[Rhodes22-list] Prosecuted homeowner blasts officials

[Paul Grandholm]

A Chicago-area homeowner prosecuted after shooting an intruder has 
written a letter urging local
officials to stop hindering citizens from protecting their families and 
"stick to parade schedules and
planting our parks."
Hale DeMar, 54, of Wilmette, Ill., wounded a burglar who entered his 
kitchen Dec. 29, shortly after
saying good night to his children upstairs. But DeMar was charged with 
violating a local ordinance
banning possession of handguns.
Police Chief George Carpenter said the outcome "was very fortunate for 
the homeowner."
"We much prefer, for the safety of the home, that a resident who finds 
himself in this situation
immediately lock the door of the room he's in and dial 911."
In a letter to local officials published by the Chicago Sun-Times, 
however, DeMar said: "Until you are
shocked by a piercing alarm in the middle of the night and met in your 
kitchen by a masked invader as
your children shudder in their beds, until you confront that very real 
nightmare, please don't suggest that
some village trustee knows better and he/she can effectively task the 
police to protect your family from
the miscreants that this society has produced."
Morio Billings, 31, is accused of entering the DeMar home twice within 24 
hours. He allegedly crawled
through a dog door in the garage then returned the next night with a 
stolen house key. Prosecutors say
Billings crashed through the home's front window after he was shot then 
drove himself to the hospital in
the family's SUV, which he had stolen the night before.
Billings previously had been arrested 30 times, according to DeMar.
DeMar, a restaurant owner, will appear in court Feb. 6 to face 
misdemeanor charges for violating the
handgun ordinance and failing to update his firearms card.
He sent the following letter to the Sun-Times:

Village Trustees ... Stick to Parade Schedules & Planting our Parks

Many of us have experienced a sense of violation upon returning to our 
homes, only to find
that someone else has been there. Someone else has trespassed in our 
bedrooms, looting and
stealing that which is readily replaced. Many of us, still haunted by 
that violation, will never
again have a sense of security in our own homes. Few, however, have 
awakened to realize
that they had been violated as they slept in their beds, doors locked, as 
family dogs patrolled
their homes. For me, the seconds until I found my children still safely 
tucked in their beds
were horrifying. The thought that a young child may have been hurt or 
abducted was
incomprehensible.
The police were called and in routine fashion they came, took the report 
and with little
concern left, promising to increase surveillance. Little comfort, since 
the invader now had
keys to our home and our automobiles. The police informed me that this 
was not an
uncommon event in east Wilmette and offered their condolences.
What is one to do when a criminal proceeds, undeterred by a 90-pound 
German shepherd,
an alarm system and a property ... lit up like an outdoor stadium? And 
now, he had my
house keys and an inventory of things he'd like to call his own. Would 
the police patrol my
dead-end street as effectively the second time as they had the first? 
Would my small
children be unharmed the next time? Would the career criminal be 
satisfied with another
automobile, another television or would he feel the need, once again, to 
climb the staircase
up to the bedrooms, perhaps for a watch or a ring or a wallet, again 
risking little?
Would my children wake to find a masked figure, clad in black, in their 
bedroom doorway,
a vision that might haunt them for years? Would the police come again and 
fill out yet
another report, and at what point should I feel comfortable that the 'bad 
guy' got everything
he wanted and wouldn't return again, a third time?
I went to the safe where my licensed and registered gun was kept, loaded 
it for the very first
time and tucked it under the mattress of my bed. I assured my frightened 
children ''that
daddy would deal with the bad guy ... if he ever returned.'' Little did I 
imagine that this
brazen animal was waiting in the backyard bushes as I tucked my children 
into bed.
Fifteen minutes after bedtime, the alarm went off. Three minutes after 
the alarm was
triggered, the alarm company alerted the police to the situation and 10 
minutes later the first
police car pulled up to my home, but only after another call was made to 
911, by a
trembling, half-naked father. I suppose some would have grabbed their 
children and
cowered in their bedroom for 13 minutes, praying that the police would 
get there in time to
stop the criminal from climbing the stairs and confronting the family in 
their bedroom,
dreading the sound of a bedroom door being kicked in. That's not the fear 
I wanted my
children to experience, nor is it the cowardly act that I want my 
children to remember me
by.
Until you are shocked by a piercing alarm in the middle of the night and 
met in your kitchen
by a masked invader as your children shudder in their beds, until you 
confront that very real
nightmare, please don't suggest that some village trustee knows better 
and he/she can
effectively task the police to protect your family from the miscreants 
that this society has
produced.
This career criminal had been arrested 30 times. He was wanted in Georgia 
and for parole
violations in Minnesota. How many family homes had he violated, how many 
innocent lives
were affected, how many police reports went into some back office file 
cabinet, only to
become some abstract statistic? How is it that rabid animals like this 
are free to roam the
streets, violating our homes and threatening the safety of our children?
If my actions have spared only one family from the distress and trauma 
that this habitual
criminal has caused hundreds of others, then I have served my civic duty 
and taken one evil
creature off of our streets, something that our impotent criminal justice 
system had failed to
do, despite some thirty odd arrests, plea bargains and suspended 
sentences.




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Paul Grandholm
GrandPower Components Div.
C&H Technology
ISO9001 Certified
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