By: Shawn Vincent

On the afternoon of June 27, 2017, in rural Greenwood, Indiana, off-duty Indianapolis firefighter Dean Keller, 49, shot his neighbor, Jeffrey Weigle, 59, four times in the chest across the fence separating their backyards. The two men had been in open conflict for eight years. Johnson County Sheriff’s Office records held sixteen prior police reports involving the pair, going back to 2009—disputes over loose dogs, motorcycle noise, firecrackers, fence ties cut and re-tied, broom-swinging, a fork-stabbing, and a 2011 fight that left Keller with bite marks and Weigle with a stab wound to his arm. Both men had been arrested before. Both had been charged before. Neither had ever been willing to walk away.

 

Keller had installed a security camera with audio at the property line. On the afternoon of June 27, that camera captured Weigle approaching the fence, hurling insults at Keller and his wife, adjusting some part of the fence, then driving off on his riding lawnmower. As Keller stepped over to inspect what his neighbor had done, the lawnmower reversed back into frame. Weigle pulled a revolver from his pocket and pointed it skyward. Keller drew his pistol and fired. Multiple rounds went out, four of which struck Weigle in the chest. Weigle fell off the mower. Keller kept firing after Weigle was on the ground. Weigle attempted to return fire. After the shooting stopped, Weigle stood up, hurled one final insult, and walked back into the house.

 

Weigle survived, spent nearly a month in the hospital, and was transferred to a rehab facility before he was eventually booked into the Johnson County jail. Prosecutor Brad Cooper charged Weigle—not Keller—with criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon. “Given the aggression shown by Weigle … it was reasonable for Keller to believe deadly force was necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to himself and/or his wife, who was standing nearby,” Cooper’s office wrote. The decision to decline charges against Keller, Cooper said, “was a simple application of Indiana law and should not be looked upon as condoning the behavior of either party.”

 

It was simple because of the video. Without that footage, the question of who drew first would have been disputed, the eight-year history of conflict would have weighed against Keller’s credibility, and a statement Weigle’s roommate had given to police—that Keller had previously threatened to kill Weigle “one day”—would have surfaced as evidence of motive. Keller was also lucky that Weigle survived. A homicide invites more scrutiny than a non-fatal shooting, and prosecutors often feel more pressure to file charges. 

Lessons for Armed Defenders

Avoid the fight (Lesson #36)

By the time Weigle drew his revolver, the Keller-Weigle feud had been festering for eight years and generated sixteen separate police reports. The neighbors had bitten, stabbed, kicked, and yelled at each other through more than a dozen documented incidents. The pretext for many self-defense encounters often begins long before the defender pulls the trigger. Over the course of years, Keller had countless chances to ignore, disengage, or reconcile with the man on the other side of the fence. The shooting was the consequence of declining all of them.

 

Don’t say foolish things (Lesson #33)

Long before the shooting, Weigle’s roommate told police that Keller had threatened to kill Weigle “one day.” That kind of statement, made in anger to a bystander years earlier, becomes prosecutorial gold the moment the speaker actually shoots the person they threatened. Without the security video, Cooper’s charging decision might have come down to whether a jury believed Keller drew first or second, and a documented prior death threat would have weighed heavily against him. An armed defender’s history of statements about the people around them, including casual threats made in anger, can become evidence of their mindset on the day of a self-defense shooting.

Don’t shoot AFTER the threat is over (Lesson #7)

The video shows Keller continuing to fire after Weigle fell off the riding mower. Steve Moses says, “We teach our students not to shoot faster than one-half second between rounds. You see a lot of guys who can put five rounds on a seven-inch bull in a second, but if you shoot that fast in real life, the attacker could give up, surrender, or drop their gun, and the defender might not have time to respond.” Keller fired faster than he could assess. Don West says, “Even if the first shots are justified, it still matters if the last shots were justified.” If one of those later rounds had struck Weigle while he was on the ground, this case might have been a murder prosecution.

Get firearms and self-defense training (Lesson #2)

Steve Moses teaches his students to “fire and assess”—to break the trigger pulls into deliberate units rather than emptying the magazine in a continuous burst. The shooter who fires and assesses can stop firing when the threat falls, drops the weapon, or gives up. The shooter who empties the magazine cannot. Speed on the range is a shooting skill. Speed under stress, without the discipline to evaluate between rounds, is a legal liability. The difference between a defender who stops shooting because the fight is over and one who stops shooting because there is nothing left in the magazine could be the difference between a survivor and a convict. 

You’re responsible for every bullet (Lesson #35)

Keller fired roughly multiple rounds along a residential property line. His wife was standing nearby. The neighborhood was in clear view of homes, yards, and the road that ran past both properties. The legal standard is not whether a defender intended a stray round to strike a bystander; it is whether the defender accounted for what was downrange of the threat. A justified self-defense claim does not absolve the defender of civil liability for an errant shot, and it does not erase the moral weight of an unintended casualty. The more rounds in the air, the larger the exposure—and the more chances a fortunate outcome can turn into an unrecoverable one.