Featured Image Credit: KSAT-TV
Topics: US News, True crime
Shola Lee
A mother-of-three from Texas will not face charges after fatally shooting a man who broke into her home.
It was late Thursday evening, 28 April, when a burglar broke into the mother's San Antonio home, while her three children were inside.
The intruder, said to have entered through the laundry room at the back of the house, was shot twice in the chest by the mother.
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When officers arrived to investigate the scene, they found the wounded man sitting on a chair in the woman's garden.
The man, later identified as 41-year-old Roman Rodriguez, died on the way to the hospital, KSAT reports.
Neighbours spoke to ABC12 about the incident, saying: “The first thing we heard was a gunshot and it was one.
“And then maybe within a minute a second one popped up.”
The mother and her children were unharmed.
Now, it has come to light that the mother will not be facing charges, due to the Castle Doctrine.
The law is based on the idea that a person has a right to protect their home, or 'castle'.
As such, the law gives residents the right to use force against someone unlawfully breaking into their home, vehicle, or workplace.
For many states, this means using reasonable force to stop an intruder, however, in Texas, residents are allowed to use deadly force.
A famous instance of a Texas resident avoiding charges after shooting a home intruder was Joe Horn, who fatally shot two intruders in Pasadena in 2008.
Horn saw the intruders break into his neighbour's home, and despite 911 callers telling Horn not to intervene, the man shot the two burglars in the back.
Speaking of the case, Kenneth Magidson the Harris County district attorney, said: "I understand the concerns of some in the community regarding Mr. Horn's conduct.
"The use of deadly force is carefully limited in Texas law to certain circumstances [...] In this case, however, the grand jury concluded that Mr. Horn's use of deadly force did not rise to a criminal offence," ABC News reported at the time.
"This office will continue to aggressively prosecute anyone who illegally engages in the use of force, deadly or otherwise, against another," Magidson noted, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Like Magidson, the Castle Doctrine protects the mother involved in the San Antonio incident from charges, however, an investigation will still take place.
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