A father from Phoenix killed a man who had tried to get into a bathroom stall being used by his daughter, and now he is behind bars. Forty-year-old Melvin Harris was booked on a charge of second-degree homicide for the man's death.
But according to Diana Jackson, Harris' fiancee, he was simply protecting his daughter. "I'm not mad at him. I don't feel like he did anything wrong. I love him. He did what he was supposed to do for our kid. You cannot tell someone they're wrong for protecting their children," said Jackson.
Jackson has not seen her fiancee for the past 11 days since he was imprisoned, according to azfamily.com.
She says that Harris was picking up their 16-year-old daughter, who had just gotten off work, along with two of her friends. On their way home, Harris' daughter asked him to stop at the QuikTrip convenience store on 19th Avenue and Dunlap Avenue to use the facilities and buy soda. It was then that a man came barging in and started shaking the stall door trying to get to the teenager. Authorities later identified the man as Leon Leevon Armstrong.
"The only thing that goes through my mind is, what would he have got in? (sic)," said Jackson.
While Harris and his daughter told employees as well as the security guard at the store about what happened, the father felt they did not do enough to hold the individual accountable, according to Jackson.
As things got heated, Harris reportedly told the security guard to "take care of the situation, or he would do it himself", according to court documents. "If you know there's a known problem, why not fix it before it got that far?" asked Jackson. However, there was no significant response from them. When Harris started driving away from the store, he spotted Armstrong on the road and stopped the car to confront him.
The enraged father kicked, stomped, and beat the man to a pulp, according to witnesses.
According to police documents, Harris admitted to authorities that he had punched Armstrong in the face. However, he contended that it was Armstrong who swung at him first. The victim succumbed to his injuries later at the hospital. He sustained a nasal fracture, a brain swelling, and loss of oxygen, according to a police report. "I would have done the same thing. I don't feel bad at all for his actions. I feel bad that the man ended up dying in the process. I do," said Jackson.
The father was subsequently charged with second-degree murder, leaving Jackson wondering whether she'll ever see her fiance again. "But now he's a criminal for protecting his child? That's not fair. It's not," she said.
Currently, Harris is being held in jail on a $100,000 bond. That said, Armstrong had been previously charged with trespassing, obstructing police, as well as shoplifting.
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