Fort Worth woman who fatally shot teen breaking into her home: 'I was protecting my kids'
FORT WORTH, Texas - The Fort Worth woman who shot and killed someone trying to break into her rental home where she lived with her four daughters is talking about what happened exclusively with FOX 4’s Shaun Rabb.
A 14-year-old boy was killed. Police have not filed any charges, sending the case to a grand jury.
Aleah Wallace says she got a gun to protect her family after a handful of break-ins started just weeks ago.
The other burglaries happened when no one was home. But twice on Dec. 14, someone tried to get in.
"I was cleaning my living room sweeping my floor, and I heard my window start going back up. Wallace recalled. "So I went, and I stood in the hallway. And I could see him standing at the window, lifting it up. I just shot."
Can the Fort Worth woman living in subsidized housing be evicted for having a gun?
The gunshots killed 14-year-old Devin Baker, who was at the bedroom window of Wallace's 8-year-old daughter early morning on Dec. 14.
"It's bothering me that he was a kid," she said.
The incident happened not long after police left Wallace's home after responding to her 911 call about someone trying to break into her duplex.
"I called them at 1:22 a.m. She talked for like 20 minutes. They did a report, took pictures of everything and then they left," she recalled.
Wallace said she had four attempted burglaries before the last incident. On top of all that, she’s now being evicted.
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The man explained to Arlington police he was woken up by his teenage son, who told him he heard a strange voice inside the home.
"The apartments called and told me that I was not supposed to have a gun at all, even though I kept calling them and telling them somebody was breaking in. They told me I could not have a gun, and I have 30 days to vacate," she said. "I feel like I'm back at square one. I was there for six years, and now I don't know what to do."
The case is going to a grand jury. Wallace says she wants people to know she was just protecting her family.
"I have four daughters. It’s just me and my four daughters that stay there. I just was protecting my daughters," she said. "I'm devastated that he was 14. I hate that. I literally do. And I'm so sorry. But at that point, I had to think about my babies. I didn’t know he was 14 when he was on the other side of that window. All I knew was that somebody could come in and hurt me or my kids. That's it."
Wallace lived in subsidized housing, but we could find no law that says residents in government-subsidized housing cannot have a gun. We saw no signs posted on the property saying that either.
Wallace is concerned an eviction would prevent her from finding other housing.
The local apartment manager said to call corporate. The corporate office said to call the on-site management.