Husband, Wife Shoot At Dad Breaking Into University Place Home

UNIVERSITY PLACE, WA - When someone smashes through your door in the middle of the night, you really don't have time to stop to identify the person doing the smashing. So perhaps an armed University Place couple who opened fire on their father can be forgiven for a recent incident.

According to the Pierce County Sheriff's Office, the father of the husband broke into the couple's University Place home early in the morning on New Year's Eve, smashing through the door with a metal rod. The wife woke first and roused her husband. Both grabbed their guns and went downstairs to confront the intruder.

Thinking the metal rod was a gun, the husband opened fire - not knowing that it was his own father.

The intruder ran, and the couple's young son called 911, informing the dispatcher that he thought his father might be dead. In droves, police converged on the home, but discovered everyone in the family was alright, if a little shaken.

At the same time, an officer from Fircrest who was responding to the incident saw a white Nissan Versa speed by him in excess of 80 MPH. The Fircrest officer followed the vehicle all the way to a home along Bridgeport Way, where he saw the Versa drive through a garage door of a home.

The driver exited the vehicle and told police he had smoked "5 - 10" crack rocks. He broke into his son's home, he told police, to protect his grandchildren. Voices coming from within the walls, the man said, were telling him he was not safe.

But that wasn't the end of the ordeal. In handcuffs and a leg hobble, the 54-year-old kicked the windows out of a police car so he could "go get eaten by a dog so that he could save his family."

He was eventually taken to the Pierce County Jail on charges of burglary, malicious mischief, and violation of a protective order.

Image courtesy Pierce County Sheriff