Drunken intruder shot by resident in Tower Grove South

ST. LOUIS  •  Police say a St. Louis resident shot and wounded an intoxicated intruder early today at a home in the Tower Grove South neighborhood.

The home is in the 4000 block of Humphrey Street, near Roger Place.

St. Louis police said the shooting happened at about 1 a.m. The intruder, 32, was shot in the leg and is expected to survive. He was in serious but stable condition at a hospital.

It's unclear if the intruder was trying to burglarize the home or if he thought he was home.

Police said the intruder was clearly intoxicated. The 47-year-old resident's teenage daughter woke him after she heard noises of someone trying to come in through the front door. He opened the door and confronted the man. The intoxicated man "walked right in," police said. There was a scuffle, and the resident fired a shot from his handgun.

Police found the bleeding intruder about a block away. Authorities have not released his name, or the name of the resident who shot him. The intruder was arrested; the resident was not.

The case appears to be the latest example of a shooting that falls under Missouri's castle doctrine law.

Under the castle doctrine, people who encounter an intruder in their homes or vehicles — or on their property, under a more recent expansion of the law — are given more leeway in using deadly force.

The law allows you to use that force without fear of being charged or sued.

People in Missouri can repel intruders on the theory that anyone breaking into an occupied home has evil intentions toward the residents, said Kevin Jamison, a lawyer from Gladstone, Mo., who lobbied for Missouri's castle doctrine bill as a member of the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance. The law now covers you even if you fend off a carjacker or confront an intruder in your tent in the woods.

A prosecutor who served on a committee of lawyers and judges to help write the jury instructions for the law said the hypothetical situations they considered in their discussions included a drunken intruder being shot.

In St. Louis, the Homicide Division keeps track of the number of fatal shootings deemed justified under the castle doctrine. On Wednesday morning, a department spokeswoman said there was one so far this year; two last year and seven in 2011.

The number of justifiable shootings where the intruder survived wasn't immediately available.