Alleged home intruder brings knife to gunfight with disabled Vietnam veteran and pays the ultimate price
A disabled Vietnam veteran said he grabbed his gun after waking up Monday morning to find a male intruder armed with a knife breaking into his bedroom at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Danny Ricketts told KOB-TV he retrieved the gun from his nightstand, shot the alleged intruder, and then called police.
‘I looked at the window, and I didn’t see any blood, and I didn’t see any bodies. So I thought I missed initially, and I was kind of grateful at that.’
“I could see it was a knife sticking under the window, sort of wiggling back and forth, and the window was coming up,” Ricketts said about the incident.
Ricketts added that he keeps a gun nearby because he suffers from PTSD. He’s an amputee and uses a wheelchair.
“I keep a pistol on my nightstand under a hat. I reached and got it and I said, I still don’t know quite what I said, ‘What the f*** you doing, get the hell away from here’ something like that,” he recalled.
He said he fired one shot, and the suspect ran off. Ricketts initially believed he missed.
“I looked at the window, and I didn’t see any blood, and I didn’t see any bodies. So I thought I missed initially, and I was kind of grateful at that,” he added.
Surveillance video from a neighbor’s camera caught the suspect running away. Police said they found the suspect with a gunshot wound in the street, and he died later at a hospital.
Albuquerque Police Spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos said they believe Ricketts acted in self-defense but the investigation is ongoing.
“Sounds like this gentleman the other day he called police, he secured his firearm, I believe, he told them exactly what happened,” Gallegos added before warning people against following suspects because the law doesn’t protect them in some cases.
“We’ve seen instances, too, where people may have felt a fear but … then they go chasing the individual, and continue to shoot at them. That’s where it really gets pretty questionable as to whether you’re defending your life at that point,” he explained. “You can protect yourself if there’s a fear of harm or protect somebody else. You can’t protect your property by using deadly force.”
The district attorney’s office will determine whether Ricketts will face charges.
KOB published an interview with Ricketts on the station’s YouTube video channel.
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