Woman shoots, cuffs armed intruder

Kevin Grasha, Lansing (Mich.) State Journal | USATODAY

HOLT, Mich. — When deputies arrived at a house here for a reported home invasion, the suspected intruder was lying just inside the front door, handcuffed, with multiple bullet wounds to his torso.

Officials said a woman who lived in the house shot the 20-year-old man, armed with a .38-caliber revolver when he broke into the home. The man also had been beaten, apparently with a baseball bat.

He was in critical condition at a Lansing, Mich., hospital, officials said. His name was not released. He is expected to face charges.

"It's movie-like, almost," Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said Thursday. "How often do you go to a scene where you've got an intruder (who's) been shot by the homeowners and he's laying there handcuffed? ... It's just very unusual."

The likely reason for the home invasion: 57 marijuana plants of varying size growing in the basement, Wriggelsworth said.

"That person went there because he knew what was going on (in the house)," the sheriff said.

Investigators also found seven guns inside the suburban Lansing house — including the double-barreled .45-caliber/.410-gauge handgun the woman used to shoot the suspected intruder. Among the guns found was a Romanian-made replica of an AK-47.

What charges the people living in the home could face has not been determined. No arrests had been made Thursday.

Michigan is one of 17 states and the District of Columbia with medical marijuana laws, but those who grow pot for that use must be registered with the state.

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The woman, a man and four children ranging in age from 8 months to 10 years old live at the house, officials said. They were not injured.

The children remain in the custody of the man and woman, Wriggelsworth said. The State Journal is not naming the couple because they haven't been charged with a crime.

David Akerly of the Michigan Department of Human Services, speaking generally because he said privacy laws prohibit him from talking about this case, said a key question Child Protective Services workers ask themselves when called to a scene is whether a child has imminent risk of harm.

"We're going to immediately contact the court and attempt to take kids (into protective custody) if our people can't get over the hump of answering that question with a 'no,' " he said.

Law-enforcement officials also have the ability to take children into protective custody if they think the children are at risk of imminent harm, Akerly said.

Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will determine whether the shooting was justified.

Wriggelsworth said the intruder appears to have entered the home through an unlocked back door. An altercation took place in the living room, at which time the woman retrieved the handgun and shot the intruder at point-blank range.

Neighbors said the house has been the site of suspicious activity in recent years. The man, woman and children had lived there about three years, they said.

A lot of people going in and out of the house was common, said Carl Acker, who lives nearby.

The odor of marijuana was obvious at times, he said, even from far away.

"This house has brought a lot of controversy," Acker said, adding: "When people drive up, run inside the home, are there only five or six minutes, you know something's not right."

Contributing: Laura Misjak, Lansing (Mich.) State Journal