Cougar Allen
Buccaneer (ret.)
- Joined
- Oct 9, 1998
- Messages
- 75,828
Suppose you're a burglar quietly minding your business and a large muscular young fellow comes down the stairs and stabs you in the neck and chases you off into the woods? Would that make you reconsider your career options? 
From the front page of today's Greenfield Recorder, also online at www.recorder.com :
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Teenager stabs intruder after finding man in garage
By GEORGE W. CLAXTON and ANITA FRITZ
Recorder Staff
ERVING - A Mountain Road teenager heard noises coming from the garage beneath his house sometime after 1 Tuesday morning so he grabbed a steak knife on his way downstairs to investigate.
Police described the 16-year-old, whom they would only identify with the last name Belanger, as large and muscular, weighing nearly 200 pounds, encountered a man in his garage at 85 Mountain Road who was trying to remove a stereo from the car.
"He confronted the man and stabbed him in the neck or upper back. The amount of blood there was on the knife and on the boy's hand indicates that it was a deep cut," Erving Police Chief Christopher Blair said.
When contacted by telephone late Tuesday afternoon, Belanger's mother said the family had no comment. "We have nothing to say," she said.
According to Blair, police called in a tracking dog, but the animal was only able to follow the scent for a short distance before it lost the trail.
"The guy may have had a car," he said.
Belanger won't be charged with a crime for stabbing the burglar. Under state law, the resident of a home isn't required to retreat from an intruder in that home. The resident may defend himself under certain circumstances, but may have a problem when attacking a burglar after he has begun to flee.
Police discourage people from attacking burglars in their homes because of the risk to the resident's safety.
Belanger described the suspect as a medium-built white man in his late teens or early 20s, about five-feet, 10-inches tall with short, light brown or blond hair.
Blair requests that anyone who may have seen anything suspicious in the area of Mountain Road early Tuesday morning, or have knowledge of the break-in, contact his department via the state police dispatch center (413) 625-8200.
The chief said the Belanger break-in may not have been the only burglary on Mountain Road Tuesday morning ...
You can reach George Claxton at: gclaxton@recorder.com or 413-772-0261 Ext. 279
From the front page of today's Greenfield Recorder, also online at www.recorder.com :
-------------------------------------------------------------
Teenager stabs intruder after finding man in garage
By GEORGE W. CLAXTON and ANITA FRITZ
Recorder Staff
ERVING - A Mountain Road teenager heard noises coming from the garage beneath his house sometime after 1 Tuesday morning so he grabbed a steak knife on his way downstairs to investigate.
Police described the 16-year-old, whom they would only identify with the last name Belanger, as large and muscular, weighing nearly 200 pounds, encountered a man in his garage at 85 Mountain Road who was trying to remove a stereo from the car.
"He confronted the man and stabbed him in the neck or upper back. The amount of blood there was on the knife and on the boy's hand indicates that it was a deep cut," Erving Police Chief Christopher Blair said.
When contacted by telephone late Tuesday afternoon, Belanger's mother said the family had no comment. "We have nothing to say," she said.
According to Blair, police called in a tracking dog, but the animal was only able to follow the scent for a short distance before it lost the trail.
"The guy may have had a car," he said.
Belanger won't be charged with a crime for stabbing the burglar. Under state law, the resident of a home isn't required to retreat from an intruder in that home. The resident may defend himself under certain circumstances, but may have a problem when attacking a burglar after he has begun to flee.
Police discourage people from attacking burglars in their homes because of the risk to the resident's safety.
Belanger described the suspect as a medium-built white man in his late teens or early 20s, about five-feet, 10-inches tall with short, light brown or blond hair.
Blair requests that anyone who may have seen anything suspicious in the area of Mountain Road early Tuesday morning, or have knowledge of the break-in, contact his department via the state police dispatch center (413) 625-8200.
The chief said the Belanger break-in may not have been the only burglary on Mountain Road Tuesday morning ...
You can reach George Claxton at: gclaxton@recorder.com or 413-772-0261 Ext. 279
