Lumyra Mitchell shows correspondent Lori Jane Gliha the bullet hole in her wall from the warning shot she fired. Her defense of her Detroit home with an assault rifle against three teen intruders was caught on a security camera, and went viral. America Tonight

A few weeks earlier, someone had tried to break into their Detroit home, but Mitchell said she scared the person off “just by screaming and hollering.” This time was different. Her husband was away, and she was upstairs with her 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. She grabbed the rifle and yelled that she had a weapon, but the boys – one of whom had a replica handgun – thought she was bluffing.

Mitchell fired a warning shot, and then continued to fire the weapon toward the door. She didn’t hit anyone, but it was enough to convince the teens to retreat.

“Killing someone was far from my thoughts,” Mitchell said. “I didn’t want to kill anyone. I was just trying to scare them – just trying to get them away.”

But a rash of other Detroit homeowners have delivered fatal shots to intruders so far this year, and the city’s new police chief has been very public and passionate in declaring that they’re well within their rights. His statements landed him on the cover of an NRA magazine, and have drawn the ire of residents who say he’s encouraging a kind of vigilantism.