# Man in wrong Fresno apartment walloped by female karate master



## Big Don (Oct 29, 2012)

[h=1]Man in wrong Fresno apartment walloped by female karate master[/h]    [h=2][/h]                               By Jim Guy - The Fresno Bee EXCERPT:            

                                      Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 | 01:29 PM                    


                        A drunken man was attacked by a female karate master  after he stumbled into the wrong Fresno-area apartment, authorities  said.
On Sunday, the 18-year-old man broke into what he thought  was his own apartment unit at a complex in the 2500 block of North Maple  Avenue, Fresno County sheriff's spokesman Chris Curtice said.
The  man was in the bathroom about 1 p.m. when the 20-year-old woman  returned from a karate tournament where she had taken first place in her  division.


END EXCERPT
Location and timing fail


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## Big Don (Oct 29, 2012)

Sorry, I don't buy the "So drunk he thought he was in HIS apartment" crap.
I work in Fresno, I know that neighborhood, it is marginal crime-wise... 
I've been plenty drunk plenty of times and never, ever, thought some other place was my home.


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## kodora81 (Oct 29, 2012)

Hmm. You would think the fact that he had to "break in" to his own unit would've tipped him off.


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## Carol (Oct 30, 2012)

Uh, an 18 year old drunk trying to get in to the home of a 20 year old athletic woman is being called a mistake?  :lfao:


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## Dirty Dog (Oct 30, 2012)

I've seen more than one drunk in the ER after they've broken in to the wrong apartment, claiming to think it was theirs. 

But how pathetic is is that he's so drunk at _*1PM*_ that he doesn't even know where he lives.

Edit: Deeper reading. The article actually says 1 AM, not PM. And the "Karate Master" is a yellow belt.

Good for her. But since it reads like she kicked and punched him repeatedly, she might want to work on her power...


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## Bill Mattocks (Oct 30, 2012)

Wrong apartment?  Yep, it happens.  When I worked dispatch for a Denver metro-area PD back in the 1980s, I got married, so my roommate and I moved out of our apartment.  A week later, I took a call from a woman who had moved INTO my old apartment; she had gone to bed and left her front door unlocked; she heard a noise, went into the living room, and found a drunken woman had stumbled in, taken off her clothes, and fallen asleep on the couch.  When roused, she claimed it was her apartment.  The woman calling thought maybe the intruder had been the former tenant?  Nope, the former tenant was me and my roommate; no women.

We rolled a unit and took the intruder to detox, as the woman who lived in the apartment at that time declined to press charges.

It's not the only time I heard of it happening, but it was the oddest, since I had just moved out of that very apartment.

Personally, I have never been that drunk.  But it does happen.


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## Cyriacus (Oct 30, 2012)

Dirty Dog said:


> I've seen more than one drunk in the ER after they've broken in to the wrong apartment, claiming to think it was theirs.
> 
> But how pathetic is is that he's so drunk at _*1PM*_ that he doesn't even know where he lives.
> 
> ...


And possibly her situational awareness. "Look! A drunk man who doesnt even know where he is! I guess id better start swinging!"


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## Bill Mattocks (Oct 30, 2012)

Cyriacus said:


> And possibly her situational awareness. "Look! A drunk man who doesnt even know where he is! I guess id better start swinging!"



I'm not sure I'd blame her in this situation for taking direct action first.  He was in their home with unknown intentions and signs of forced entry.  In many states, she'd have been legally justified if she had shot him dead on the spot.  I'd say he got off easy.


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## Dirty Dog (Oct 30, 2012)

Cyriacus said:


> And possibly her situational awareness. "Look! A drunk man who doesnt even know where he is! I guess id better start swinging!"



Are you kidding? If it were my house, he'd leave in a bodybag.

This is not someone who wandered in off the street. This is someone who shielded a porch light, removed a screen and opened a window.


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## Aiki Lee (Oct 30, 2012)

For all she knew though, he could have been armed. She should have just left and called the police. But then again hindsight is always 20/20


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## Bill Mattocks (Oct 30, 2012)

Himura Kenshin said:


> For all she knew though, he could have been armed. She should have just left and called the police. But then again hindsight is always 20/20



I will agree that leaving and calling the police would be a good response; but it depends upon the circumstances as to whether or not that option was realistically available to her.  I'm glad it ended well for all concerned.


