Slaying of Intruder May Not Bring Crime Victim’s Nightmare to End

It ranks with anyone’s darkest fear: In the pre-dawn hours, you’re startled by an unfamiliar sound. You suspect an intruder has entered your home. If you’re right, what do you do?

When it happened to Timothy Dimasi at 1:15 a.m. Monday, he grabbed a .22-caliber rifle and fired four shots at the stranger who had broken into, and was climbing through, his teen-age daughter’s bedroom window. Moments later, a 6-foot man lay mortally wounded in a pool of his own blood.

The intruder, later identified as Manuel Patino Rondan, 20, of Mazatlan, Mexico, died a short time later at Grossmont Hospital. Rondan is believed to have had an accomplice who fled the scene.

In taking the action he did, Dimasi, an El Cajon businessman, immediately became a statistic: He’s one of more than 800 Californians who, in this decade, have committed what authorities call “justifiable homicide.”

Although the Sheriff’s Department has no plans to arrest Dimasi, believing he acted in self-defense, such cases are not always easily determined. And, long after the shooting, the person who protects his home by acting in self-defense, or in defending his family, is likely to suffer emotionally.

Beyond that, such cases often raise questions about when it’s appropriate to shoot an intruder, and when it’s not, and suggest that sometimes retaliation veers beyond the boundaries of what is legal or moral.

Reached Tuesday at the family’s home, on Willow Bend Drive in an unincorporated area just east of El Cajon, Patricia Dimasi, the wife of Timothy Dimasi, declined to be interviewed at length.

‘Can’t Imagine How Bad It Was’

“We’re just trying to put this behind us,” she said quietly. “I can tell you this, though, it was very terrifying. . . . You can’t imagine how bad it was.”

In the aftermath of such an incident, a man or woman who shoots an intruder may show signs of an all-too-familiar malady.

“It’s post-traumatic stress syndrome,” said Michael Mantell, chief psychologist for the San Diego Police Department and a clinical psychologist in private practice. “It’s identical to what a Vietnam veteran experiences.”

Mantell said the psychological fallout may include sleepless nights, bleak daydreams, depression, anxiety, and “seeing it happen over and over again. It may also mean psychosomatic illness.”

But for many who shoot intruders who have broken into and entered their home, the cases and the repercussions can take on legal--as well as emotional--implications.

“When police use deadly force, it’s meant to be only in the protection of their own life, a partner’s life or a citizen’s life,” said Bill Robinson, a spokesman for the San Diego Police Department. “When a citizen takes the onus of firing a deadly weapon at an intruder, they must consider the consequences that could easily result in their being prosecuted. We absolutely do not recommend that people shoot at intruders.

“But, if it’s a clear-cut case of self-defense, the use of deadly force would be justified. Legally, however, it can be a touchy situation.”

When ‘Deadly Force’ Is OK

Steve Casey, a spokesman for the San Diego County district attorney, said prosecutors try to determine if “the individual was legally privileged to use deadly force. The law permits the use of deadly force when the person using the force is reasonably fearful of suffering great bodily injury or death.

“In the case of homeowners, the Legislature has created a presumption--Section 198.5 of the California Penal Code--that when a resident confronts an intruder, the apprehension of great bodily injury or death is reasonable. Thus, the law is inclined to look more leniently at any resident who faces that circumstance.”

In many states, such laws fall under the legal heading, “Your Home Is Your Castle.” But, throughout the country, such laws have come under greater scrutiny as states seek to examine where “justifiable” homicide ends and manslaughter begins.

In April, 1986, a Colorado man shot and killed a neighbor and wounded two other people in the climax of a neighborhood feud. A judge ruled that he acted lawfully under the state’s “Make My Day” law, which allows residents to use deadly force in defending their homes against intruders.

The “Make My Day” law, passed in 1985, provides that “any occupant of a dwelling . . . shall be immune from criminal prosecution” if he injures or kills someone who has “made an unlawful entry into the dwelling,” and the occupant reasonably believes that a crime is about to be, has been or is being committed, and when the occupant reasonably believes that “such other person might use physical force, no matter how slight, against any occupant.”

Origin of ‘Make My Day’

Colorado’s spin on “Your Home Is Your Castle” became known as “Make My Day” because of a Clint Eastwood movie in which the protagonist, played by Eastwood, relishes being given a reason to shoot a criminal by saying, “Go ahead. . . . Make my day.”

The Colorado man acquitted of the “Make My Day” shooting was found guilty after a 1988 incident in which he killed his wife and her lover, for which he was sentenced to life in prison.

Mantell, the psychologist, said that anyone who injures or kills an intruder may feel guilt for years afterward. He knows, he said, having counseled many in private practice.

“And then on top of the guilt, they feel badly for feeling guilty,” he said. “It’s as if they were saying, ‘I know what I did was right, but I feel terrible about it.’ Sadly, such instances as these are becoming more and more common. We see them all the time.”

Mantell said that, despite the fear that an intruder triggers, a “lopsided contest almost always results,” with the invader being “taken completely by surprise. Instead of feeling like a hero, the homeowner who so bravely protected his family may feel like a heel. He may feel upset by the coverage he gets. He may be upset about the things people say--even being called a hero may bother him.

“But the thing anyone has to realize is, if it comes down to your life or your daughter’s life or that of an intruder, then it must be yours and your family’s that is saved. I don’t see how anyone could see it differently.”