ATLANTA (WANF/Gray News) – A Georgia sheriff is praising a father and military veteran who shot at a man who broke into his children’s bedroom. The suspect is now in custody and facing a slew of charges.
Butts County Sheriff Gary Long says a man, later identified as Abdil Aquil, was shot at by a Jackson father after allegedly breaking into his children’s bedroom early Monday morning, WANF reports.
“He broke out the window. He started crawling through the window, and that’s when the father… the kids ran out of the room and got the father,” Long said. “The father challenged him. He didn’t have a gun at the time, and the suspect jumped out of the window.”
The father, a military veteran, then got his handgun.
“That’s when the suspect had busted the bay window on the front of the house and actually was about three quarters of the way into the house and making threats that he was going to kill him,” Long said.
That’s when the father pulled the trigger, and Aquil fell out the window.
“The father of that home, the husband of that home, is the hero. Without the actions that he took, I really believe, 28 years of doing this job, I believe we would’ve had a homicide,” Long said.
Aquil wasn’t hit, and Long says it took three deputies and a Taser to get him in custody.
“They got here really quick, which is a good thing,” said neighbor Shelley Cook, who lives across the street.
Cook described the incident as “very disturbing.” She says three children, two boys and a girl, live in the home. The girl, who is the youngest, recently turned 10.
“They were put in harm’s way. They don’t even feel safe in their own home,” Cook said.
Aquil is charged with burglary, home invasion, terroristic threats, three counts of cruelty to children in the first degree, criminal damage to property in the second degree and obstruction of law enforcement.
“There was a similar instance where he tried to bust through the back door of a house. There was a resident inside of the house,” Long said.
Aquil only received probation that time.
“Sad because it sounds like he needed some help that he didn’t get,” Cook said.
Long is encouraging the community to learn to use a gun. He is holding monthly gun safety classes for Butts County residents.
“An armed community is a safe community, and if you are legally allowed to possess a firearm, you should possess one, if nothing more than in the defense of your home and family,” Long said.
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