A Texas man who shot and killed two men he suspected of burglarising his neighbour's home has been cleared by a grand jury.
Joe Horn, 61, shot the two men in November after he saw them crawling out the windows of a neighbour's house in the Houston suburb of Pasadena.
Horn called authorities and told the emergency dispatcher he had a shotgun and was going to kill the men. The dispatcher pleaded with him not to go outside, but Horn confronted the men with a 12-gauge shotgun and shot both in the back.
"The message we're trying to send today is the criminal justice system works," Harris County district attorney Kenneth Magidson said.
Horn's lawyer, Tom Lambright, has said his client believed the two men had broken into his neighbour's home and he shot them only when they came into his yard and threatened him.
The suspected burglars, Hernando Riascos Torres, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, were unemployed illegal immigrants from Colombia. Torres was deported to Colombia in 1999 after a 1994 cocaine-related conviction.
The episode touched off protests from civil rights activists who said the shooting was racially motivated and Horn took the law into his own hands.
Horn's supporters defended his actions, saying he was protecting himself and being a good neighbour to a homeowner who was out of town.
"I understand the concerns of some in the community regarding Mr Horn's conduct," Magidson said.
"The use of deadly force is carefully limited in Texas law to certain circumstances ... In this case, however, the grand jury concluded that Mr Horn's use of deadly force did not rise to a criminal offence."
Texas law allows people to use deadly force to protect themselves if it is reasonable to believe they are in mortal danger.
In limited circumstances, people also can use deadly force to protect a neighbour's property; for example, if a homeowner asks a neighbour to watch over his property while he's out of town.
It is not clear whether the neighbour whose home was burglarised asked Horn to watch over his house.