Joe Horn no billed by grand jury

[aikoaiko]

Joe Horn no billed by grand jury
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6235878

HOUSTON -- A suburban Houston homeowner was cleared by a grand jury Monday for shooting to death two men he suspected of burglarizing his neighbor's home.

Joe Horn, 61, shot the two men last November after he saw them crawling out the windows of a neighbor's house in Pasadena, a Houston suburb.

Horn, a retired grandfather, called 911 and told the dispatcher he had a shotgun and was going to kill them. The dispatcher pleaded with him not to go outside, but Horn confronted the men with a 12-gauge shotgun and shot both in the back.

"The message we're trying to send today is the criminal justice system works," Harris County District Attorney Kenneth Magidson told reporters at the courthouse.

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eta: Hear the 911 conversation http://youtube.com/watch?v=_7jqLie6-Y0

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eta: I wish I could have been a fly on wall of the grand jury room. Texas law is perhaps the most permissive of all the states when it come to use of force. Horn's initial position was that it was self-defense, but Texas also has laws where (under some specific circumstances) one can use force to stop a fleeing felon even when it involves a third party.