news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Steve Beale’s parents had just left their Munster Avenue home late Wednesday morning when two teenagers walked up his driveway. One pulled a crowbar from his pants as they approached the front door, Beale told police.

“I didn’t know what they were going to do,” Beale said.

He admits that he was scared.

But he knew one thing: “I wasn’t gonna let them come in here and ransack my house.”

Beale, 47, fired three rounds from his .40 caliber gun outside his home after confronting the would-be burglars at a side door.

Police confiscated the gun and charged Beale with discharging a weapon within city limits.

“I don’t think I should be charged for doing that because I was trying to scare them away,” he said. “I could have blown their heads off. I was standing 4 or 5 feet away.”

Capt. Janice Rogers, commander of the Greensboro police’s criminal investigation division, said any bullets fired into the air must come down — and no one knows where they will land.

“It’s disregardful of other people’s safety when you do something like that,” Rogers said.

“It’s just not a good decision in any situation,” she said.

Beale said he watched the two suspects drive into the neighborhood in a white SUV and walk around.

He was wary of them because his car had been broken into, prompting him to install security cameras around his home.

The cameras captured the entire incident. Beale showed the footage to police.

He said the suspects tapped on the door a few times, saying, “Yo. Yo.”

They peered into his home, looking through a tinted window while an unseen Beale looked at them from inside.

They fled when Beale confronted them, police said.

The juvenile was caught on Randleman Road and faces charges of attempted breaking and entering and possession of burglary tools.

The other suspect had not been found as of Thursday afternoon, according to police.

Contact Dioni L. Wise at 373-7090 or dioni.wise@news-record.com