Criminal Justice

'Real' Joe Horn Didn't Shoot & Kill 2 Men

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Joe Horn, the Texas retiree that a grand jury declined to indict for killing two apparent burglars outside his home in Pasadena, says he didn’t mean to shoot them and that his “real” self wasn’t the man who acted that day in November 2007.

But after hearing the two break into his neighbor’s home and getting a 12-gauge shotgun from his car to protect himself, Horn, who is in his early 60s, says he went outside, even though a police dispatcher warned him not to, and shot when one of the two men charged him, reports the Houston Chronicle.

Both of the unemployed illegal immigrants he killed were reportedly shot in the back, and Horn can be heard on his cell phone, which he carried throughout the incident, telling a police dispatcher “I’m gonna kill ‘em” as he leaves his house and shouting “move, you’re dead!” as he spots at least one of the immigrants outside.

Although he wasn’t indicted in the deaths of Diego Ortiz and Hernando Riascos Torres, Horn says he regrets his actions. “I’m a human being that was in a situation that I’d never been in before, and I didn’t want to die,” he tells the newspaper.

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