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Last week, 40-year-old Victor Rodriguez from Tennessee was taken into custody by law enforcement officials after he admitted to returning fire on a group of men who were attempting to steal his car from outside his house.
The family’s home security cameras alerted them to the theft in progress, and Rodriguez went outside to confront the suspects.
Security video revealed that the suspects shot at him several times before he fired back, resulting in a total of 28 shots fired during the altercation.
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office charged Rodriguez with one felony count of reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon in the wake of the weekend incident.
If convicted, he could serve up to 6 years in prison.
Many people have spoken out on social media to support Rodriguez. “This is ridiculous this guy shouldn’t be charged with anything,” one person said.
“Sad world when we expect victims to behave in a textbook method when getting their lives threatened. It’s a shame,” another person said.
Video footage of the event captures several individuals “lurking around cars” outside the family’s home. The purported car thieves “employed burglary tools and key fob programmers to gain access to a van parked outside the house.”
Rodriguez’s wife was confused by the authorities’ decision to charge her husband after the incident.
His wife was confused by the situation with police.
She said, “When they were talking to him, from what I saw, it was like they were trying to find ways to charge him.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” she continued. “Why would you put pressure on the victim when you should put pressure for the suspects to be found.”
“Right now I’m just thankful that no bullets hit him or my daughters or myself,” she added.
Police allege that Rodriguez “could not see what he was shooting at” and that Rodriguez allegedly “admitted to closing his eyes while shooting because he was scared.”
“For my girls and mom, it was like a movie. It was like we were in a movie,” she said. “When I first told them we were going back to the house, they were like, ‘No mommy, don’t do that to us.’ They said, ‘Mommy, we do not want to stay there. What if they come back and get us?’”
