Disabled Man Buys A Gun To Protect Himself, Shoots A Burglar Just Hours Later. Now He’s In Legal Trouble

Disabled Man Buys A Gun To Protect Himself, Shoots A Burglar Just Hours Later. Now He’s In Legal Trouble

There is a simple doctrine that is as much a part of America as apple pie and baseball: come into my house to do harm and you may never leave alive. One disabled man bought a gun because he had been repeatedly robbed and now faces potential prosecution for having shot the burglar.

Zlembo

A disabled man who bought himself a gun after being burgled five times in six years then shot a burglar just hours later.

Harvey Lembo, 67, a retired lobster fisher from Maine, said he bought the handgun after a string of burglaries, most recently last month when a man took $1,000 and some of his prescription pills.

Mr Lembo said he collected the weapon on Monday, and just hours later he was burgled again, though this time he shot the thief in the shoulder.

Though police expressed sympathy for Mr Lembo, and said he has been the target of repeated burglaries, he will have to wait for the District Attorney to decide if his use of force was justified

Police arrived at the scene and followed a trail of blood before arresting Christopher Wildhaber, 45, who is now in jail charged with burglary.

Mr Lembo, who lives in an apartment in Rockland and  uses a motorized wheelchair to get around, says he is a common target for burglars who know he is vulnerable and has prescription drugs.

He says it was a neighbor who advised him to buy a weapon after the last time he was broken into, so he went out and got a revolver.

Later that same night he was asleep when he heard someone coming into the house, so he took the gun from under his pillow, climbed into his wheelchair and found the thief in the kitchen going through his pills.

He told WGME: ‘I screamed at him to stop. And I told him to go sit on the coffee table or I’d blow his brains out. I still had the gun in my hand. I’m trying to dial 911 with the gun in my hand.

Mr Lembo said he did get through to emergency services when the man tried to make a run for it.

He added: ‘That’s when I shot him. Just barely missed the side of the wall. Got him in the shoulder.

‘If he’d have sat there, nothing would have happened. But he wanted to leave. And I’ve had enough of it. I’ve had enough.’

So, to recap: scumbags keep victimizing this poor man and when he shot one of them, the DA has to take time to consider whether the use of force was necessary?

Hopefully, sanity will prevail and police will show up at Mr. Lembo’s door with a medal instead of an arrest warrant.

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