Talk Show Callers: It’s Right to Shoot First : Justice: Anonymous letter writer says he shot a would-be robber and left him for dead. Those calling in say the middle-aged man should neither confess to police nor regret what he did.

He shot a man young enough to be his son and left him for dead in a heap on the sidewalk, a bullet in his head. Then he paused to calm his pounding heart, walked a block or so to his car and drove home.

He scanned the newspapers for anything about the shooting, but never saw any mention of it.

That was the story the man told in an anonymous letter he wrote to a radio talk show host. He told of how the young man had a gun, his companion had a knife, and they were going to rob him.

The story made the telephone lines at the radio station light up.

“He should be congratulated,” one caller said.

“He did the right thing,” said another.

“He should have shot them both,” several said.

Of 23 callers to the “Susan Bray Show” on WWDB last week, 21 said the middle-aged man should by no means confess to police or regret what he did.

“They were very vitriolic,” Bray said. “They were fed up with crime, fed up with the legal system. They thought it was skewed toward the rights of the perpetrators. . . . They were fed up with not being able to go places, with being frightened.”

No one, not even the two callers who advised the man to confess, said they thought he was the criminal.

The man gave no details on when and where the shooting took place. Police said they do not have enough information to say whether it even happened.

“We might have some cases that fit, but we won’t want to speculate as to which one this might be,” said homicide Capt. John Apeldorn.

According to his letter, the man was pushing 50, self-employed, and had an appointment in the neighborhood at night to give an estimate on some kind of job. He had a license to carry a gun because he’d been robbed before.

He crossed the street when he saw the two young men. They crossed too. Only when they verbally threatened him did he react, he said.

He didn’t call police because he feared he’d be the one punished.

“I do not want to spend half my retirement savings and get ripped apart in court” by a lawyer for the shooting victim, he wrote. “I never felt any remorse about taking his life.”

“It’s a real scary sign of the times, that people are so fearful they leave behind fundamental good sense,” said Temple University professor John Goldkamp, who teaches criminal justice. “They believe the law isn’t going to help them and they have to do it on their own.”

But Goldkamp said: “There’s no acceptable rationale I can think of, if it was legitimate, to walk away from someone shot in the head and not call police. You are allowed to defend yourself. . . . “

Apeldorn also found the man’s fear groundless. “If he did what he had to do, he shouldn’t be afraid to hide anything,” Apeldorn said.

Apeldorn questioned whether Bray’s listeners were representative of the public at large.

Bray said several of the callers were police officers.

“They said the system is rotten. He could be judged as a murderer, and it would ruin him financially,” Bray said. “The point was made over and over that he was fortunate to be alive. They not only might take his money but might kill him because he can identify them.”

The only other topic that ever generated as much vitriol, said Bray--a 13-year veteran of Philadelphia radio--was unkindness to animals.