Florida Homeowner Wins Gunfight With 3 Home Invaders After Dropping His First Gun

Escambia County, FL – The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday released Ring security video of a home invasion where the homeowner opened fire on three intruders (video below).

Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said the incident occurred just before midnight on July 7 when three men, one of whom was armed with a gun, entered an occupied home in the 700-block of Pinestead Road, WEAR reported.

Ring security video released by the sheriff showed the attempted robbery as it occurred.

“Three males approached the front door of the victim’s home,” the sheriff’s department said in a press release on July 13. “When the victim unlocks the door, two of the males push him into the house and attack him.”

The video showed the suspects in the doorway of the home, seemingly unaware they were being filmed close up.

“The third male pulls a handgun from his pants and waits outside,” the press release read.

The video showed the third suspect approached the doorway as the chaos unfolded inside the home, and then turned and ran when the shooting started.

Sheriff Simmons told reporters that the homeowner pulled a handgun from his waist to defend himself but dropped it, FOX News reported.

So, he ran and got an “AK-47-style gun” from somewhere else in his residence while one of the suspects picked the weapon that he’d dropped, according to Sheriff Simmons.

The sheriff said the homeowner opened fire on the home invasion suspects while they were still inside his home, WEAR reported.

“The victim ran to the back room of the house where he had another firearm and began firing at his intruders,” according to the sheriff’s department. “The three ran franticly from the home to their vehicle where the fourth suspect was waiting and drove off, hitting a nearby mailbox.”

The home invaders fled before deputies arrived on the scene but investigators quickly identified two of the suspects involved in the incident as 18-year-old Antonio DeWayne Dean, Jr. and 20-year-old Da’Torrance Leanders Hackworth.

The sheriff said deputies found the third suspect – later identified as 18-year-old Joseph Sanders – suffering from a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, WEAR reported.

“We get a report of a third individual that had a wound to the head not long after [the home invasion],” Sheriff Simmons said. “The stories he’s giving us as to how he got shot in the head are inconsistent at best. In short, we don’t believe him.”

“So what we’re looking at is to determine whether this is the third person that was involved,” he added.

Hackworth was taken into custody on July 8 and Dean remains at large.

Sheriff Simmons said Dean has active warrants for carjacking, aggravated assaults with a firearm, robbery with a firearm, domestic violence battery, and more, FOX News reported.

The sheriff said the homeowner would “absolutely not” face criminal charges for firing his gun at the intruders.

“He started shooting for his own protection, to get them out of his house and to protect himself,” Sheriff Simmons explained.

“The homeowner’s protecting himself. And in Florida, in Escambia County, you can protect yourself,” he added.

Watch the incident unfold in the video below: