Charges filed against intruder shot by Minneapolis homeowner
Pam Louwagie
Star Tribune
Published Aug 22, 2002 BURG22
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3180954.html

An unsavvy burglar who was shot by a surprised 79-year-old north
Minneapolis homeowner was hit Wednesday with criminal charges.

Jimmie Lee Emerson, 48, was shot about 11 p.m. Monday after he kicked in
the back door of
Harvey Keefe’s house, then tried to open the chained door of the bedroom
where Keefe had been sleeping, according to police, a criminal complaint
and the homeowner.

“I was scared stiff,” Keefe said Wednesday. “I hated like heck to shoot
anybody, but what are you gonna do when you’re an old man?”

Keefe, a World War II Marine Corps veteran who was wounded twice, said
his home of 36 years had been burglarized before, so he took extra
security precautions, including chaining his bedroom door shut at night.

He said his pulse raced when he heard somebody ramming the back door of
his house, which is just across the street from Theodore Wirth Park. He
reached for the .38-caliber revolver on his dresser. When he heard
somebody jiggle his bedroom door handle and try to open it, he feared
for his life, he said. So he raised his gun to the part of the door
where he thought the burglar might be and fired once.

He heard rustling in the dining room outside his door, he said, but
didn’t hear talking, so he assumed the burglar was alone.

Not knowing where his bullet landed, he called 911 from a phone in his
room. He had trouble hearing the operator at first, with the shot still
ringing in his ears. “That pistol made a heck of a racket,” Keefe said.

He stayed on the line until police lights flashed in his yard and the
911 operator confirmed that it was indeed the authorities.

Police found Emerson about six blocks away when they were called to a
medical emergency, the complaint said. He said he was shot in the arm
“near the parkway.” Police found a trail of blood leading through the
neighborhood and back to Keefe’s bedroom door. Keefe’s VCR had been
dumped along the way.

The complaint said Emerson admitted he had been in Keefe’s house without
permission. He acknowledged that the blood in the house was his, it
added.

He was charged in Hennepin County District Court with first-degree
burglary. He was under arrest Wednesday at North Memorial Medical Center
in Robbinsdale, where he was in stable condition.

Keefe, whose living room is adorned with skeet-shooting trophies, said
he doesn’t regret firing the shot.

“I know I’ve done the right thing,” he said.
“I’m glad I didn’t kill the man, because I’d hate like hell to have that
on my conscience, even if he is a bad guy. But I hope he gets enough
prison time where I won’t see him again in my lifetime.”

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