DENVER — A Denver grandmother said she was out of options when she finally decided to shoot a man who burst into her apartment early Friday morning.
Neighbors said the man lived at the apartment complex but was drunk and tried to enter the wrong door about 2 a.m. Friday.
The woman who lives in the apartment, who asked not to be identified, said the man tried to use his key to open her door, and then began kicking and banging on the door in frustration.
“I said, ‘Get away from my door. You have the wrong door. What do you want?’” the woman said. “That’s when he said, ‘Open the f-ing door. Why did you change the locks? This is my apartment.’”
Crews worked to replace the woman’s damaged door on Friday afternoon. Shortly after the yelling began, the woman said she called 911 and grabbed her gun. Moments later, the man kicked his way in.
“Once he came in, once again I told him, ‘You have the wrong apartment sir, this is not your apartment,’” she said. “He argued back with me, ‘This is my f***ing apartment, what the f*** you doing in my house!’”
With her grandchildren in the back bedroom, she said she was left with no more options.
“He came at me and that’s when I raised the gun to shoot,” she said.
The first shot pierced the wall to the left of the doorway.
“When I fired the first shot, it was more like I was warning him to get out, and he didn’t,” she said. “That’s when he began to come at me and that’s when I decided to let off the two shots and one of those, the third or second shot, hit him in the hand.”
After he was shot, the man fled. Neighbors said he ran into a nearby building asking for help for an “injury”. After police arrived, neighbors said he admitted he was drunk and tried to enter the wrong apartment.
“I wouldn’t want his death to be on my conscience like that and that’s what has me so upset,” the woman said.
It’s not just his death that could have been on her conscience. All three bullets entered the apartment across the hall.
“I could have seriously injured my neighbors,” she said.
But that doesn’t mean she regrets pulling the trigger.
“I’m glad I did,” she said. “I never thought I would have to use it, but things could happen at any time at any moment.”
Denver police said the incident remains under investigation and that charges are pending. Police say the man was taken to the hospital for the gunshot wound and is stable.