(FL) Hoemowner shoots violent intruder 12-25-04

(FL) Hoemowner shoots violent intruder 12-25-04



> A man shoots his intruder after enduring 30 minutes of terror. A wounded
> suspect, however, remains free. By STEVE THOMPSON
> Published December 25, 2004
> ----------------------------------------------
>
> SPRING HILL - In the predawn mist, John
> Quicke couldn't see the man who had just robbed him of a can full of
> quarters. So he fired his revolver into the dark at the sound of the
> jangling coins.
>
> "Ouch!" the man yelled. But he kept running.
>
> It was the end of 30 minutes of terror.
>
> Quicke, 51, had been drinking a cup of coffee in his bedroom at 5 a.m.
> Thursday when the robber came in through the back door of his home on
> Galveston Street.
>
> "I had the door open in the back because it was so muggy," Quicke said.
>
> The man was dressed all in black, including a mask. He waved a
> chrome-plated handgun and demanded money and jewelry. He told Quicke to
> lie face down on the bed.
>
> "He tore my bedroom apart digging through everything," Quicke said.
>
> The robber found a safe in the closet and demanded Quicke get on his
> knees to open it.
>
> "He was yelling at me, pointing the gun against my temple. He says,
> "You've got a count of 10 to open that safe.' "
>
> The safe had nothing but old papers in it. Quicke hadn't been in it for
> months.
>
> "I was so scared, I couldn't open that thing to save my life. I couldn't
> even think of the combination."
>
> As he worked the knobs, Quicke didn't pray. Nor did he see his life
> flash before him, he said.
> "I was thinking about some way I could get to my gun, and hoping he
> didn't find it."
>
> The man already had found Quicke's double-barrelled shotgun, but his
> .20-caliber nine-shot revolver was in another room.
>
> At the count of nine, Quicke still had not opened the safe. He fell away
> from the robber, but the man didn't fire.
>
> Soon afterward, the robber ran out of the room and down a wooden
> staircase with Quicke's shotgun, his cash, his medicine and his 3-pound
> Planter's peanut can full of change.
>
> When the robber got to the bottom of the staircase, Quicke heard him
> stumble and spill quarters all over the floor. As he heard the man
> picking some of them up, Quicke got his gun from the other room.
>
> Quicke ran out to his second story deck, and that's when he heard the
> change jangling in the dark. He fired twice, and knew his aim had been
> good when he heard the man scream out.
> The man dropped Quicke's shotgun in the front yard, but kept going.
> Quicke called 911.
>
> When sheriff's deputies showed up, it didn't take them long to find a
> suspect: They simply followed a trail of coins to a home down the road.
>
> There, a woman told them their suspect was at Spring Hill Regional
> Hospital. The man had been shot in the buttocks.
>
> Sheriff's officials would not release information about the man, whom
> they had not arrested as of Friday afternoon.
>
> "The suspect was treated (at the hospital) and released," sheriff's
> spokesman Doug Tobin said. "Of course, given the continuing
> investigation, we are withholding his name."
> Quicke said he knows who the robber was, though not his name.
>
> "He lives down the road, maybe half a mile down from me. Now they've
> turned him loose."
>
> Quicke said deputies told him that the man, with a wound in his buttocks
> and in his wrist, claimed he was shot during a drive-by shooting that
> morning, but that he didn't wish to press charges against whoever shot
> him.
>
> Said Quicke: "He's still got the bullets in him, from what I was told."
>
> Quicke said detectives told him that they hadn't arrested the man yet
> because they were still gathering evidence. Quicke said he fears that
> before they do, the robber will show up at his house again.
>
> "He's going to be back, and the damn cops took my guns."