(LA) Extremely violent home invader killed by resident 01-04-03

The Advocate Online News: Robbery victim shoots, kills suspect 01/04/03
Address:http://www.theadvocate.com/stories/010403/new_robber001.shtml
Saturday, January 04, 2003
Robbery victim shoots, kills suspect
By JOSH NOEL
Advocate staff writer

Medgar Flowers took a man’s life Thursday night — he shot at him more
than a dozen times — but Flowers hasn’t mustered any remorse.

“I don’t have any because he was trying to kill me,” said Flowers, 33,
who paints cars for a living. “I wish it didn’t happen that way. But if
he had killed me, I just would have been another statistic.”

Instead, Flowers killed 26-year-old Joseph Going, who authorities said
forced his way into Flowers’ Glen Oaks home at gunpoint late Thursday
with the intention of robbing Flowers and his wife.

About five blocks away, another man shot dead an intruder last month.
Antonio Jones, 24, of 6240 E. Glen Court, killed 30-year-old Michael
Triplett after Triplett and another man allegedly broke into Jones’ home
about 4 a.m. Dec. 16.
Jones was unavailable for comment Friday.
East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Darrell O’Neal said
neither Jones nor Flowers will be arrested.

“People have a right to protect themselves and their families,” O’Neal
said. “When someone enters your home with a firearm, you never know what
their intention is.”

Flowers said Friday that he was watching television in his living room
and his wife was preparing dinner about 11:30 p.m. Thursday when a light
knock came on the front door of their rented home at 5714 Matthews St.

Marsha Flowers said the two men pushed their way inside after she opened
the door, firing shots that left holes in a coffee table and a living
room wall.

While Medgar Flowers and Going fell to the floor in a scuffle, Marsha
Flowers said she screamed and ran out the front door. The second robber,
who is still unidentified, ran back outside and fired at her several
times, she said. He never returned to the house.

“I thought I was hit when I felt it so hot on my neck,” she said.

Instead, Marsha Flowers, 43, was grazed, left with a raw and shallow
pink gash on her neck.

She said she knocked on several neighbors’ doors, but that no one would
let her inside.
Instead, she asked them to call police.

“I can’t blame them for not opening their doors,” she said. “They didn’t
know whom I had behind me.”

Meanwhile, Medgar Flowers said he spent 15 minutes tussling with Going
on his living room floor, in front of the wide-screen television he had
just been watching.

Flowers said they were fighting over two guns: a 9 mm Smith and Wesson
he keeps on his coffee table, and a handgun Going kept inside in his
jacket.

“It seemed like it took forever,” Flowers said. “I was doing everything
I could to keep him from getting into his jacket.”

After a bruising struggle, Flowers said, he got control of his gun and
fired repeatedly. The bullets did little to slow down Going, he said.

“I didn’t even know if I had hit him,” he said.
“There was no blood, and he never fell. It was like I hadn’t shot him.”

Going kept fighting, he said, trying to club Flowers with a glass
bottle. Flowers said he then began beating Going with his gun.

“He said ‘All right, you got me,’ and he stumbled out,” Flowers said.

Going collapsed in a yard around the corner and died a short time later
at Earl K. Long Medical Center, O’Neal said.

Medgar and Marsha Flowers moved into their one-story brick home in
October and quickly learned that the north Baton Rouge neighborhood is
nicknamed “The Jungle,” Medgar Flowers said.

He said he did not own a gun when he moved into the neighborhood (though
he once had), and that his wife encouraged him to buy a new one.

“In 100 years, I never thought I’d have to use it,” he said.

Flowers said he certainly will keep the gun — and that he and his wife
will move.

“It would be in our best interest to leave this area,” he said. Neither
he nor his wife were able to sleep Thursday night, he said.

O’Neal said the Flowers’ most crucial misstep was opening their door.

“We have been preaching for people not to open their doors to people
they don’t know,” he said. “This is a prime example of why.”

He said investigators believe the suspects arrived in a green Jeep
Cherokee driven by a third person.

Anyone with information about the attack can call the Sheriff’s Office
at 225-389-5000.