A homeowner in Indianapolis, Indiana, managed to fight off a suspect in an attempted home invasion, but only after managing to pry the suspect’s firearm away from him and using it for self-defense, a fight the homeowner liked to an action movie sequence when speaking to the media about the terrifying home invasion.
The incident occurred at around 7 in the evening on the night of Tuesday, January 2nd. It was then that a masked man allegedly broke into the home of Brent Smith. Soon after breaking in, the masked home invader allegedly proceeded to attack Mr. Smith, hitting him in the head with a firearm while attempting to rob the home.
Mr. Smith, however, was not debilitated by the attack. Rather, he was still able to fight back and defend himself and his home from his masked assailant. Taking to the offensive to defend himself, Mr. Smtih launched himself at the attacker, throwing both of them around the room and even through a glass table as they fought hand-to-hand in a bitter struggle for survival.
Eventually, Mr. Smith was able to gain the upper hand in the fight and wrestle the firearm out of the masked home invader’s hands and into his own. He then used it to fatally shoot the alleged intruder, later identified as Damon Swanigan Jr., ending the hand-to-hand fight with the assailant inside his home.
Describing the incident when speaking to FOX 59 Indianapolis about the home invasion and fight for the suspect’s firearm, Mr. Smith likened the struggle to a fight sequence in a movie. He said, “It was like a movie, me and him wrestling over the gun.”
But it didn’t end there. Though he had managed to win and end the fight with the masked man inside his home, there were other suspects waiting outside. “When the gun went off I heard thousands of gunshots. It was a lot of gunfire, man, a lot of gunfire.” Those were the external assailants, who opened fire on him after they heard gunfire inside his house.
As their gunfire damaged the siding and front door of his home, Mr. Smith used the firearm he had wrestled from his assailant and his personal firearm to return fire, eventually fighting them off. He said, describing fighting and surviving that gun battle, “I didn’t even think them or me. I was just basically trying to survive myself, man.”
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Describing the wild incident after it occurred, Mr. Smith told the media that he had simply wanted to defend himself, saying, “That doesn’t make no sense man. I didn’t want to do that. I don’t know his intention, but I didn’t want to be shot. That’s just all there is to it.”
Mr. Smith was briefly held and questioned by the local police, but was later released. The law in Indiana allows individuals to defend themselves with deadly force when attacked, with the Castle Doctrine adding a presumption that the use of deadly force was justified when it occurs in the home against a home invader, as was the case here.