According to police, 30-year-old Ricky Gomez started pounding on the door of a residence in central Phoenix on Thursday night at about 11 p.m. He was able to break through a window in the door and let himself into the home.
That was a fatal error.
The area reportedly has a persistent crime problem. A neighbor, Roger David, told Fox10 that the commuter train stops nearby, and that homeless people congregate in the neighborhood. “They go in the alley. We’ve had incidents with them trying to make homes in the alley, or someone throwing rocks at our house. I’ve had to call police on stuff like that.”
David said he did not witness the shooting, but he heard the banging and then the gunshot.
The resident has a wife and two daughters, though it is unclear whether the entire family was home when the frightening incident occurred. “I hope they didn’t see that,” the neighbor said. “It’s horrible.”
There were no injuries to anyone other than the suspect, according to police, and no arrests were made. Of course, this appears to be a cut-and-dried case of self-defense where a stranger attempted to break into a home and paid the ultimate price.
The homeowner almost certainly will not face charges for protecting his family and property. Even the most anti-Second Amendment states tend to recognize the fundamental right to self-defense when a person is threatened.
No one celebrates loss of life, but the suspect apparently put himself in a most dangerous situation. No choice was left for the homeowner but to take defensive action, and he did.
