KAIT:

MANILA, Ark. (KAIT) – When a Mississippi County man awoke to find a burglar in his house, he told him to leave. Then the suspect told him to hand over his gun. Sheriff’s deputies say that’s when the homeowner shot him.

The victim told deputies he awoke around 3 a.m. Tuesday to a loud noise at his house on East 1st Street.

The homeowner grabbed his gun and began searching the home. In the living room, he found a man he did not know.

The victim told the suspected burglar to leave.

But the man ignored him, according to Sheriff Dale Cook, and began fixing himself something to eat and drink.

Once again, the homeowner told the man to leave.

Instead, the suspect began unplugging the television.

When the victim told him to leave again, the suspect reportedly said: “Give me that gun before you hurt yourself, old man.”

The homeowner then fired one shot at the man, striking him in the leg.

When officers arrived, they found 47-year-old Charles Lancaster of Keiser across the street, suffering from a gunshot wound to the leg.

RTWT

Aram Bakshian linked the above news item on Facebook.

I replied:

Many years ago, when I was running a real estate company in Manhattan, there was a rape one night in one of our buildings. I was there that evening, and some tenants phoned me and said a woman was screaming for help. I intervened and made a citizen’s arrest of the rapist. He finally tried to run away, saying: “You ain’t going to shoot me, man. You ain’t going to shoot nobody!” I responded by shooting him in the leg.

Aram Bakshian replied: “I love a story with a happy ending.”

HT: The News Junkie.

Renowned hunter, frontiersman, Indian fighter, and Congressman David Crockett of Tennessee, who died fighting for the Liberty of Texas at the Alamo in 1836, was reputed to have begun his hunting exploits by killing a bear at the age of 3.

Davy Crockett’s hunting prowess as a toddler is usually thought to have been only a legend, but as ABC7 News reports:

Dewitt, Ark. A 5-year-old Arkansas County boy killed a black bear Sunday weighing more than 400 pounds.

Tre Merritt, a descendant of Davy Crockett, was hunting with his grandfather Mike Merritt when a black bear happened upon their stand.

“His 10th great-grandfather was Davy Crockett,” Mike Merritt said. “And Davy supposedly killed him a bear when he was three. And Tre is five and really killed a bear. I really doubt if Davy killed one when he was three.”

Mike Merritt was in the stand at the time but said Tre did it all by himself.

“He came in about 40 to 50 yards,” Mike Merritt said of the black bear, “and when he got in the open, I whistled at him and he stopped and I said, ‘Shoot Tre.'”

Tre confirmed his grandfather’s account.

“I was up in the stand and I seen the bear,” Tre Merritt said. “It came from the thicket and it was beside the road and I shot it.”

At first, Mike Merritt didn’t think Tre had hit the bear with his youth rifle.

“I said, ‘Tre, you missed the bear,’ ” Mike Merritt said. “He said, ‘Paw-paw I squeezed the trigger and I didn’t close my eyes. I killed him.”‘

The bear turned out to be 445 pounds; 12 times the weight of Tre. Mike Merritt said tears rolled down his cheeks when he found out his grandson killed the enormous bear.

Tre Merritt’s father said he began teaching his son to shoot when he was just 2 .5 years old, and said Tre killed three deer last year.

The family plans to get a life-sized mount of the bear, but where they will put has yet to be determined.

DeWitt is in rural eastern Arkansas, close to the Mississippi River bottoms and near Stuttgart, the Duck Hunting Capitol of the World.

2:15 KATV video

Let’s hope the kid runs for Congress someday.