A man who broke into a business to steal a bag of tools is demanding $10,000,000 in damages after the company’s owner caught him in the act and shot him three times.
Kenneth Voyles says the encounter left him with life-changing injuries and caused him ‘severe emotional distress’.
Voyles has filed a lawsuit against Oregon firm Touchstone Granite & Marble and its owner, James Grant. He’s looking for $5,000,000 in compensation and the same amount again in punitive damages.
The shooting happened at the company’s premises in Portland on March 6, 2023.
Voyles, who claims that he was homeless, cold and sleep-deprived at the time, entered the closed building through a damaged section of a garage door.
His lawsuit says that he’d been looking for food and somewhere warm. It also freely admits he picked up a bag containing a drill with the intention of stealing it, New York Post reports.
Grant arrived for work at around 5.30am and found Voyles inside the building. Precisely what followed is rather less straightforward, with the two men offering up dramatically different versions of the same incident.
Voyles claims he immediately apologized when confronted and ran towards the garage door to escape.
He alleges Grant chased him while throwing a coffee mug and heavy tiles in his direction.
The lawsuit says that Voyles grabbed a pair of bolt cutters to try and protect himself, but couldn’t open the locked door. It then alleges Grant left the room before returning with a handgun and opening fire without any kind of warning.
Voyles claims Grant told him: ‘Yeah. You’re going to die, dude.’ He alleges the businessman shot him in the chest at close range and fired again as he tried to squeeze through the damaged garage door.
Jim Grant tells the tale altogether differently.
‘It went right through my brain that he is ready to attack me,’ Grant told local TV news station KPTV (Fox 12 Oregon).
‘When he picked up the bolt cutter and raised it and he was starting to come at me. I was lucky I can run about 15 feet, grab my gun and came back he was just standing there still ready.
‘He started coming at me this way. Again, I didn’t look back and see how close he was because my mindset changed to my life’s totally in danger now.’
The businessman claimed he ran roughly 15ft to retrieve his gun because he feared for his life. He also said he repeatedly ordered Voyles to get on the ground, but the intruder refused.
‘The whole thing happened so fast I finally had to shoot,’ Grant told KPTV. ‘I only shot him when he was standing looking at me ready to come at me and then I just let him go because I just wanted it to be over.’
He added: ‘Anytime I see conflict I usually turn the other way unless I need to help somebody. I don’t wanna carry, I never wanted to have a confrontation like this but thank goodness I had it that morning.’
Voyles escaped from the building and was found by police in the street. He was taken to hospital in a stable condition, while Grant was uninjured and called 911.
The lawsuit says Voyles suffered a collapsed lung, penetrating wounds to his chest and shattered bones in his right arm. He allegedly needed extensive vascular repairs and several emergency operations.
Voyles is accusing Grant of battery, assault, negligence and intentionally inflicting emotional distress.