Victim fights back in Harnett home invasion

Authorities said Derrick Womack, 31, was at home with his wife and stepdaughter around 10 p.m. when four men invaded his home and tried to rob them.

Posted 4:46 a.m. Dec 19, 2008 — Updated 3:35 a.m. Dec 20, 2008

LILLINGTON, N.C. — Harnett County authorities are investigating a shooting that happened late Thursday night during a home invasion in Lillington.

Sheriff Larry Rollins said Derrick Womack, 31, was at home with his wife and stepson around 10 p.m. when four men entered his home at 232 Tacia Drive and tried to rob them.

Womack said he heard banging on the door and that when he opened it, he saw a man pointing a handgun at him.

Womack said he wrestled the gun away from the man and that in the process the gun went off.

He noticed another man on his porch and two others in his yard and with the gun, started shooting. He also said he believed another assailant had a shotgun and might have shot a third assailant.

Rollins would not say how many guns were involved or how many shots were fired. He said Womack did not have a gun.

Womack, who was shot in the hand, was taken to a hospital, treated and later released.

Two of the assailants were also shot – one was taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville and the other to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill – and two other men fled the scene.

Rollins said authorities are still looking for the other two men. Saying he did not want to jeopardize the investigation, he declined to release any information about the case.

Womack, the owner of a convenience store about three miles from his home, had just returned home after closing the store, and Rollins said it appeared the would-be robbers targeted him. He will not face any charges.

"You hear about them a lot, where business owners are targeted," Rollins said. "That appears, maybe, what is going on here – not that we know that, but it appears because he had just left his business and got to his home."

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