According to reports, a farmer in Washington state stopped two alleged robbers in their tracks by holding them at gunpoint on his property until deputies arrived.
“We have many responsible gun owners here in Grant County and if they are outside protecting their property they can certainly hold someone at gunpoint and then call 911 to have us come and investigate and find out what those people are doing there,” Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Kyle Foreman told local outlet KPQ News.
Deputies were requested to a farm in Quincy last Saturday at around 7 p.m., according to the sheriff’s office, due to reports of two burglary suspects.
The farmer allegedly halted the thieves in their tracks as they were allegedly aiming for two farm shops on the property.
According to investigators, the unnamed property owner brandished a revolver and held the couple at gunpoint until deputies arrived.
The two were detained by the responding deputies on suspicion of breaking and entering. They were identified as Jesus Rangel, 28, of Mattawa and Glenn Richard, 45, of Quincy. According to the sheriff’s office, the suspects’ footprints inside the stores made it easier to identify them as the offenders, according to KPQ News.
“Deputies found two shops on the property had been burglarized and a box of stolen property was staged outside, along with shoe prints matching the suspect’s shoes inside the shops,” Foreman told the outlet.
Foreman noted that in situations similar to the farmer’s, lawfully armed county residents occasionally exercise their Second Amendment rights to deter criminals, which is within their legal limitations.
Foreman explained to Fox News Digital on Sunday morning that Washington law states that it is not unlawful to “use, attempt, or offer to use force upon or toward the person” when “reasonably used by a person to detain someone who enters or remains unlawfully in a building or on real property lawfully in the possession of such person, so long as such detention is reasonable in duration and manner to investigate the reason for the detained person’s presence on the premises, and so long as the premises in question did not reasonably appear to be intended to be open to members of the public.”
According to KPQ News, the couple were brought to Grant County Jail.
