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It’s hard to be prepared for a situation where you unexpectedly find yourself face-to-face with a bear, and it’s not too hard to understand why some people might use lethal force if in that fairly terrifying scenario. That was the route a man in Connecticut inadvertently harnessed during a scary incident that transpired last year, and he’s looking for answers after being arrested over his attempt to protect his family.
Bears usually don’t go out of their way to antagonize humans, but it never hurts to err on the side of caution if you willingly wander into an area you know they call home. Experienced hikers and hunters know there’s no real downside to packing some bear mace before a trek, and there are plenty of people who will also opt to carry a firearm they can deploy in a worst-case scenario.
There’s also a big difference between encountering a bear in the wild and coming across one in a place where you’d like to think you don’t have to worry about them. In a perfect world, the animals would be able to understand the concept of trespassing and personal property, but that’s obviously not how things work.
According to the CT Post, Todd Topicz, a 39-year-old Army veteran who resides in Bethlehem, Connecticut, says he was woken up by his pregnant wife last August and frantically informed that a black bear had wandered into the garage where his 10-year-old stepson and three-year-old daughter were playing.
He grabbed a pistol and ran out into the garage before discovering his Belgian Shepherd furiously barking at the foot of a tree the bear had climbed up. Topicz says he fired two warning shots in the bear’s direction before it headed back down to the ground and another three before it scrambled away, but things took another turn when police officers arrived on the scene and ordered him to put his hands up.
Topicz says he was initially arrested for “negligent discharge of a firearm and breach of peace charges” in the wake of a response triggered by a neighbor who called the police after hearing the gunshots.
While he says he didn’t intend to shoot the bear, it was found dead in the area the following day due to the bullet wounds it suffered during the incident, and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection subsequently added another charge for the “illegal taking of a bear.”
Topciz says he’s entered a program that will allow him to have the charges scrubbed from his record upon completion but is still confused about why he was charged with any crimes in the first place while citing a law that was passed in 2023 that allows people in Connecticut to “kill a bear in self-defense or defense of others.”
A number of state lawmakers have lobbied on Topicz’s behalf while seeking answers from the DEEP, but it has declined to comment on the situation due to the sealed nature of the case against him.