They don’t really care about your feelings. Specific illegal acts are another thing. You need to focus on those things, not how much this guy annoys you.
Have you talked to other people in the neighborhood about him? Did you tell anyone else about your experience with him? If the answer to these is ‘no’, then you’re making assumptions. Lots of other people might have a problem with him and you’re just not aware of their feelings.
That’s because you don’t “have” a fox.
No, you couldn’t. You can’t shoot someone in self defense when they’re not actively posing a threat to you. There’s a fuzzy line where self defense turns into retaliation. But I don’t know if you need to worry about that since the guy shot a fox in your yard. It may have scared you, but he wasn’t taking aim at you, as I understand it. Plus, you’ll have to see what your jurisdiction says about using lethal force to defend property, which is likely what the fox would be if it was legally considered a pet.
Again, something’s not right. Either you’re not telling the whole story or I’m not understanding it. I simply can’t imagine calling 911, telling them there’s someone shooting a gun on your property and that you feel he’s dangerous and them telling you to pound sand.
If that’s really, truly the way it played out, like I said before, you need to escalate this. That person should not be a dispatcher. The 911 calls are almost certainly recorded and their supervisor can review the tape and take disciplinary actions if need be.
ETA, if this is ‘your’ fox, you should have no problem winning if you take him to court, right?
I think it’s at least possible that the reason you’re not getting a response from law enforcement is this whole business about claiming that it’s your fox.
If there are laws against discharging a gun in that area, he was in violation of those. If there are laws against shooting within a given distance of other people’s houses, he may have been in violation of those. If there are laws against shooting across other peoples’ properties without permission, he was in violation of those. If there are laws about hunting season for fox, he may have been in violation of those. If red fox are endangered where you are, he’d have been in violation of endangered species laws. There might, just possibly, be animal cruelty laws that apply; though they may not apply to fox killed with a clean shot. If he came on to your property, he may have been in violation of trespassing laws (though depending on locality you may have needed to have your property posted, or to have previously told him to stay off). If his firing across your property, or otherwise firing in that location, endangered you and/or other humans, he was probably in violation of reckless endangerment laws.
But instead of trying to figure out which if any of those might apply and complaining about whatever’s actually relevant and in violation of actual law, you appear to have called to complain that he shot specifically your fox; when it does not appear to have been specifically your fox. That probably isn’t going to get you very far.
(And, while you’re researching: it may not be legal for you to possess a fox in that area, in any sense other than there being a wild animal on your land. Around here I’m pretty sure you’d need special permits to keep a fox.)
– I agree that he shouldn’t have shot the fox. And I understand that you called right then, while he and the evidence were present, instead of spending a couple of hours researching relevant laws. But if you want law enforcement to do something, you need to have an actual law for them to legally act on it. I think you’d have had a lot better chance with ‘this guy is shooting across my property without permission right near my house and could have shot me by accident!’ And in the meantime as he’s still around I’d go do that research and find out what specific laws he was, or might be, violating if he does something like it again.
On this thread we are using the Rittenhouse criteria. The part above about I’m an old fart with a disabled hangar on my mirror is true. I can reasonably believe that an armed guy in my driveway poses a greater threat to me than the hands of Rosenbaum did to KRs AR15. He is the only armed civilian I have ever seen in my driveway. Should he appear again I could reasonably see it as a threat, An infinitely greater threat than that posed to KR by Rosenbaum. That, by definition, is self defense.
That seems to be an overestimation.
Good Grief, Charlie Brown. You sound like JimB.
You’re overcomplicating this. Stuff the fox, stand it at one corner of your house where the neighbor can see it. Hide yourself at the other corner with a rifle. Set up a camera so it does not capture the fox or you, but will show the neighbor when he fires at your fox/house. As soon as he fires at the fox you shoot him, dispose of the fox, and call the police again to let them know you were forced to fire in self defense when your neighbor shot at your house. You don’t know why he aimed his gun at you/your home except maybe he was angry that you complained about him. It should appear as clear self defense as long as you get the camera angles right.
Theory condoned.
As others have said, I think you confused the issue when you told the police dispatcher that this guy had shot a wild fox and you were claiming ownership of the fox. What you probably should have done was tell them that he had shot his rifle on to your property without your permission.
IANAL but I would advise you not to act on any plans to kill somebody. Or to discuss any such plans with the police.
[Moderating]
Let’s be a little less cavalier about offering to commit violence on behalf of other posters, and on giving advice about how to commit crimes, please.
No warning issues, just avoid these sorts of jokes going forward.
[/Moderating]
If he is legally allowed to carry, then this shouldn’t be a defense in court. You may feel threatened, but he has not posed an actionable threat to you under the law. As upset as it makes you feel, it’s not sufficient to support an unprovoked attack.
However, if he’s on your property you can certainly tell him to leave. If he’s firing a gun on your property the police should respond. But by themselves, I don’t think they rise to the level of a threat. The devil’s in the details however, and that’s why we have lawyers.
Question about the fox. Did you actually consider it to be a pet? I know that you probably cannot actually keep one legally as a pet, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have affection for a living creature that hangs out on your property.
I do wonder if anyone would feel any differently if this was a legally owned dog on your property that this guy shot.
This. You buried the lead, as the journalists say. You’re angry he shot the fox. But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that he shot the gun onto your property, endangering animals, your house, maybe other people. Had he not fired the gun, there would have been no issue–no dead fox, no danger.
Yeah, it’s an odd thing to call 911 and say “Someone killed the animal I have right of capture over.” What the hell does that mean?
Call the cops and say “A guy was shooting onto my property” and he’d have been arrested already.
I don’t think journalists say that. “Journalists” might, but I’m pretty confident that journalists say You buried the lede.
It occurs to me that if you want to find out if you’re dealing with a journalist or a “journalist”, you could wait for them to say that, then ask them to put it in writing.
ETA: I’d kinda expect someone with nelliebly as their handle would know that.
That’s an extremely US-centric point of view you have there.
“Lede” is a neologism in the US from the past half century; does the rest of the world only have “journalists”? 
Exactly. That’s why my first impulse was to respond with a Sanford and Son joke.
Well excuse my US-centric tendencies. You may recall that I’m the guy who asked how Europeans know when to have Black Friday sales, so yeah, that’s kinda my thing.
Yeah, reading the thread, i don’t have a lot new to add. But
I’m pretty sure you aren’t allowed to discharge firearms on other people’s property without their permission. And you generally can’t do it close to a house. He was standing on your fucking driveway? You have a legit complaint.
Post “no hunting, no trespassing” in your property. Get a wildlife cam. If he does it again, file a real complaint. With video evidence.
Yeah, in my state they are a “fur bearing animal” with a season. Unless the fox was an immediate risk to him or his property, killing it was illegal.
We had a guy in town shoot a fur-bearing animal on his own property several years ago, because it was acting erratic and he thought it might have rabies. After shooting it, he called animal control. Turns out he was right, and it had rabies. Obviously, no charges were filed against him. But a fox just hanging out on your property is a very different situation than a raccoon wobbling on the gun-owner’s driveway.
That’s an excellent point. The fox thing deflected the argument. If I had said there is a stranger shooting into my property the police probably would have arrived with sirens blaring. Of course when they got there they’d say “No biggie, he just shot a fox”