Dial 9-1-1 and Die!
Jessica is 14 years old.
She knows how to shoot; her father taught her.
And there were adequate firearms to deal with the crisis that arose in
their home in Merced, Calif. -- a San Joaquin Valley farming community 130
miles southeast of San Francisco -- when 27-year-old Jonathon David Bruce
came calling on Wednesday morning, Aug. 23.
There was just one problem.
Under the new "safe storage" laws being enacted in California and
elsewhere, parents can be held criminally liable unless they lock up their
guns when their children are home alone... so that's just what law-abiding
parents John and Stephanie Carpenter had done.
Some of Jessica's siblings -- Anna, 13; Vanessa, 11; Ashley, 9; and John
William, 7 -- were still in their bedrooms when Bruce broke into the
farmhouse shortly after 9 a.m.
Bruce, who was armed with a pitchfork -- but to whom police remain unable
to attribute any motive -- had apparently cut the phone lines.
9-1-1 doesn't always work
So when he forced his way into the house and began stabbing the younger
children in their beds, Jessica's attempts to dial 9-1-1 didn't do much
good.
Next, the sensible girl ran for where the family guns were stored. But
they were locked up tight.
"When the 14-year-old girl ran to a nearby house to escape the
pitchfork-wielding man attacking her siblings," writes Kimi Yoshino of the
Fresno Bee, "she didn't ask her neighbor to call 9-1-1.
She begged him to grab his rifle and 'take care of this guy.'"
He didn't. Jessica ended up on the phone.
By the time Merced County sheriff's deputies arrived at the home,
7-year-old John William and 9-year-old Ashley Danielle were dead. Ashley
had apparently hung onto her assailant's leg long enough for her older
sisters to escape. Thirteen-year-old Anna was wounded but survived.
Once the deputies arrived, Bruce rushed them with his bloody pitchfork. So
they shot him dead. They shot him more than a dozen times. With their
guns.
Get it?
story written By Vin Suprynowicz
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