Homeowner shoots at man to protect family

BREMERTON, Wash. — A homeowner opened fire at a man who was demanding to be let into her home Wednesday, police said.

Around midnight, Terry Brumage’s family was asleep when they heard an angry voice at the front door of their home.

A man was demanding to be let in.

Brumage said she did not know who the man was so she armed herself with a .38 caliber handgun.

KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Kevin McCarty spoke with Brumage about why she felt she had no choice.

“Last night was scary. It’s not easy for somebody who’s not a police officer to say, ‘I got to kill somebody,’” said Brumage. “We got scared. We told him to go away, leave, he continued on to the point where we had to tell him we had gun, we would shoot him and he needed to leave.”

As Brumage repeatedly warned the man that she was armed, her daughter Vanessa called 911.

“I yelled at him, ‘My mom will shoot you if you don’t leave.’ And he kept saying, ‘Let me in, let me in.’ And I was terrified,” said Vanessa.

“And I remember sitting on my bed, praying and hoping mom didn’t have to shoot and the cops would arrive soon enough,” said Brumage’s other daughter Terentia Dupee.

Brumage fired a shot into the door toward the man.

“I was hoping because I have been around death before. I know it’s real. I know pain from guns is real. In the direction that he was, hoping, as many have, that first shot is going to make him go,” said Brumage.

The bullet missed the man and went through the front door, shattering a glass storm door and lodging in a door jamb.

Police arrived to Brumage’s home and took the man into custody.

“I did what I had to do to protect my family,” Brumage said.

Brumage said shooting at a man pounding at her door in the middle of the night was a difficult decision, but she knew she had to defend herself and her family.

Police said the man at Brumage’s door was drunk and had the wrong house, believing he was at his sister’s house.

The man may face trespassing charges but investigators do not believe he meant any harm to Brumage and her family.

KIRO