I got a decent response to my Ms. Nancy story so I thought I would do some reflection to see if there were other people I can think of that did something great with their lives even if it always didn't start out so great.
This next story is about a guy who headed down a dark path in his early 20's and because of a run in with me and my roommates at the time, he got busted and ended up doing time in prison because of it.
It doesn't start out nice but it ends pretty well.
I don't remember the guy's name but I think it was Dave, so I will just refer to him as such from this point forward.
I didn't know Dave before that ill-fated day that he and his friends decided to break into my house while me and both my roommates at the time were home, but I got to know him pretty well in the days and weeks that followed.
He kicked in my (already unlocked) front door at our crappy 3-bedroom that was near campus and he and his friends rushed through my living room. I was back in my bedroom as was my other roommate. I suppose from the street we looked like easy targets, but man oh man did those guys choose the wrong house that day.
I am a fan of firearms and my other roommate was active-reserve Army and was also a very big fan. We lived in a type of house that is called a "shotgun" house and on that day, the architectural design was quite appropriate. When we heard a crash and my roommate scream I reached under my bed for my Mossberg pump-action 12-gauge and ran too the hallway, when I got there my Army roomate already had a 9mm fixed on the 3 intruders with a laser pointer on their chests. His shot would have required some sort of accuracy, mine would not have.
I stagger rounds in my home defense 12-gauge, the first round I could hit a man at the other end of the hallway blindfolded. They call this "peppering". It is very unlikely to kill you but you might wish you were dead as the 200-500 small bits of lead head towards you at 1100 feet per second.
The 2nd round in my barrel is buckshot and that will put a hole in you the size of a grapefruit.
Although I was well within my rights to have shot and killed these intruders, we instead held them on the ground while reminding them over and over again that we can legally kill them and never do a day in jail for it. My other roommate who was not really a gun guy called the police and well, a lot of people say that the police take a long time to get to things but when you tell them that there are firearms involved, they rush like mad. There was a unit there withing 90 seconds and 4 more arrived shortly thereafter.
This is not the house in question but it certainly did stir up the neighborhood as you might expect.
Now let me tell you the proper procedure for when cops enter your house when you are holding someone at gunpoint. This is crucial in case you are uninterested in "suicide by cop." You put the weapon pointed towards the ground, identify yourself, then ask for further instructions.
In our case the police had us place the weapons on the ground out of reach while holding US at gunpoint as well as the people we were holding at gunpoint. Then then made me and my roommates kneel with our hands on our heads until backup arrived.
They calmly asked us some questions but repeatedly warned all of us that we are not to move. Once backup arrived they cuffed the guys on the ground while still holding us at gunpoint while another officer removed the ammunition from our weapons.
It was at that point that we showed ID and informed them that we are the residents of the house and were holding the perpetrators until they arrived. This took some time to prove and all the while they were kind to us, but they had to confirm it.
Some think this was awful on the part of the police but we have to at least try to imagine it from their perspective: What if the people who were holding the others at gunpoint were actually the people who broke in? What if it was a trap to kill cops. It would be a very stupid plan seeing as how we called the cops but still, there are some crazy people out there. After it was all confirmed they gave back our legal weapons and ammo and they took the 3 guys who broke in away.
This is supposed to be a feel-good story so I will get to that part now. Dave was the ringleader of the group of young guys that broke into our house. Their intention was to rob the place because when the looked through the window all they saw was one guy sitting on his own and he had some money on the table. It wasn't, in their minds, going to turn into a situation where guns were involved.
I would be asked by the State prosecutor's office to testify and it wasn't a big deal because they didnt take a lot of my time. It was just one of those silly court things where they ask "is the person that broke into your house that night in this room right now?" and I pointed at Dave even though Dave had already confessed and didn't try to deny anything.
Dave asked the court if he could apologize during his trial and he did so and I accepted his apology right then and there. I thought that was going to be the last I ever saw of Dave but about 8 months later he found me at a college restaurant and at first, recognized me and went to another part of the joint. I didn't press the issue but he kept looking over at me sheepishly and eventually worked up the nerve to come over and ask if he could talk to me privately for just a bit.
I accepted, and wasn't afraid because I was concealed-carrying at the time and he just invited me over to another table.
He told me that even though he didn't exactly enjoy going to prison, that it is something that needed to happen to him. The reason why he broke into my house was because they were looking to score money for drugs and the minimum security prison that he went to for 8 months (he got a year sentence but it was reduced for good behavior) wasn't one of those sorts of prisons where people are doing crack in the bathrooms. It, for him, was a time of reflection, penance, and reform.
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I'm not 100% sure but I think they are called "Shotgun houses" because you can basically shoot from one end of it to the other.
When he got out he got a job, and by the time I talked to him he was on a work-release program working as an apprentice for an auto-mechanics. He apologized just one more time to me but also said that he had done his time, he had learned his lesson, and he is going to be a better person from that point forward. I shook his hand, said "that's great man, I'm happy for you" and then we parted ways.
You'll have to forgive my cynicism but I didn't exactly think that was going to last. The years went by and I didn't see Dave for I think it was 7 or 8 years. Then one day, on a call out to a job between Greenville and my home of New Bern, I was having some strange noises coming from my truck and it overheated. By chance I just pulled to the nearest mechanics that was in the area.
You have to imagine my surprise when I walked into this little place on the side of the road and a very friendly person walked out to my truck to ask me what he could do for me and I turned around and it was Dave.
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This is not the actual shop, it didn't occur to me at the time to take photos
Dave had kept his promise. He never touched drugs again and rarely did so much as drink alcohol. He wanted to show me a picture of his wife and son that was framed near the counter of the little shop and I looked at it and smiled and well, he plugged up my radiator and absolutely refused to accept any sort of payment. He said something along the lines of "it's a really crap way for it to have happened, but in a way, you saved my life."
I like to think about it that way but this is not a story of self-glorification. Had Dave acted differently in that situation he would have died right there in my hallway. I was just extremely happy to see that in some ways, for some people, prison can actually be something that doesn't just punish, but also reforms them.
Dave and I didn't become best friends or anything like that. In fact, since this was over 20 years ago that plot of land where his little 2 garage shop was located is now some condos. I just hope that he high-balled them for a good price on it and went and set up somewhere else.
There are so many stories out there about career criminals that are just in and out of the prison systems their entire lives until they eventually get shot or something like that. I'm happy that one of the only situations like this that I was involved in has a happy ending. Dave was doing well, Dave was an honest man, Dave had no animosity towards the legal system that put him in a cage for the better part of a year. Dave learned from his mistakes and came out on the other side prepared to be a better person.
I hope that a lot of other people can learn from their mistakes before it is too late and I sincerely hope that Dave has continued to do well is just laughing and loving life.