Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
A local girl was enjoying a summer afternoon at home Monday when she was faced with any parent’s nightmare — a home intruder. While a frightening situation full of uncertainties, the girl kept her cool and worked to keep her other family members safe until help arrived. For that, she is being praised for her bravery and her father has thanked local law enforcement for their help as he shared his account of the situation in a social media post.
Lance Blanford was in a meeting at work around 2 p.m. when he received a call from his daughter, and then a second. At first, he decided he would call her back once his meeting was finished, but when she called a third time, he knew he needed to pick up.
“It was a video call. Her face popped up and I could tell she was scared,” Blanford recalled in the post.
Laken, 10, was hiding in her closet upstairs. Her 6-year-old brother and her grandmother were in another room of the house. She told her dad a man had let himself into the home and she asked if he was expecting someone to come by.
Blanford thought back, wondering if he had hired someone for an odd job and had forgotten. He couldn’t think of anyone.
“He was just walking normally, like nothing was going on, like he owned the house, like he had every right to be there,” Laken told Louisville media after the ordeal.
She told her dad the man had yelled and kicked at the family’s dog. This stranger was clearly not a welcomed guest.
Blanford jumped in his car, rushing to his home off Louisville Road with his daughter still on the phone. Laken quietly snuck out of her closet and went to the stairs, ducking behind the railing. She turned the camera around on the phone so her dad could look at the intruder, who was helping himself to a beer in the refrigerator. Blanford didn’t recognize the man.
Laken was instructed to help her brother and her grandmother get out of the house and go to the neighbors’. The little girl also grabbed her dog.
Blanford could hear as his daughter moved through the home, then the call was disconnected. He tried calling back again and again, but he had no cell service to get through. Blanford felt sick.
“I couldn’t get to my house fast enough,” he said.
When he arrived home, not knowing if his children and mother-in-law were safe, he quickly made his way through the house to find his shotgun, trying to prepare himself for what he might be faced with.
“I scanned the top floor. Nothing,” he said. He then headed to the basement where he found the stranger drinking in the den.
“He didn’t see me,” Blanford said.
He was pumped with adrenalin, various scenarios playing out in his head. Blanford still didn’t know if his family was safe or where they were, so he confronted the intruder.
“I racked the shotgun as I made my way around the corner and told him (with some expletives) to not make any quick moves but to get the hell out of my house,” Blanford said. He says the man laughed at him, exchanged a threat and rushed toward him.
“I’ve always heard that in this type of situation things happen so quickly and you just react. However, that was not my experience,” Blanford said. “I thought about my kids, I thought about him and his family, I thought about me living with something heavy for the rest of my life. There is no doubt, I could have pulled the trigger. But I didn’t, and I thank God I didn’t.”
Instead, Blanford hit the man with the barrel of the gun, knocking him to the ground.
“I checked to make sure he wasn’t armed and then ran upstairs to yell for someone to call 911,” he said. He saw his children, mother-in-law and neighbors across the street and they were already on the phone with the police. They were safe. It was a moment of relief.
Blanford returned to the basement where the intruder was unconscious. He held him at gunpoint, and as the man began to come to, Blanford told him to stay put until police arrived. Once he heard law enforcement enter the home, Blanford called for them.
The man, identified as 67-year-old Stanley E. Ritter, was taken into custody and has been charged with second-degree burglary, a felony. Ritter entered a not guilty plea Tuesday afternoon and has a hearing scheduled in court Aug. 10. He does not have a related criminal history listed for Kentucky.
Blanford praised the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office for the response and handling the situation once they arrived. He also praised his daughter for her bravery through the arguably terrifying ordeal.
Nelson County Sheriff Ramon Pineiroa also praised Laken.
“She remained calm, cool, and collected in very alarming circumstances,” he said, and he awarded the girl a Sheriff’s Office Challenge coin.
https://www.kystandard.com/content/girl-video-calls-dad-after-stranger-enters-home