A Memphis man who acted in self-defense against a car thief has been charged with seven felonies by local prosecutors.
Authorities claim 27-year-old Demarcus Collier fired at least nine rounds at a teenager trying to break into his car after the would-be burglar acted as if he had a weapon, according to Action News 5, a Memphis-area TV station. Some of the rounds Collier fired apparently hit a room with children inside and a vehicle, leading to charges of aggravated assault and vandalism, Action 5 News reported.
“What the police do when the process starts to charge you is result-based. Did you intentionally fire and did it put the other people, the victim in fear?” Memphis attorney Michael Working told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a Thursday interview. “And so in Tennessee that case is an aggravated assault and it’s for the homeowners that had a bullet come through the wall, a reasonable fear of serious bodily injury. That’s an entirely separate inquiry from whether the defendant or the gun owner acted reasonably from a legitimate fear himself.”…