The Gun Counter

Shop owner shoots burglary suspect
Written by Pauline Repard
8:56 a.m., March 15, 2012
Updated 3:16 p.m.

SAN DIEGO — Isaac Heinrich thought he was going to find only a little vandalism when he went to check his San Diego motorcycle shop early Thursday to see what triggered the security alarm.

But minutes later Heinrich was firing off rounds and wounding a burglary suspect who had crawled out of a broken glass door, carrying a shotgun and other items taken from the shop.

“There was 40 inches of steel shotgun pointed at me,” Heinrich, 37, recounted hours later at Trophy Motorcycles, the shop he co-owns on El Cajon Boulevard at Winona Avenue in San Diego’s Talmadge neighborhood. “I realized I had no choice but to fire.”

Heinrich said the store’s alarm company called him at home sometime after 2 a.m. to report the alarm had gone off. He said he wasn’t very concerned and took his time getting there, but he brought along his .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol.

He got out of his car, beamed a flashlight into the front windows, then walked around the corner and realized someone was crawling out a hole in the side door. The man stood up with an old Polaroid camera, a laptop computer and the shotgun in his hands.

Heinrich said he recognized the shotgun as his, one he kept under the store counter. He yelled for the intruder to drop the gun, but instead the man raised it. Heinrich squeezed off three rounds from his pistol, then hid behind a car, took more careful aim and fired three more rounds.

He figured the last rounds connected. The 37-year-old burglary suspect fell to the sidewalk, wounded in the legs, and later was taken to a hospital by paramedics.

“He made the poorest choice of his life,” Heinrich said. “It appears he’ll have a pretty messed up life for a Polaroid camera and an almost-not-working laptop.”

San Diego police handcuffed and detained Heinrich briefly, then let him go.

Detective Gary Hassen, a department spokesman, said people who are attacked have the right to defend themselves.

“We hope people don’t get involved like that, and wait for police, but sometimes you don’t have that opportunity,” Hassen said.

Heinrich, who grew up in Carlsbad and San Diego, opened the motorcycle repair shop and accessories store in 2009 with Tim Johnson, 43, who moved from Texas to San Diego. The partners said the store has been hit by vandals before, including in November, when the lower half of a glass-paned side door was broken, just as it was on Thursday.

Heinrich said he has bought several guns in the past year, has a concealed weapons permit, and practices at shooting ranges.

“I was glad it was Isaac and not me,” Johnson said. “I don’t have a gun.”