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11-year-old packs big surprise for home invaders
‘Brave little girl’ credited by sheriff for cracking case

Rule number one for any child: Never talk to strangers.

But an 11-year-old Lapeer County, Michigan, girl went above and beyond the call of duty, and her heroic actions may have saved her from harm during a home invasion last week by two hardened criminals.

The girl had arrived home from school, but her parents were not yet back from work. She noticed a strange van pull into the driveway of her family’s home in North Branch Township about 3:45 p.m. on Jan. 30 and sprang into action. She did not start by answering the door.

One of the two strangers in the van got out and knocked on all the doors. The girl ran and hid in her bedroom and could hear the man pounding on the doors outside. When there was no response, he forced his way inside the home.

The girl called her parents, who instructed her to get her shotgun out of the safe and hide in the closet in her locked bedroom.

She hid inside the dark closet with her 12-gauge shotgun at her side, according to a Lapeer County Sheriff’s Office investigator. It was a weapon she was well-familiar with as she had used it on many a hunting trip with her father.

The suspect eventually broke into the room and opened the closet door where the girl was hiding, reported MLive.

As the closet door flew open, the girl aimed the shotgun squarely at the suspect, who immediately turned and fled from the home.

The girl was not harmed, and she was praised by the local sheriff’s office for her calmness under pressure.

“She is fully capable of staying there by herself as we can clearly see based on this situation,” Sgt. Jason Parks of the sheriff’s office told MLive. “She was able to defend herself from an intruder and be able to resolve an event even most adults would be taken aback by.

“She is fully capable of making sound, good decisions and [being] a protector of her home.”

The two suspects had hundreds of stolen items in their possession, according to a report by WNEM-TV 5 in Saginaw, Michigan.

The thieves had broken into and robbed as many as 50 homes since December, “until they ran into one brave little girl.”

“Due to this little girl and her keeping her composure and being able to observe and articulate what she saw, it definitely made a huge difference in this case and because of that, people are in jail,” Parks told WNEM.

This is the man, James Wasson, who the 11-year-old girl scared off with her shotgun.

The suspects’ vehicle was discovered about 30 minutes after the incident in nearby Imlay City by local police. Two Detroit residents – 53-year-old James Wasson and 31-year-old Rhonda Steward – were taken into custody and formally charged Sunday in connection with the break-in.

Wasson, 53, was found to be in possession of a firearm during the incident and has a record of previous felonies. Both were charged with first-degree home invasion among other crimes.

This marks the second time in six weeks that a child has defended against a home invader with the skilled use of a firearm.

WND reported Dec. 17 that a 14-year-old boy in North Carolina shot and killed a man who was trying to break into his grandparents’ home while he was at the house with his grandmother. He had warned the two men, who were brothers, to stop. But they persisted in trying to break in through the back door, so he shot and killed one of them, 18-year-old Isai Robert Delcid, while the other, Carlos Delcid, ran off and was later apprehended.

But it happens every day, whether it be a child or an adult, said Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation.

“Every day over 2,000 people use a gun to stop a criminal,” he said, and in many cases the person, like the Michigan girl, never even has to pull the trigger.

“It only makes the news in an unusual case like this one,” Gottlieb said.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/11-year-old-packs-big-surprise-for-home-invaders/#6Poyo3j1mFzrhvoQ.99