Housecleaner Shot Dead Through Door When She Went To Wrong House

Joe Biden said a lot of stupid things during his political career, but one of the dumbest was when he advised in a 2013 interview with Field & Stream: "[if] you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door."

    This played out recently in Indianapolis, Indiana. The New York Post reports: 

    Maria Florinda Ríos Pérez, a mom of four, was shot dead in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Wednesday morning after trying to get into the wrong house using keys she had been provided for a cleaning job.

    The gunshot came from “inside the home,” Whitestown Police Captain John Jurkash told reporters at a briefing Wednesday.

    The front door was never opened, and the homeowner shot through it, police told WRTV. Photos taken by local media show a bullet hole in the front door. 

 * * *

     The 32-year-old mom, who ran the cleaning business with her husband, had believed the sprawling home in Whitestown was the one they’d been hired to clean, according to police. 

    The couple checked the address twice and circled the neighborhood to make sure they were in the right spot, according to a police report cited by IndyStar.

    But as they tried to get the keys they’d been given into the keyhole, a single bullet whizzed through the front door.

 * * *

     A 911 call went out at around the same time, 7 a.m., reporting a home invasion at the address, but Whitestown Metropolitan Police soon ruled out that the couple was trying to break into the house. 

    The homeowner that shot through the door, Curt Andersen, 62, has since been "arrested and booked on one count of voluntary manslaughter for the killing of Maria Florinda Ríos Pérez, Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood told reporters Monday." From this latter article:

    Andersen told police he had woken up after hearing something and had only gotten a few hours of sleep that night, court records showed. 

    He heard a commotion at the door and recalled hearing the intensifying sounds of some type of key, tool, or instrument being used at the door, documents said.

    The commotion “scared him” after he realized it was real, causing him to retreat to the top of the stairs at the landing and look toward the front door, the documents continued.

    Unsure of what to do, Andersen walked to what he called his “safe room,” or his music room, and grabbed a handgun, police wrote. 

    After hearing the commotion at the front door get “more and more aggressive,” he loaded his gun, went to the top of the stairs, and told his wife to go to the safe room. 

    He then fired the first shot, which was followed by the sounds of a man crying out and weeping, the documents alleged. 

    Andersen told his wife to call 911, and she eventually handed him the phone. 

     “Please come, please come, please come, they are trying to get in,” he allegedly told the 911 dispatcher.

    Andersen and his wife did not exit the house for some time, but eventually left the home and were detained, court documents obtained by the outlet said.

    Velásquez told cops that his wife had only been fiddling with the keys for 30 seconds to one minute before the shot rang out, the outlet reported.

    It was his first day on the job with his wife, he recalled to police. 

 The article adds: "Andersen’s attorney, Guy Relford, said in a statement Monday that he thinks the mom of four’s death was a 'terrible tragedy,' but believes his client’s actions were fully justified under Indiana’s self-defense laws." 

    “And while we are disappointed that the Boone County Prosecutor’s Office has elected to file criminal charges against Mr. Curt Andersen, I look forward to proving in court that his actions were fully justified by the ‘castle doctrine’ provision of Indiana’s self-defense law,” he said. 

    The “castle doctrine” provision allows a person to use reasonable, possibly deadly force if they believe that it is necessary to stop someone from unlawfully entering their home.  

This appears to be in reference to a provision of Indiana law which provides:

A person:

(1) is justified in using reasonable force, including deadly force, against any other person; and

(2) does not have a duty to retreat;

if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person's unlawful entry of or attack on the person's dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle. 

    First, before I discuss this matter, a disclaimer: I'm not your lawyer and this is not legal advice. 

    Moving on: This case will probably turn on the foregoing provision of the Indiana Code and whether Andersen used reasonable force which he reasonably believed was necessary to prevent or terminate an unlawful entry of his house. Andersen at least has in his favor that the dead woman and her husband, by the husband's own admission, were fiddling with the locks for up to a minute before the shot was fired (probably longer if Andersen's account is believed).  

    But ignoring the "castle doctrine" law, would Andersen otherwise have a valid self-defense claim? I tend to think not. Remember that in order to use lethal force in self-defense one of the elements is that you must reasonably believe that you are in imminent danger of grave bodily injury or death (or some similar formulation). In his case, the people were outside his house, separated from him by a locked exterior door. Moreover, he had moved away from the door to the top of a flight of stairs. The couple at the door were rattling his door handle or making some similar type of "commotion," which would arouse suspicion, but that doesn't create an imminent risk of grave bodily harm or death anymore than if they had been knocking on the door, ringing the doorbell, or trying to stuff a flyer into the crack between the door and the frame. 

    What do you think?  Agree or disagree?