An Indiana man is remorseful for the actions he was forced to take while “defending his life” when an armed intruder attempted to rob him at his home last week.
Brent Smith was returning home from grocery shopping on Tuesday, Jan. 2, when he noticed a man with a ski mask on his Indianapolis property, WRTV reported. He recalls getting struck in the head with a gun seconds later.
“I yelled out, ‘He is robbing me!’ thinking my neighbors would hear me,” Smith told the outlet.
Smith and the intruder, later identified as 22-year-old Damon Swanigan Jr., started to fight for the weapon when it went off. During the scuffle, the two slammed into Smith’s glass table, and he shot Swanigan with his own gun, Fox 59 reported.
A tearful Smith didn’t initially realize the suspect died in front of his Indianapolis home when he was met with more gunfire from other suspects outside. “I didn’t even he was right there. I didn’t know I shot a man. I didn’t want to do that,” said Smith through tears.
Smith was forced to grab the same gun and began to engage in a shootout before the suspects fled the scene.
“When the gun went off, I heard thousands of gunshots,” Smith said to the news station. “It was a lot of gunfire, man, a lot of gunfire.”
Smith was taken into custody and interrogated by police but later released. The Marion County Coroner’s Office identified the deceased suspect.
The local DA’s office is investigating the case, but Smith has not been charged. According to the reports, state law protects homeowners who are put in the position to defend themselves and their property by using deadly force.
“The law says specifically that I am ‘justified in using reasonable force including deadly force’, if I reasonably believe that, that force, meaning deadly force, is necessary to prevent or terminate an unlawful attack on or entry into my dwelling,” attorney Guy Relford, an expert in Second Amendment rights, told WRTV.
