Category: Feel Good Stories

Since we didn’t have a feel good story for yesterday, we have two today, the first is from Chief Tango about a California man who was just turning his life around when he found himself crawling through another man’s doggie door;

[The homeowner] found a man crawling through the doggy door in an attempt to gain entry into the house.

The resident was questioning the home intruder when he reportedly began lifting what looked like a firearm. The man fired twice at the criminal, sending him running for his life. He apparently did not hit the suspect.

The resident then saw a second suspect in the yard who he told police also appeared to have a firearm. When the second suspect raised the apparent weapon, the man fired two more times.

The second story is from David and out of Houston where some folks mounted up a posse and ran down two car rustlers, one of whom is currently turning his life around in the hospital;

Officials said people followed two suspected car thieves who were driving two stolen vehicles and confronted them at the station. One of the suspects was shot and wounded. He was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital. Details of his wounds and condition were not released.

The other suspect reportedly left.

Police said homicide investigators were at the scene trying to figure out what led to the shooting.

I think there’s a Toby Keith song in that last story somewhere.

Chief Tango sends a link to the story of two Houston kids who had their lives turned around by a homeowner when they found themselves in his living room;

“I was scared because I thought my dad was going to die,” he said.

Fernando’s eyewitness of what happened to his family has been helpful to investigators as they piece the scene together.

“My uncle come with the hands up,” he said. “My dad takes his gun out and then he shoots two, then one goes running outside.”

Police aren’t saying exactly how three armed men got inside, but investigators believe they were looking for money. Only one of the three escaped.

Investigators said the shooter was taken in for questioning, but they believe this was a resident rightfully defending his home and family. The case will be referred to a grand jury.

As extended family members heard what happened, they rushed to the scene.

“I’m relieved because it was either him or them,” cousin Julio Lopez said. “Tragedy, but he’s alive and I hope he’ll get out because he was just protecting his family.”

we’ve had a lot of these coming out of Houston lately. You’d think that these young people would find a safer place in which they can turn their lives around, wouldn’t you?

Chief Tango sends us a link to the story about Clyde Thomas, who was turning his life around, but found himself discharging a weapon in someone else’s home;

Police say Thomas broke a glass door. They say the homeowner and Clyde Thomas’ wife and daughter were in the home at the time.

“Once inside, he had fired several shots inside the residence,” said Tony Watts with Kentucky State Police.

Then, officials say, the homeowner returned fire and hit Thomas several times. They say Thomas was the only person injured.

Police say there are few options in dealing with a home break-in.

“If someone is trying to gain forcible entry into your residence, make sure you call 9-1-1 as soon as possible, and you do have the right to protect yourself,” Watts said.

Some folks who used to live in the neighborhood say they are all too familiar with these precautions.

Well, the folks in Pippa Passes, Kentucky are marginally safer tonight while Clyde turns his life aroound from a hospital bed.

Chief Tango sends us the feel good story for the day from Florida. A woman awoke in her bedroom to find a burglar trying to turn his life around with her stuff;

When Jane Rainboth was awaken from her sleep by a masked man peering into her bedroom, she reached for the black, semi-automatic pistol on her nightstand.

“I got a gun! I got a gun!” she hollered. But it was a trick — Rainboth’s gun was a plastic toy.

The would-be burglar turned heels and ran out the patio door, with Rainboth in hot pursuit down the hallway of her Deerfield Beach apartment.

“I guess if somebody tells you they’ve got a gun, you don’t want to stick around to find out if it’s real or not,” Rainboth said of the episode, which unfolded around 10 Monday night at an apartment complex in the 500 block of Trace Circle.

(more…)

What day would be complete without a story about a youth who turned his life. this one,sent to us by Chief Tango, happens in Villa Rica, Georgia and reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Channel 2 Action News reported that the clerk was about to close the store when a man wearing a ski mask and hoodie ran in.

The 19-year-old robbery suspect pointed a gun at the clerk, then went to the cash register, according to Channel 2.

As the suspect, whose name has not been released, began taking money from the register, he took his eyes off the clerk and lowered his gun, investigators said.

“At that time, the clerk sees that opportunity, pulled his own handgun out and shot the suspect,” Villa Rica police Capt. Keith Shaddix told Channel 2.

Yeah, there won’t be any rehab time for this one, the store own killed him. Another Villa Rica store employee didn’t come out so well, when his jewelry store was robbed and the four men killed one of the two employees in the store.

Chief Tango sends us a link to the story of an East Dallas man who stopped a man from turning his life around with the homeowner’s weed eaters;

According to police, around 5:30 am on June 24, [Emilio] Paez awoke to a security alarm at his home in the 2700 block of Blyth Drive. He grabbed his .45-caliber handgun and headed outside with four witnesses in tow.

That’s when Paez spotted a man leaving his storage shed with two weed eaters. Police say Paez fired at the suspect six times, hitting him at least twice.

The suspect dropped the stolen lawn equipment and fled the scene. Police found Festus Johnson, a 35-year-old man matching the description of the burglar, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds a few blocks from the scene of the crime. Johnson was transported to Baylor Hospital and treated for his injuries.

Paez is not being charged and he was brilliant to to take four witnesses with him.

Chief Tango sends us a link to today’s good news in Forth Worth. In a home invasion, things went bad for the young men who trying to turn their lives around when the home owner engaged in a gun fight with them;

According to homicide Sgt. Cheryl Johnson, officers dispatched to a shooting in the 6700 block of Glenbrook Lane about 3:40 a.m. Sunday arrived to find a 29-year-old man shot in the head. The victim, identified in a police report as Anjoria Atchison, remained hospitalized Monday.

Within minutes of the shooting, officers were notified that Donald Davis and another man, 19-year-old Drayon Demond Perkins, had arrived by private vehicle at Texas Health Southwest Fort Worth hospital with gunshot wounds.

Davis was transferred to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital near downtown for surgery but was pronounced dead at 10:15 a.m. Sunday.

Perkins was arrested on a murder warrant and remained hospitalized Monday.

The homeowner was wounded, but not before he shot one of the young men dead and wounded another. All in good night’s work.

Chief Tango sends a link to the story of the final chapter of Marlow Dwayne Wilson Jr.’s life. He had just turned his life around and became a burglar when his new career came to a screeching halt in someone else’s home in Edmond, Oklahoma;

Police said 20-year-old Marlow Dwayne Wilson Jr. broke into a home on Cobblestone Court, near Danforth Road and Boulevard Street, about 3:30 a.m. and was shot by the owner. Wilson was pronounced dead on the scene.

The homeowner told police he was only protecting his life and the lives of his wife and two children.

“You are well within your rights to use lethal force if you feel your life is being threatened,” said Edmond police spokeswoman Jenny Monroe.

I guess Wilson had no criminal record, and still doesn’t.