Imagine this.
You are snoozing as your kiddos play in the garage. All of the sudden, you are awoken by your spouse shrieking and shouting that a bear is in the house, and it had gotten within feet of your children. If you ask any parent what they’d do that in that situation, most – if not all – would do anything to make sure that they’re kids were safe.
A Connecticut man named Todd Topicz found himself in that exact, terrifying situation this past August, and now he’s facing charges after he shot the bear to protect his two kids and his pregnant wife. He told Channel 3 that the wild animal got within feet of his kids, and that the bear had entered the family home through the open garage – where his kids were playing:
“He walked right into the garage with people in there. He didn’t care. So, who knows what would’ve happened next time.”
As you can tell by that statement from Topicz, he didn’t want to leave it up to chance for the bear to come back at one point.
That being said, he didn’t intentionally kill the bear. The family dog chased the wild animal out of the house and up a tree, but the bear (according to him) was continuing to be aggressive. So Topicz fired multiple warning shots towards the bear, and it eventually climbed down the tree and ran into the woods.
At that point, Topicz says he didn’t even think he had struck the bear with any of his shots. However, a neighbor reported a dead bear to the police the next day, and after investigation led them to discover that the wild animal had been shot, Topicz came forward and told the authorities what had happened.
Two weeks later, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) arrested Topicz, as he explained:
“DEEP contacted me and said, ‘Hey since you shot the bear and killed it, we have to arrest you again and charge you again with illegal taking of a bear.’ We were all threatened. It entered our home. And I have no idea why DEEP ended up charging me for this.”
There’s a lot of confusion as to why Topicz was arrested because of a law that was instituted in 2o23, which states that a person in Connecticut can kill a bear in self defense if they truly believe that they are a) about to inflict harm to a human, b) injure or a kill a pet, or c) enter into a building occupied by a person.
From what Topicz says, his situation should have fallen in line with any of those three scenarios.
That’s why Senators in state are fighting for Topicz to have his charges dropped. Senators Eric Berthel, Henri Martin, and Stephen Harding all came together to release this statement pointed towards DEEP:
“The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is not commenting on the case. Why? Has the case been sealed? If so, why? A public statement from DEEP regarding this public safety matter would help resolve confusion and enable us to better communicate with our constituents.”
You can hear more about the story in the local news piece on the matter below:
