No charges filed in fatal home invasion in Yakima
Police say homeowner shot intruder found in daughter’s bedroom
YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakima police said a 34-year-old man who shot and killed an intruder in his home Thursday night will not face charges at this time.
According to police, the 34-year-old arrived home about 7:45 p.m. at the Almost Sunshine RV Park on East N Street with his girlfriend and their six children — all between 7 and 14 years old — and found a stranger inside.
“The daughter went into her bedroom and found that there was a man in her bedroom,” Capt. Jay Seely said.
The mother grabbed her children, took them outside and called 911. She reportedly told dispatchers her boyfriend had grabbed a pistol and went to confront the burglar
Seely said while on the call, dispatchers could hear yelling in the background, followed by gunshots. Arriving officers found the family outside and uninjured; inside, they found a man dead with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.
“We do know that he forced his way into their house,” Seely said. “He pushed an air conditioning unit out of the bedroom window and climbed into the bedroom.”
The man was later identified as 38-year-old Joe Mendoza, who lived next door to the family. Seely said the motive is unclear at this point and investigators are still trying to determine what happened during the confrontation in the bedroom.
Seely said the family has had conversations with Mendoza before, but don’t understand why it happened.
“The neighbors are saying, ‘Yeah, he’s kinda odd, he’s looking in people’s windows and we don’t let our kids go out when he’s out,’” Seely said. “But there was never any indication he was going to go burglarize somebody’s home.”
According to Seely, Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Brusic will not be filing charges , “unless the investigation determines that there is some other information that we weren’t aware of and at that point they can change course and file charges.”
Seely said they should know more about what happened after the autopsy, which is scheduled for Saturday.
Texas father shoots man peeping into 10-year-old daughter’s bedroom
A Texas father and licensed gun owner reportedly chased down a “peeping Tom” spotted gratifying himself outside his 10-year-old daughter’s window – before ultimately shooting him outside a nearby gas station, according to reports.
A husband and wife, whom authorities noted are both licensed handgun carriers, heard their young daughter scream from her bedroom around 10 p.m. Sunday after spotting a man inappropriately touching himself outside a window, KTRK-TV reported, citing Harris County Sheriff’s deputies.
“She looks over at the window and this guy is at her window,” the girl’s mother, who preferred not to be identified, told KPRC-TV, about what her daughter experienced. “He took my daughter’s innocence away.”
The couple armed with their handguns headed outside their home located 15000 block of W. Little York in Houston to confront the man, KPRC-TV reported. The father, who also preferred his name not be published, said he and his wife ordered the man to lie down in their front yard until police arrived – though the man did not comply. Instead, he headed toward across the street to a nearby Valero gas station.
Deputies said the girl’s mother held the man at gunpoint outside the gas station, as the father headed inside to tell the clerk to call 911. But that’s when the suspect began wrestling the woman for her gun. He managed to disarm the woman and pointed her own gun in her direction. But her husband soon raced outside the gas station and fired at the suspect out of fear he’d shoot his wife.
“We didn’t want this guy to get shot. We were waiting for police to detain him because I’m pretty sure if he did this to my children, he’s doing it to a lot of other children out here,” the woman told KPRC-TV. “We are praying for the suspect and we are also praying for his family.”
Deputies said the father shot the man three times.
But the father told KTRK-TV he believed he shot the man four times; twice in the chest, once in the stomach and once in the side. The sheriff’s office said the man was transported to the hospital in critical but stable condition. His name has not been released.