BB gun bluff.

On September 9, Jessica Shafford was alone in the home that she shares with her boyfriend in Bath Township, Ohio. At around 2:30 p.m., she was relaxing in the living room when she heard a vehicle stop nearby. She saw two men get out of a pickup truck and walk toward the house. They peered through a window, apparently to scrutinize the property. Then one went to the rear of the residence and began removing a window screen.

"I panicked," Shafford recalled for the September 11 Dayton Daily News. "I thought I had to get them away from the house." Since the most formidable weapon at hand was her boyfriend's BB gun, she retrieved it, then went to the window and pointed the airgun at the man who was trying to remove the screen. When she sternly ordered him to leave, both he and his accomplice "ran back to the truck and drove away."

Greene County Sheriff's Major Eric Prindle told the newspaper that Shafford had acted appropriately under the circumstances, considering the resources she had at hand.