Homeowner in Laguna stabs burglar armed with toy gun

SAN PEDRO CITY — A man stabbed dead one of three men who broke into his house early Tuesday, without immediately realizing what the intruder was carrying was a plastic toy gun.

Senior Insp. Gerry Sangalang, spokesperson of the Laguna Police Provincial Office, said Romeo Carlos, the owner of the house, and about four other people were awakened when three men broke into their home in Barangay San Vicente in this city at 3:30 a.m.

The police said the robbers carried weapons, a knife and what seemed to what looked like a a .22-caliber gun.

Don Solidum, a village official here, said Carlos had a chance to grab one of the suspects and as they
grappled, accidentally stabbed him with a knife.

It was not immediately clear if the weapon Carlos had used belonged to one of the intruders.

Solidum said the man died, while his two other companions escaped with the Carlos’s iPad, cellphone, and four wrist watches. The toy gun was left behind.

“It was only when they realized it was a toy gun. The black one you usually see the kids play with,” Solidum said in a phone interview. Authorities have yet to identify the slain burglar.

Sangalang said Carlos could use the “defense of a stranger,” one of the circumstances under the law that exempts a person from criminal liability. /atm