A good guy with a gun.
Via Helena IR:
A Missoula math professor thought his dog was chasing his cat around his home Monday morning when he heard some commotion from inside the house. When he started hearing louder-than-usual sirens and noticed a rapidly growing police presence around his property, however, his inclination shifted.
“I briefly opened my front door and learned authorities were seeking the whereabouts of one or more individuals,” Josef “Joe” Crepeau wrote in an open letter to the community. “My interpretation of the noise quickly changed. I felt I should convince myself the subject or subjects of the search were not [the cause of the noise] so I decided to search my home for intruders.”
Crepeau, 58, provided his letter to the Missoulian and elaborated in person Tuesday.
He said he grabbed his 9 mm Beretta and began the search, starting from the top floor, as he reminded himself of training protocols and worked to “ramp myself down.” In the basement, he saw an open door that led outside and became more cautious.
“I then made use of my handgun to tip the balance of power in my favor,” Crepeau, a resident of Missoula since 1976, wrote in his letter.
When speaking to the Missoulian at his office in Missoula College on Tuesday, Crepeau joked that the state of affairs in the basement might have served as a deterrent. “I was hoping that he took one look at that hell hole of a basement and ran away.”
However, when he looked in the furnace room, he saw the intruder crouched down, and he finally chambered a round.
“He was clearly in distress. He was panting and sweating and just shaking,” Crepeau said. Crepeau believes the intruder heard him chamber a round. “He became very cooperative very quickly.”
Crepeau said he wanted a nonviolent conclusion and his finger never touched the trigger throughout the process.
In a tone his wife refers to as his “mean voice,” Crepeau said he ordered the intruder to stand up, put his hands up, keep them up, and eventually, come forward slowly. He turned the intruder to make sure he was in front of him, lowered his weapon, and marched him up the stairs.
At one point, he said the intruder started talking, but Crepeau didn’t let it last. “I ordered him to keep his mouth closed” with the help of some expletives.
Outside, he alerted law enforcement and turned the man over to authorities. Crepeau said he put down is firearm and got on the ground because he knew he would be handcuffed as part of protocol. He said the authorities quickly verified he was the property owner and let him go.
Crepeau said he is grateful for law enforcement authorities, and he stressed the importance of “training, training, training,” in the use of firearms. He himself has done lots of competitive shooting, although he hasn’t found himself in a similar situation for many, many years.
“The Second Amendment is too precious to screw around with willy-nilly,” Crepeau said. “With great power comes great responsibility.”
He praised in particular the Western Montana Fish and Game Association at the Deer Creek Shooting Range.