Machete-Wielding Idaho Man Shot As He Breaks Through Apartment Door [Graphic Video]
Graphic footage shows a Pocatello, Idaho man, Twain Thomas, 54, shot three times in the chest after breaking into an apartment, and threatening the occupants with a machete.
Thomas went on a violent rampage armed with a machete on 22 February 2013 at the 200 block of South Garfield in Pocatello.
He broke into two apartments in a complex, threatening the people with a machete. After he left the first apartment without hurting anyone, he went downstairs and chopped and kicked down Cvengros’s apartment door.
Cvengros, Thomas’s co-tenant, had positioned himself before the door after hearing screaming and commotion upstairs. He set up a video camera and fetched his handgun.
The camera was able to capture the entire terrifying incident in which Thomas hacked and kicked down the door, including the moment Cvengros shot him as he burst into the house.
The video shows Thomas chopping with a machete through Cvengros’s door. Cvengros and his girlfriend screamed at the intruder to stop. As Thomas entered the house moving forward and swinging his machete, Cvengrous shouted at hm to get out of their home. But when Thomas continued swinging his machete dangerously, Cvengros fired three shots which hit Thomas in the chest.
The video cuts but Thomas can be heard groaning in pain while Cvengros, shouting, asks why he broke into his apartment.
“Stay down, Twain! I didn’t want to do that; you were gonna kill me!”
“You’re right, I was.”
“Well then I did the right thing.”
The footage of the incident was played during the sentencing on Thursday, according to the Idaho state Journal. Cvengros’s action was ruled as self-defense.
Thomas pleaded guilty to multiple counts of aggravated assault and attempted murder. Sixth District Court Judge Robert Naftz sentenced him to a five-year fixed term and a 10-year indeterminate term.
He was also required to pay a fine of $1,200. A no-contact order was imposed on him until 2025.
Cvengros told Local 8 News that he did the right thing because Thomas would have killed him if he hadn’t shot him.
“If he hadn’t been shot at that time, then we would be looking at a murder case, not an attempted murder case.”
Dave Martinez, the defense attorney, who asked for a three-year fixed sentence and 10-year indeterminate sentence, said Thomas was not aware of his actions at the time. Thomas’s neuropsychiatrist Mark Corgiat, said Twain, who had been in the military, suffered PTSD and frontal lobe brain damage in a previous car accident.
Corgiat reportedly said, “His fight-or-flight is constantly on overdrive.”
Thomas apologized, saying,. “I have never had anything like this happen before in my life.”
But the prosecuting attorney, Zachary Parris, who asked for a seven-year sentence, said Thomas was a danger to the public because of his military background and the extreme violence of his action, and thus ought to be sentenced.
