like this. I felt I had the advantage. I talked to the guy and he wanted to know why I shot his dog and I told him. To my surprise, he understood and said that he just wanted to hear my version of what happened. He was in jail when I shot his dog and some friends had to tell him what happened. They took the dog to the vet right after I shot it and again to my surprise, I did NOT hit that dog in the butt. Dog had two pellets in a lung, 2 pellets in a shoulder, 1 pellet nicked it's heart and the other 4 were in it's guts.
Lessons learned:
1. Even though this dog took a direct hit and a full charge of 00 Buck, it didn't stop the dog. Good thing the dog was not advancing.
2. I still feel it was best to avoid the neighbor and let him cool down for a while. I knew I had the upper hand and the drop on this crackhead and I feel I still do.
TwoBravo
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