A Texas mother who shot a 14-year-old boy will face no charges after a grand jury decided not to indict her. The decision closes the door on a tragic case in which a mother was forced to use her firearm to defend her children.
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The incident occurred in December when Aleah Wallace discovered that the boy was trying to break into her home through a window.
A grand jury no-billed Aleah Wallace, meaning they didn’t find enough evidence for charges.
A Texas mom who fatally shot a 14-year-old boy who was breaking into her 8-year-old daughter’s window last December found out this week she won’t be charged.
“I feel great that they were able to see it through my eyes,” Aleah Wallace told FOX 4.
She said she had worried her case would be “drug out, or I would be away from my kids or, you know, things like that.”
A grand jury in Tarrant County this week chose to no-bill Wallace, meaning they didn’t find enough evidence to charge her with a crime over the shooting.
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The incident has traumatized the mother and her children. She said the family goes to counseling “once a week” and offered condolences to the family of Devin Baker, the boy who tried to enter her home.
Wallace had been facing eviction because of the incident. The landlord wanted to eject her from the residence because she kept a firearm on the premises. However, the eviction action stopped when an attorney took her case pro bono.
The boy’s mother indicated that he had snuck out of the home in the middle of the night just before the shooting.
The altercation started when Wallace heard a noise in her daughter’s room.
Aleah Wallace, 25, said she was cleaning her living room when she heard someone, identified as 14-year-old Devin Baker, attempting to break into her rental home around 3 a.m. on Dec. 14, according to Fox 4.
“I went, and I stood in the hallway. And I could see him standing at the window, lifting it up. I just shot,” Wallace told the outlet.
It was the second time Wallace’s house was targeted by burglars in less than 24 hours.
The teen allegedly tried to sneak through Wallace’s 8-year-old daughter’s window, according to the outlet.
Baker, who also lived with his family at the apartment complex, died at the scene from multiple gunshot wounds.
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Wallace had recently purchased the firearm after four attempts to burglarize her home. She told reporters that “It’s just me and my four daughters” in the home and that she was “just protecting my daughters.”
The mother also explained that she did not know the boy was 14 years old when he was trying to come through the window and that all she knew “was that somebody could come in and hurt me or my kids.”
It’s a tragic situation, to be sure. The fact that a 14-year-old boy would resort to breaking into someone’s home in the first place is disturbing. But Wallace simply had no choice; many others would make the same decision if they found themselves in a similar position.