From - Fri Aug 14 19:31:26 1998 Received: from broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca [198.169.128.1]) by skatter.USask.Ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA13553 for ; Tue, 26 May 1998 21:37:57 -0600 (CST) Received: from riverview.net (dns1.riverview.net [206.250.30.2]) by broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id VAA16050 for ; Tue, 26 May 1998 21:31:28 -0600 Message-Id: <199805270331.VAA16050@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca> Received: from my computer by riverview.net with SMTP (IPAD 1.14) id 6015600 ; Tue, 26 May 98 23:32:30 UTC From: "R.J.K." To: "Skeeter Abell-Smith" Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 23:36:13 +0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: BECAUSE I WAS ARMED June 1998 Return-receipt-to: "R.J.K." Priority: normal Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by skatter.USask.Ca id VAA13553 X-Lines: 65 Status: RO Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Length: 4008 X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 BECAUSE I WAS ARMED June 1998 In this column we report incidents in which victims of criminal attack have repelled one or more assailants with the help of firearms. Each true incident has been verified hv news accounts~ and if possible interviews with the victims involved Names given mayhave been changed for privacy reasons or to protect the victimes from retaliation. --------------------------------------------------------------------- William Seiple learned a hard lesson about the need to be able to protect yourself and your family. But for the Marco Island, Florida, man it was a lesson well learned, as he promptly demonstrated. Seiple, 45, who owns a chain of ladies' boutiques in the Marco Island Naples area, lives with his wife and son. Marco Island is an upscale community featuring nice homes and manicured lawns. It is protected from most crime by the affluence of its residents and by the fact that the bridges leading from the island are each nine miles long. The bridges are not conducive to fast getaways. What little crime there is in the area is often committed by juveniles. It was in this quiet setting that Seiple and his family found that they had been burglarized in March of this year. While the family slept, thieves got inside the house and made off with $7,000 in cash and jewelry and the family's cell phone. "I was buying a van the next day," explained Seiple. "That's why I had the cash in the house." After making a police report, Seiple decided he'd better take additional steps to safeguard his wife and child."They didn't clean me out the first time, so I thought they'd be back," said Seiple. He approached a neighbor and borrowed a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver. On the first night following the burglary, Seiple instructed his family to sleep upstairs in their beds. He, however, chose to wait downstairs, reclining on the family room couch, the revolver nearby. Shortly before midnight, Seiple heard noises and, investigating, watched as two men opened a sliding glass door and entered his home. "My house has twelve sliding glass doors:' said Seiple. "They came in a back one. That door is used to let the dogs out. We had forgotten to lock that one." The thieves apparently hadn't forgotten the dogs. They had brought McDonald's hamburgers with them to quiet the Seiples' two greyhounds. With the thieves fully inside his home and with his wife and child sleeping upstairs, Seiple confronted the pair, the revolver at the ready. As one of the crooks protested, "You know me, you know me!" Seiple ordered them both to the floor. While he kept the intruders covered, sheriff's deputies were summoned and took the two into custody. A car belonging to one of the suspects was parked in the driveway. With the owner's permission, it was searched and deputies found 6.7 grams of marijuana in the glove compartment. Deputies also discovered the Seiples' cell phone that the pair allegedly stole the previous night. Reportedly, they had made calls with it. The elder of the suspects, age 18, was charged as an adult. The other, age 15, was, as this went to press, likely to be remanded to a "boot camp" for juvenile offenders. One of the pair was indeed known to Seiple. An acquaintance of one of Seiple's employees, he had done some yardwork for Seiple and had been paid at the home in cash. "That's how he knew where things were:' said Seiple. Upon reading Seiple's story, the good folks at Don Johnson's Gunsmithing, Inc., in Naples gave Mr. Seiple a call. They expressed their praise for his actions and offered him a spot in an National Rifle Association Personal Protection course. Mr. Seiple accepted and, after receiving instruction from NRA Certified Firearms Instructors Dennis Burton and Larry Williams, passed the course and will soon be applying for his right-to-carry permit. This is no surprise. William Seiple has already shown himself to be a quick study. AMERICAN GUARDIAN · June 1998