911 calls from burglary gone bad: “I’m dying”

The King County Sheriff’s Office has released the 911 recordings made when a homeowner shot a would-be burglar, including a desperate call for help from the burglar himself.

It happened at a house outside Woodinville July 30. Dale Larsen arrived to his house to find a strange car in his driveway. When he went inside, he found a couple rummaging through his closet.

Larsen pulled a gun on the man and woman. When the man rushed him, the homeowner shot. The suspect fled while the homeowner held the woman at gunpoint.

Moments later, he called 911.

“I need a policeman right now, I’ve got a burglary in progress, somebody shot out the door,” Larsen says on the recording. The woman is screaming in the background.

Soon after, the burglar called 911 to report he’d been shot and pleaded for help. He was unable to provide a location and is heard gasping in pain. At one point, he tells the operator, “I’m dying.”

The operator asks him repeatedly if he knows who shot him, but the burglar who identifies himself as “Dusty” can only respond “I don’t know.”

In an interview with Ross and Burbank, King County Sheriff Steve Strachan says the homeowner had a concealed weapon permit and most likely had the right to shoot the suspect if he felt threatened, even if the suspect was running away at the time.

“The law recognizes a tremendous amount of authority for people within their homes to use any force up to deadly force to somebody they perceive as a threat,” Strachan says.

The suspect was shot twice and continues to recover at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The woman ran away and remains at large.

Meanwhile, a bystander who stopped to help the suspect tells Dori Monson he didn’t know the man had been shot.

“I stopped in the middle of the road and asked him if he was okay, thinking maybe he was drunk or something. He didn’t really respond much and I got up to him and asked ‘what’s up’ and he said he’d been shot,” says Neil Lennebacker in a live interview.

>>>Listen to Dori’s interview with Neil Lennebacker

Lennebacker says at first he was more concerned with the possibility of danger than the well being of the suspect.

“I was mainly looking around to see if there was a gun in his vehicle or around him or if somebody had jumped out of the bushes, there was somebody else hanging around.”

Lennebacker tells Monson he ultimately decided to call 911 and then stayed on the scene until emergency crews arrived.

“I was kind of nervous. I didn’t really want to mess with the guy much because I didn’t know if he was lying on a firearm. That’s why I was kind of uneasy with the whole thing,” Lennebacker says.

While Strachan says the shooting incident could be perceived as a victory of sorts for “the good guys,” it’s not that simple.

“Owning a firearm is a right, but it’s also an awesome responsibility,” Strachan cautions.

“We have to pay a lot of attention to training and storage of that firearm as well and it’s an opportunity to pay some attention to that as we talk about firearms and crime.”