This Week's Supreme Turkey Award Goes To...LAKELAND - "Two suspects picked the wrong apartment to burglarize Friday night, and one of them is dead after the tenant shot and killed him.
The would-be burglars, James McArthur Johnson Jr., 31, and Elvin J. Tolliver, 39, walked up to Apt. B at 545 Timberlane W. about8:50 p.m. A small party was going on, and several people were standing outside.
Johnson and Tolliver, both armed and wearing masks, forced them into the apartment and demanded their money and jewelry, said sheriff's Criminal Investigations Chief W.J. Martin.
Johnson, who lives at 534 Timberlane W., Apt. D., just a few homes away from where the burglary happened, went deeper into the apartment to a bedroom. When he opened the door, the apartment's resident, James W. Miranda, shot him once in the chest with a shotgun, the Sheriff's Office said.
The weapon contained birdshot, ammunition used in hunting that can contain from a few dozen to hundreds of tiny pellets.
Johnson collapsed outside the home and was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS.
The second suspect, Tolliver, of 705 N. Terrace Circle, Lakeland, then ran from the apartment, the Sheriff's Office said. Tolliver turned himself in Saturday evening after a nearly daylong manhunt, said sheriff's spokeswoman Elizabeth Smokay.
He faces charges of second-degree murder and a life-felony count of burglary of an occupied dwelling. Florida statutes provide that if a person is killed in the commission of "any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life," any accomplices are guilty of murder in the second degree.
No charges are being filed against Miranda in Johnson's shooting. In 2005, the Legislature passed a bill that allows homeowners to use deadly force against intruders into their home or vehicle who present "a reasonable fear of death or bodily injury."
"These guys were armed, and his life was threatened, and he was justified in shooting them," Martin said."
Can't get the link to work, so sorry about that.
Birdshot at close range CAN be deadly, just ask Mr. Johnson. Never would be my selection for self defense ammo but one cannot find fault with a good shoot. Aside from Good Guy 1, Goblin 0, the next best thing about this tale is that it did NOT include ANY quotes from law enforcement preaching on and on about how they do not condone this sort of thing and how one is better served just letting the bad guys have their way.
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