Crime victim takes out two suspects with strike and choke hold, one dies
One punch and a choke hold, and two car burglary suspects were on the ground, according to police reports. The…
One punch and a choke hold, and two car burglary suspects were on the ground, according to police reports.
The punched suspect, knocked unconscious, later awakened, but the choke hold injured the other suspect, Douglas Uhler, of Bridgewater,NJ, so severely he never fully recovered. Uhler, 19, ied Sunday at Morristown Memorial Hospital, more than eight months after the incident.
The street justice was administered by a 42-year-old Bridgewater man who heard people breaking into his car. A grand jury considered charges against the man, identified in court papers as Alex Montalvo, but none were brought.
Prosecutors said that after Montalvo knocked out one of the suspects, later identified as Brian Johnston, Uhler ran out from nearby bushes and shouted: “You want a piece of me, (expletive)?!”
Uhler jumped on Montalvo, who put him in a submission hold, Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano said. The move blocked the teen’s oxygen flow, causing a brain injury, Soriano said.
In December, a Somerset County grand jury indicted Uhler and Johnston, also 19 and of Bridgewater, on third-degree burglary charges. Johnston has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
Uhler was dismissed as a defendant last month after a judge deemed him incompetent to stand trial. A once-strapping high school football player, Uhler spent his days in bed or in a wheelchair, non-vocal and unable to walk, sit or roll.
His father, Russell Uhler, wants charges filed against the car owner, saying there wasn’t enough physical evidence to pin his son to the burglary.
The Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office stands by its account of events.
At his home on Oak Street in Bridgewater tonight, where the fateful events occurred last July 31, Montalvo declined comment.
Jenny Carroll, an associate professor at Seton Hall Law School, weighs in on the right to self defense in New Jersey.
“New Jersey law allows you to defend your physical self as well as your property. You’re allowed to kill people under certain circumstances, particularly self-defense. If I jump on you, you’re allowed to do what is required to make me stop hurting you. But if I pause, you can’t just start kicking me in the head.”
“Here’s the trick in this case — did the homeowner exceed the need to protect his property?” she said. “If the kids are still in the process of taking the homeowner’s property, then he has a right to defend his property and to use force. The prosecutor must decide whether the homeowner used justifiable force, and whether it was reasonable.
“Even in the heat of passion, if you’re trying to subdue someone, it isn’t reasonable to kill them.”
“I understand the dad’s emotional response and he may have a legal basis for it. We have a dead kid and a homeowner who says his car was broken into. He could have stayed inside the house and just called the cops.”