ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥

In both cases, they fired a shot.

In both cases, there was video evidence.

But only one of the shooters was charged.

In a country riven by recent trials involving claims of self-defense, two cases from the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ area in mid-February this year show how narrow the margins can be between facing or avoiding a felony charge for firing a warning shot in claimed self-defense.

The laws of self-defense are on people’s minds because, on the national scene, we’ve seen two prominent examples of self-defense claims, one successful and one failed.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Kyle Rittenhouse argued that he shot three people, killing two, in self-defense, and a jury acquitted him. In Brunswick, Georgia, Travis McMichael claimed he shot and killed jogger Ahmaud Arbery in self-defense. McMichael, his father and a friend were all convicted of murder.

There are big differences between the Rittenhouse and McMichael cases, which also had video evidence, that help explain the disparate outcomes. In short, Rittenhouse had a real argument that he was threatened and therefore shot in self-defense; McMichael did not.

In the local cases, the differences are comparatively small.

Both of them show, though, that our laws protecting people claiming they used deadly force in self-defense have some limits, or at least vary in their application.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ law does not require a person to retreat before using deadly force, and allows it in situations where a “reasonable person would believe that deadly physical force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the other’s use or attempted use of unlawful deadly physical force.â€�

There are other specified instances where deadly force is allowed. And the laws are broader when a person is committing a crime in your home. Even burglary is sufficient justification for physical force, including deadly force.

However, there is no law that prohibits or enshrines warning shots, Charles Heller of the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Citizens Defense League told me. Generally, you are justified in firing a warning shot if you also would be legally justified in shooting the person in self-defense.

Prosecutors who have charged a person claiming one of these defenses must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person was not acting in self-defense. That creates quite the incentive to claim self-defense, and keeps prosecutors from filing some cases.

Judge’s warning shot

The local one you may know about is that of Adam Watters, a Pima County justice of the peace. On Feb. 14, Watters and his daughter sat hidden in his Catalina Foothills yard, hoping to catch a man they suspected of repeatedly dumping garbage in their yard and of slashing Watters’ tires.

When a man Watters suspected drove by, he walked out and confronted the man on the street. When the man, Fei Qin, stopped his car, Watters told him to get on the ground, warned him “I’m going to blow your head off� and fired a shot that hit the ground near Qin’s feet.

The Pima County Attorney’s Office handed over consideration of the case to the Pinal County Attorney’s Office, which declined to pursue criminal charges against Watters. County Attorney Kent Volkmer said at the time “we had no reasonable likelihood of conviction,� because Watters suspected Qin of entering his property previously to slash the tires.

It was a somewhat surprising outcome, because Watters’ justification for shooting was relatively thin. He said the man had lunged at him, but a video that Watters himself took portrays Watters as the aggressor in that moment.

I asked criminal defense attorney Joe St. Louis, who gives workshops to local groups about self-defense law, and he said he was surprised no charges were filed, in part because the man Watters confronted was not engaged in a crime at the time.

“Another reason I’m surprised they didn’t charge something is he (Watters) didn’t say ‘You’re under arrest. I’m detaining you till police arrive,’ “ St. Louis added. “I just don’t think that factually that fits into the statutes.�

Qin, on the other hand, was charged with stalking Watters, a felony, and is on trial now.

The Pinal County Attorney’s Office considered five different charges against Watters: threatening or intimidating, assault, aggravated assault, disorderly conduct and unlawful discharge of a firearm. This last charge, a felony, was filed against 177 different people in the six months before and six months after Watters fired his shot, according to Pima County Superior Court data.

‘Through a gap in the wall’

One of those 177 defendants is Tony James Vondell, 33, a relatively unknown ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥an who fired a shot in what he claims was self-defense on Feb. 20, six days after Watters did and a couple of miles away, near East Fort Lowell Road and North Campbell Avenue.

Vondell told me he was taking his trash out in his fourplex’s parking lot, before a planned trip to have breakfast at his grandmother’s house in Sahuarita, when he saw a familiar homeless man in the small vacant lot next door..

Vondell said he’d had bad experiences with the man in the past, including a time the man threw a shovel at him, and they exchanged words that morning over a wall about 5 1/2 feet high. A video of the incident, taken by a neighbor, shows Vondell telling him to “leave.� Then a few seconds later, he tells the man “give me that grinder right now� three times. Then there’s a shot.

Vondell told me he thought the man had stolen tools — that’s why he was demanding the grinder, to take the serial number off of it and pass it on to authorities.

“He pulled a pocket knife out and said he was going to jump over the wall,� Vondell told me.

“I had a 9 mm (pistol) under my shirt. It was in a holster. I pulled it out fast and discharged,� said Vondell, who has concealed-carry training. “I aimed it I would say no more than 6, 7 feet to my left, (and to) his right through a gap in the wall.�

The man left, then Vondell did, he said, heading with his son to Sahuarita.

Neighbors called police, and they arrested Vondell in his neighborhood the next day. A grand jury indicted him March 15 on one count of unlawful discharge of a firearm in or into city limits, a class 6 felony.

The alleged victim hasn’t shown up yet, and his precise identity is unclear, Vondell’s attorney, Priscilla Frisby Villalobos, told me. She is planning to argue Vondell was defending himself when he fired the shot.

Identities and outcomes

There are, of course, differences between Vondell’s case and that of Watters. Vondell didn’t call 911; Watters’ family did. The man Watters confronted had no weapon; Vondell says the man he confronted did. There was a wall between Vondell and the homeless man; there was none between Watters and Qin. Vondell was inside city limits; Watters wasn’t.

But probably also significant is the identity of the man with the gun. Vondell is a young man from Minnesota with a misdemeanor criminal record in both states who was living in midtown. Neighbors told police he had pulled out a gun before, which Vondell denies.

Watters is, of course, a judge living in the foothills. Now he is back on the bench after a period away resulting from the incident, but he still faces a complaint over the gunfire with the Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Vondell is awaiting trial, planning a return to work and living with his grandmother.

For both, despite the different outcomes, the decision to fire a warning shot continues to hang over them.