Video: Armed Good Guys — Police Impersonator

News stories of civilian self-defense seldom receive adequate media coverage. After all, armed good guys stopping violent felons does not make headlines like the lives of innocents being taken. Bias and agendas play their part, but the media does not cover an event that did not happen, such as a case where a good guy stopped a violent event before it resulted in the loss of innocent life. However, these are exactly the type of stories we need to highlight to educate non gun owners before they head to the voting booth.

Armed Citizen Defends Himself, Others From Police Impersonator

Espanola, New Mexico – Residents inside an apartment in Espanola, New Mexico were forced to defend themselves from two men posing as law enforcement who tried to break into their home in the early morning hours of August 8, 2019.

Natasha Decosta reported to police someone was trying to break into her apartment at the Vista del Rio Apartments on Avenida Cañada.

“Someone is trying to break into an apartment, she advised they are pounding on the door, kicking the door trying to get in,” dispatch logs state. “There are two guys who don’t live there and they are saying they are from (FBI High Intensity Drug Task Force) Region Three. She doesn’t think they are cops.”

The men who were trying to get into the apartment were not law enforcement, Apodaca said, although they did identify themselves that way to Decosta and other tenants.

31-year old Daniel Padilla was one of the two suspects, and according to Espanola PD Sgt. Jeremy Apodaca, he had armed himself with a pellet gun with a laser pointer taped to the barrel in an attempt to make the tenants inside believe he was armed. Turns out, that was a fatal mistake.

Alex Lucero, who lived at the apartment, was armed, and tried to stop Padilla from coming inside, Apodaca said.

“(Padilla) kicked the door open, that’s when the tenant saw the barrel of the gun come through the door,” Apodaca said. “The tenant announced several times that he was armed, and that’s when the offender went into the living room, just stepping through the doorway and being that he was armed, the tenant protected himself with his own weapon.”

Lucero tried to help the intruder after shooting him, applying a makeshift tourniquet to the suspect before police and medics arrived, but Padilla was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

According to Sgt. Apodaca, no charges will be pursued against Lucero, who was acting in self-defense.

Padilla told officers there had been another man with him, but Apodaca said he was unsure if Padilla had provided the other suspect’s name before being transported to the hospital.

Lucero is not expected to face any charges.

“You do have the right to protect yourself and your family, and being that this person was armed, (Lucero) pretty much took the appropriate actions from my understanding,” Apodaca said. “He announced that he was armed, he announced not to come into his house and (Padilla) still came in with a weapon.”

According to the Rio Grande Sun, Padilla was a college graduate who was studying to earn his master’s degree in psychology. It’s a sad end to what could have been a promising future for Padilla. We may never know what prompted the psychology student to try to break into the home posing as an FBI officer, but that bad decision came with fatal consequences.

Mother of Three Children Shoots Thug Home Invader

Greenville, South Carolina – Ashley Jones had already put her three children to bed when a thug kicked in her door, prompting her to shoot the suspect.

Jones heard the man banging on her door, claiming he lived there and to let him in.

“I yelled, ‘I have a gun, I will shoot you, get away from my house,’” Jones said.

The thug intruder had a female accomplice with him, and they attempted to enter through the front and back door.

After the man kicked the door in, he took a step forward and got shot by Jones, who was perched at the top of the staircase.

“So then he kicks the door in as soon as he kicks the door in and tries to take a step in my house that’s when I shot him and he ran off, she recalled. “Something just came over me, I got calm and my heart slowed down.”

If Ashley Jones did not have a gun, she may not have been able to fend off the home invaders.

“If I didn’t have any kind of weapons, I don’t know what I would have did. That guy was kind of big,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have been able to fight him off”

Any mother is going to protect her children any way she can, and Ashley Jones said she “would’ve killed” the intruder if she had to.

It’s time for families to arm themselves as crime creeps into our quiet neighborhoods.

Do you have a story of armed good guys that shows the importance of firearm ownership for self-defense? Share it in the comment section.