A few problems with this:
1) he wasn't the owner of the property...that may be takeninto account.
2) The burglar wasn't in the house per se, he was in the garage.
The law may take that into account and state that he should have called the police rather than confront the perp.
This is what I also find a bit "disturbing" from one of the articles I read:
Kenny Eaton, 20, a junior political science major at Hopkins who lives nearby, said there was some tension between students and lower-income residents of nearby communities. The private Johns Hopkins is known for its health and science research and has about 4,600 undergraduates on its main campus.
"You take kids who are paying $50,000 a year (in tuition) and then put them out in a very dangerous city environment, it's almost like a clash of civilizations," he said.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...#ixzz0RDtG3hOX
Almost reflects on what I said earlier.
That area of town has seen massive change within the past 20 years...amazingly while JHU has grown quite a bit in that time, the areas around it has been allowed to go down thus creating this very atmosphere: gentrification.
I am so glad I left that area.