Texas Man Wounded by His Own Shotgun Shell Boobytrap

A Texas man was wounded after booby-trapping his home with shotgun shells, according to the local sheriff’s office.

Police encountered a  “disoriented” 73-year-old man with what appeared to be gunshot wounds outside a house in in Tomball, northwest of Houston on Sept. 11.

According to Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the man was erratic, yelling out “There’s danger in the home, there’s danger in the home.”

A deputy went into the house to investigate.

“Upon entry into one of the doorways, he encountered some sort of discharge,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters on the scene.

That discharge was later determined to be a shotgun shells modified into a boobytrap.

Booby-Trapping Your Home is Against the Law

A SWAT team was called in, and dismantled explosive devices rigged at the entrances and windows of the house.

The SWAT team’s own explosions could be heard as they disarmed the devices.

Harris County Senior Deputy Thomas Gilliland told the Chronicle, “Evidently, he had encountered a lot of people trying to break into his house or had broken into his house. He took it up on himself to right his home with explosive devices which were small metal-like objects containing a shotgun shell.”

The man found outside the house was taken to hospital, suffering from two non-life threatening gunshot-like wounds, Gilliland told reporters in a statement.

The deputy who set off the booby trap was okay but did receive an injury from fragments from the discharge.

Police said that they would meet with the district attorney’s office to determine any charges to file against the man in the house.

“Booby-trapping one’s home is against the law in the state of Texas. To rig your home any way that will deter people from breaking into your home,” Gilliland said, according to the Chronicle.