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## kodora81 (Oct 30, 2012)

It's hard to say what I'd do if I came home to a man in my house. I know the safest thing to do would be to leave and call the police, but who knows what would my initial response would be considering the sudden shock and stress? One thing is for sure - I wouldn't feel bad kicking the crap out of him, benign mistake or not. I'm certainly not going to take the time to figure out his intentions. Canadian laws can be murkier when it comes to use of of force and defending one's home, but as a 5'2" 110lb woman, I don't think law enforcement would have too much empathy for the intruder.


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## chinto (Oct 30, 2012)

Bill Mattocks said:


> I'm not sure I'd blame her in this situation for taking direct action first.  He was in their home with unknown intentions and signs of forced entry.  In many states, she'd have been legally justified if she had shot him dead on the spot.  I'd say he got off easy.



in my state that burglary is a deadly force situation.  it is black letter law that it justifiable homicide to use deadly force to stop a burglary of a dwelling.


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## malteaser14 (Oct 31, 2012)

Where I live its illegal to attack an intruder unless they become a threat to me or my family! To me, if you've broken in, your a threat! Basically if we're upstairs and intruder is downstairs they're not a threat. If there was a drunk in my bathroom my initial reaction would be to attack, my kids are in the next room. That said, if I attacked it could end badly for me and leave my kids vunerable. I will hopefully never be in a situation like this to have to make that decision, but if I did attack it would be me, not the burglar going to jail!


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## Bill Mattocks (Oct 31, 2012)

chinto said:


> in my state that burglary is a deadly force situation.  it is black letter law that it justifiable homicide to use deadly force to stop a burglary of a dwelling.



Yes, and I agree that deadly force can be legally justified.

The question, I think, is really best answered in terms of what route is the SAFEST for the victim to take to defend her own life?  The core of self-defense, after all, isn't what the law allows you to do or forbids you to do, but what is the least risky behavior that will protect you.

Some have said that they would immediately leave and call the police.  I would tend to agree that this is a wise choice, but we do not know if that was a realistic option for her at that time.  Imagine coming home late at night and not immediately discovering that there has been a break-in, let alone finding out that there is apparently an intruder still in the bathroom.  I would be worried that my exit route might be blocked; what if there were other home invaders I had not seen and had walked past?  In other words, I might try to get out and discover I could not.  The man in the bathroom might well have accomplices.

Another option is to directly and immediately begin a physical assault on the invader, which is what she apparently did.  As we know, this ended well enough for her; the goal of protecting her life was achieved.

Another option, had she been armed with a firearm, could have been to immediately shoot the intruder dead.

She was there, and we were not.  She made a decision and it turned out well for her.  I'm glad that it did.  I might have handled it differently or the same way; it's very difficult to know.

As to using deadly force, although I think it is a very reasonable and acceptable response to an initial invasion (you are home and the bad guy kicks in the door or climbs in through a window, etc), that does not necessarily mean it is the best or safest option to use in every home invasion situation.  A valid choice?  Yes.  The best choice?  Perhaps.  A lot depends on the situation.  My goal, if it were me in her situation, is not to protect the life of the bad guy of course, but to protect my own life in the best way possible for me.


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## arnisador (Nov 1, 2012)

malteaser14 said:


> Where I live its illegal to attack an intruder unless they become a threat to me or my family! To me, if you've broken in, your a threat!



I agree that if someone is in your house illegally you should have the right to use whatever force is necessary. But not every case is a "break-in". My wife and I went to my uncle's wedding. Thanks to bad directions to their rural home that we had never visited before, we entered someone else's house at about 11PM. (We correctly followed the directions, which omitted one important qualification--second _gravel _driveway, not second driveway). The door was open, lights were on, as expected, but no one was there. When I saw mail with an unfamiliar name on it I suggested we leave. This was pre-cell phones, so we drove around for a while until we noticed my parents' car in another (gravel) driveway.

We met the owner of the house the next day--a pleasant elderly widow who politely said she'd have shot us with her shotgun had she heard us. Within her rights? Yes, I agree (though she might've helped us out by locking the door when she went to bed.) But we weren't intruders who had _broken in_--and we went to a wedding and reception with her that afternoon.

If she had been there and awake with a gun, we might've been killed due to second-hand directions. If she had been there and awake without a gun, we would've asked where my uncle Mark lived and shared a laugh. So, yes, I agree that if someone is in your house you shouldn't have to ask why...but this is how tragedies happen, too: By being too anxious to use deadly force in a world where accidents occur in a fair amount of cases that might be labeled acts of malfeasance in the heat of the moment.


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