A Virginia woman used training she received from her police officer husband to shoot a man who was charging towards her and her two-year-old daughter during a home invasion Wednesday.
The woman had just put her daughter to sleep in their Newport News home when the man began banging on the door and shaking the handle to try to get in.
She told WAVY that the man was saying “Baby, it’s OK, we’ll be OK.”
The woman, whose husband is a James City County police officer but was at work at the time, called 911 to report a burglary in progress.
But she soon realized that she would have to take matters into her own hands.
“I knew that the cops would get there quickly, but they may not get there quickly enough,” she told WAVY.
“I mean, he was coming at me, and I think he was yelling, but you know, it’s one of those things were it was so fast, I don’t know, but all I knew is he was coming at me and I knew if he got past me, my daughter was in the back room,” she said.
The woman retrieved her gun and shot the man. She called 911 again to report that she had done so.
Police arrived at the scene to find a 25-year-old man with a gun shot wound. He was taken to the hospital and is in unknown condition.
“Had I not been able to protect myself with the gun, I don’t know what he would have done to me,” she told WAVY. “I don’t know what he would have done to my daughter, there’s no telling, but I’ll never have to find out because I stopped the situation.”
One neighbor said that he was surprised that the house was targeted since a police officer lives there. He also praised the woman’s fast action.
“I think people need to arm themselves, to defend themselves, to protect themselves,” James Cantrell told 13 Action News.
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