15 year old knocks at wrong house. Shot and killed by homeowner

[tblue37]

43. Some years ago (around 1990 or so) I was up reading at about

3:00 a.m., when suddenly I heard someone pounding very aggressively on my door. When I looked through the peephole, I saw what appeared to be a teenaged boy in a hoodie. Since I am a woman and I was living alone, I did not even consider opening the door to a stranger at that hour. Instead, I called the police and watched through the peephole to keep an eye on the person until they got there a few minutes later.

It turned out that the person was a teenaged girl, just wandering around in the ugly hours of the morning. Who knows why she thought it appropriate to pound on a stranger's door at 3:00 in the morning. When the cops came, I asked her why she did that--and whether something was wrong and she needed help--but no, she had seen that my light on and just figured she could come in and hang out.

Remember, I did not know her at all.

I wondered afterward whether maybe she was a runaway or maybe drunk or high and therefore not thinking clearly. I imagine that the police sorted it out.

But my point is that I was a woman living alone, so I would probably have had more reason to be afraid than most of these guys who blast people through their doors. Also, because my apartment was small, if someone had broken in I would have had no place to barricade myself to hide after calling the cops.

But besides the fact that I didn't have a gun, I would never have considered it appropriate to shoot through a closed door at someone.