When Memphis police showed up at Demarcus Collier’s home early Saturday morning, they found a suspected burglar with a gunshot wound and a homeowner who said he acted in self-defense.
Collier ended up under arrest, but not for shooting the man who allegedly indicated he had a gun. Instead, the 27-year-old is facing seven counts of aggravated assault and vandalism for the shots he fired that didn’t hit the suspected criminal.
According to police, a nearby vehicle was struck by two rounds, and one round pierced the wall of a neighboring home, entering a bedroom where multiple kids were sleeping.
No one was injured except for the man Collier intended to shoot, and his family is questioning why their relative is facing multiple felonies for protecting himself. One local attorney who spoke to WMC-TV has some questions of his own.
Criminal defense attorney Michael R. Working, owner of The Working Law Firm, reviewed the details of the case and called the seven counts of aggravated assault an aggressive charging decision by law enforcement.
“As a defense attorney, I would be inherently suspicious of seven aggravated assaults being charged against the homeowner who had the privilege to use self-defense,” Working said. “It’s a very aggressive and high charge for these facts.”
Working pointed out that Tennessee’s Castle Doctrine extends legal protections beyond the physical walls of a house into what the law defines as the “curtilage”—the area surrounding a residence, including yards and driveways.
“A driveway would most certainly qualify for the curtilage of the home,” Working said. “If someone assaulted you in your driveway, you don’t have to drag them into your house and then shoot them.”
Working also questioned the legal basis of aggravated assault in this scenario, noting that the charge typically requires victims to be placed in reasonable fear by the display or use of a weapon. Because it’s not clear whether everyone across the street was aware, or awake, when the gunfire hit the exterior wall, Working argued that prosecutors face a difficult legal standard.
“It would fit much more so the line of what’s called reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, which is one act with a gun, but there’s a crowd of people in the danger zone,” Working said. “If there was going to be a charge at all, it sounds like that might be the charge.”
Reckless endangerment is defined in Tennessee law as “a person… who recklessly engages in conduct that places or may place another person in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury.” Reckless endangerment by discharging a firearm into an occupied habitation is a Class C felony, so Collier would still be looking at some serious time behind bars even if the attorney believes that would be a more appropriate charge.
So, can you act with “reckless endangerment” while lawfully acting to protect your own life? Tennessee does have a general statutory defense for otherwise criminal conduct justified under its self-defense laws, but that defense disappears when someone “recklessly” injures or kills another person.
That doesn’t appear to be the case with Collier, whose errant rounds didn’t strike anyone he wasn’t intending to shoot. Arguably, then, Collier’s justification defense may remain available. In any case, prosecutors will have to establish the elements of the separate offenses he’s charged with.
I understand why the family whose home was struck by gunfire is upset. Nobody wants to wake up to a bullet coming through the wall of a bedroom where their kids are sleeping. But if Collier genuinely believed the man in his driveway was about to shoot him, what was he supposed to do?
Before Collier faces the possibility of spending years behind bars, prosecutors should have to establish precisely what was criminally reckless about his actions, beyond the mere fact that some of his shots missed their intended target. If the initial shooting was justified, the question is whether Collier’s overall conduct was independently reckless. That’s a distinction worth making before turning Collier’s claim of self-defense into seven felony charges.
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