Don't...uhhh...I dunno...have crazy neighbors?
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:30 am
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... dd429.html
Ever notice that the neighbors never say, "well, yeah, he was a completely psychotic loser. We were just waiting for somebody to have to shoot him?"Fatal Plano confrontation leaves few answers
12:00 AM CST on Monday, December 10, 2007
By SCOTT GOLDSTEIN / The Dallas Morning News
sgoldstein@dallasnews.com
PLANO – Police are investigating what set off and ultimately killed a 25-year-old Plano man who assaulted his wife and broke into the home of an armed neighbor who tried to intervene.
Qwame Lombardo was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly after he collapsed in the 3000 block of Bandolino Lane, police said.
Police said the altercation early Sunday morning between Mr. Lombardo and his wife began in the 3600 block of Big Horn Trail, where the couple lives.
It was unclear how or why the couple ended up several blocks away, barefoot, near a creek behind Rob Herrington's home.
Mr. Herrington's wife woke him about 7:30 a.m. after she spotted Mr. Lombardo attacking his wife on the edge of the creek, Mr. Herrington said in an interview Sunday night. The Navy veteran ran outside and shouted at Mr. Lombardo to stop as the woman screamed for help.
"I told him to quit it, and he basically just growled at me," Mr. Herrington said.
Mr. Lombardo then apparently shifted his ire toward Mr. Herrington, who went back into his house and retrieved a handgun and a cellphone to call for help. By the time Mr. Herrington got back outside, Mr. Lombardo was approaching the black metal gate leading to the Herringtons' back yard.
Barefoot and wearing only a red T-shirt and gray shorts on a chilly morning, Mr. Lombardo continued after Mr. Herrington, now armed with the handgun. Mr. Herrington said he kept three or four paces in front of Mr. Lombardo as he came through the gate and approached the rear of the home.
Mr. Lombardo's wife attempted to restrain him, even as he continued to assault her as he approached. Mr. Herrington never fired his weapon.
"If I had shot him, I would have killed her too."
Police didn't identify Mr. Lombardo's wife.
Mr. Herrington backed into his house, locked the door and told his wife and his mother-in-law to leave, which they did.
"I locked the back door, and I told him 'Do not come in this house,' " Mr. Herrington said.
Mr. Lombardo briefly stopped and sat down on a green bench just outside the back door, Mr. Herrington said. But within seconds, he stood up and rammed his shoulder into the door, bursting through and falling on the living room floor.
"He even entered this house with a person holding a handgun," said Officer Rick McDonald, a Plano Police Department spokesman. "That in itself makes you wonder what he was thinking."
Mr. Herrington said Mr. Lombardo "looked like a wild animal. , He said several times he was going to kill me."
His gun drawn, Mr. Herrington backed toward the front of the home and out his front door, he said. Mr. Lombardo followed him until he tripped over an extension cord powering Christmas lights on the home.
Plano police officers arrived as Mr. Lombardo crawled to the sidewalk in front of the house and collapsed on his side, Mr. Herrington said. Officers questioned Mr. Lombardo before he was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Officer McDonald said.
The frightening portrait of Mr. Lombardo in his final minutes was a stark contrast to how a neighbor remembered him Sunday night. Rena Wilkins said Mr. Lombardo and his wife moved into the home next door with their two young children over the summer.
Ms. Wilkins said she last saw Mr. Lombardo on Saturday afternoon, when he stopped by to invite her husband to go bowling.
"The time we spent with them was always pleasant," said Ms. Wilkins, who described Mr. Lombardo as a "really calm, low-key kind of guy."
