HOUSTON  A grand jury on Monday refused to indict a 62-year-old man who fatally shot two burglars last November as they fled his neighbor’s house.

In a case that raised questions of ethnic bias, self-defense and property rights, the jury rejected charges against the man, Joe Horn, who is white. Both victims were illegal immigrants from Colombia.

“Joe is not some wild cowboy,” Mr. Horn’s lawyer, Charles T. Lambright, said at a news conference on Monday. “He was put in a place where he didn’t have any other choice.”

But others reacted angrily to the decision. “There is not a snowflake’s chance in hell that an African-American man could do what Joe Horn did and get away with it,” said Quanell X, a local black activist. “The message that Harris County sent to the entire world is that Houston, Tex., is God’s city. There is no longer a need for the criminal justice system, police, judge or jury. You can be all of that on your own.”