Bells:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/19/acd.01.html
"Move, you're dead."
Horn saw two criminals committing a felony and entering his property. He is well within his rights to place them under citizen's arrest, and shoot them if they don't comply (which they clearly didn't, as they attempted to break and run). This is confirmed by the grand jury clearing him.
Which makes me question what society is coming to that it is deemed acceptable to shoot someone who is fleeing in the back because of a few possessions that belongs to someone else.
From
that transcript, he had no intention of making a citizen's arrest or making them stop. His sole intention was to kill them if your link is anything to go by:
911 OPERATOR: You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun. I don't care what you think.
HORN: You want to make a bet? I'm going to kill them.
911 OPERATOR: OK? Stay in the house.
He ignored 13 demands from the dispatcher to stay inside his house:
On September 1, Texas strengthened a law giving civil immunity to people who defend themselves with deadly force, not only in their homes, but in their cars and workplaces. But this was a neighbor's house, and the 911 operator warned Horn 13 times during the call to stay inside his home.
So it's acceptable to disobey the orders of law enforcement personnel? Even after he was apparently warned that there were plain clothed police officers in the area?
He had -- warned repeatedly not to use his -- not to go out and use his gun. He's told that these there -- there are non-uniform, there are plainclothes officers in the area. And he takes a shotgun out there, which sprays, you know, shot all over the place.
----------------------------------------------------
KING: You mentioned the -- the operator at the top. The operator was one cool customer.
TOOBIN: Right.
KING: He repeatedly said, don't go out is there, sir, repeatedly said, there are police officers out there, repeatedly said, don't get your gun. Do not do it.
That's acceptable, is it?
Here is the thing and others just don't seem to understand. Yes, he is allowed to defend himself against a threat. But tell me, do you think they were threatening him as they attempted to run
away from him? They weren't running towards him. They were running away from him. He shot them in the back as they tried to flee. So how exactly is their running in away from him threatening to his self and property? By his own words in the transcript posted by madant in the OP, he admitted they were trying to run down towards the road, again, away from him. They ceased being a threat when they turned and ran.
His sole intention from his words to the dispatcher and from his actions was to kill them. And he did so. Now just what kind of precedent will this set? The Castle Doctrine is supposed to mean protecting yourself, your family, your own property, car and business. They posed no threat to any of those that belonged to Mr Horn since they were running away from him when he shot them in the back.
As the commentator in your own link states. It's Texas. You can't really expect anything better.
I wonder though whether the public would have been as forgiving if it were police officers who shot a fleeing suspect in the back when said suspect posed no threat to himself or anyone else in the immediate area.