(CA) Two-gun woman blasts parollee intruder 02-07-04

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/8228308p-9159238c.html
Woman opens fire on intruder
A man is wounded as she defends her home with two handguns.
By M.S. Enkoji — Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Saturday, February 7, 2004

Firing nine rounds from two handguns, a 53-year-old Rancho Cordova woman
fended off an intruder Thursday night after he crashed through her
sliding glass door.

William Kriske, a 47-year-old parolee, was treated for a gunshot wound
to the arm, then taken to jail and arrested on suspicion of burglary and
resisting arrest, according to Sacramento County Sheriff’s Sgt. Lou
Fatur.
“It was one of those nights. I have a few holes in my glass out front,”
Carolyn Lisle said Friday.

“That’s OK, I don’t think he’ll be back,” said Lisle, who emptied one
.357 revolver at the intruder before she retrieved a second one and he
crashed through another window to flee.
“I was trying to miss my furniture. Priorities, right?” Lisle said.

Lisle, shaken but spirited, recounted her night that started as a quiet
evening of TV with three friends and two dogs in her living room.

At about 9 p.m., a noise at the sliding door prompted a male visitor to
get up to investigate, but Lisle dashed to a back room to get one of her
guns.

“I knew it couldn’t be good,” Lisle said.

When the intruder shattered the glass, Lisle’s three guests fled from
the house. Lisle stood her ground and opened fire.

“He was like a mosquito hitting the window. Every time he turned around,
poweee,” she said.

Lisle wasn’t sure the intruder was alone so she nervously watched her
back as she squeezed off rounds.

When she emptied one gun, she still hadn’t hit him. And he wasn’t gone.

“He was still in the garage, flitting around,” she said.

She went to get another gun — “I like to be prepared,” she said — and
waited to see his next move. After tearing up the garage, he finally
broke out through a garage window, but he veered toward Lisle’s front
door. She fired again, hitting him at least once.

The bleeding intruder ran across the street and tried to hot-wire a
motorcycle, but its owners, already armed to come to Lisle’s aid, chased
off the would-be thief, she said.

She said one of the men yelled after the retreating burglar: “And that’s
just our womenfolk.”

A California Highway Patrol officer stopped the suspect a short distance
away and sheriff’s deputies arrested Kriske.

Lisle is still puzzled why someone would break into a well-lit living
room with four people and two dogs.

“It was like he was out to hurt someone,” she said.

Fatur said a prowler had been reported moving through neighborhood back
yards at about the time Lisle’s house was invaded.

Lisle, who said her guns are registered, will not face criminal charges,
Fatur said. California law allows someone to use deadly force whenever a
reasonable person believes an intruder poses a threat to kill.

Lisle is the second homeowner in the
Sacramento area this year to use deadly force against an intruder. In
January, a Sacramento man shot and killed one of two armed intruders who
broke into his home. He wasn’t charged.

Studies done to determine whether gun ownership deters crime have only
stirred more controversy because of the way statistics are gathered and
analyzed, and the way people recall their experiences, said William
Vizzard, chair of the criminal justice department at California State
University, Sacramento.

“We tend to see ourselves as heroic rather than idiotic,” said Vizzard,
who is also a 30-year law enforcement veteran.

Vizzard, who has studied major research and written on gun issues, said
two of the most prominent surveys differ dramatically in results,
showing anywhere from 150,000 people a year to 2.5 million who claim
success in thwarting crime with a gun.

“The answer is, no one can say for sure at the end of the day that the
presence of a firearm doesn’t increase your risk of getting injured, nor
does it reduce your risk,” he said.

Lisle is pretty sure where she stands: “You need protection in this day
and age.”

A retired state worker who once worked as a correctional officer, she
did admit that she hadn’t been to a shooting range lately: “After last
night, I might go once in a while.”