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Road rage incident escalated to a life-or-death situation when the man involved followed a woman into the Food Lion parking lot and attempted to forcibly enter her vehicle. Raleigh PD not filing charges, citing that the shooting was consistent with the Castle Doctrine laws in NC.
Road rage incident escalated to a life-or-death situation when the man involved followed a woman into the Food Lion parking lot and attempted to forcibly enter her vehicle. Raleigh PD not filing charges, citing that the shooting was consistent with the Castle Doctrine laws in NC.
It just reaffirms my decision to carry a firearm. The woman lawfully protected herself. This is a textbook example of the Castle Doctrine just like they teach in the CHP class.
You are not in imminent danger sitting in a closed and locked car, but you will have no time to react if the door is yanked open.
I am really on the fence with this one. It feels like a bad shoot because the door was locked and the window was intact, but I really can't tell the violence with which the man was attacking her door. It could have been justified.
I am glad I don't have to make the call on this shoot. I would need video to decide either way. Did he grab her door handle and just shout at her or was he beating hell out of the window while yanking on the handle like a wild man?
With nothing to go by, I would have to say, "no prosecution/good shoot" but I am not really comfortable making a call either way with what is in the article. Your car is your "castle" but you really have to be in fear for your life, not just rattled. I kind of wish she had just scooted over and brandished the gun, hoping he backed off. If the window broke or the door came open, then yes fire away.
This woman did what she was supposed to do, she got off the road and got to a well populated area to hopefully de-escalate the situation. Regardless of how anyone feels the police did an investigation which I guarantee included reviewing store cameras in the shopping center and came to the conclusion they did. I'm not a firearm owner and don't really want to be but if it's good for the police and DA it's good for me. If she did all the things before that to help him get control of himself and leave, it's all on him. One does wonder if he saw the firearm before she shot and decided to keep going on trying to get at her.
According to the castle doctrine as soon as he touched her door handle she was good to go. Guess he didn't know that.
It depends, and I think that's the position of the Wake County DA's office too.
If a guy who had been engaging in road rage (hostile intent) ran up to her car and tried to open the door, I can't blame the woman for shooting him. If there are witnesses or video to that effect, open and shut. If there are no witnesses and the guy's fingerprints are on the car door or there is other evidence that the guy was trying to enter the car, then the woman's testimony is all that the police and the DA have to go on as long as the woman's testimony is credible. If there are no fingerprints and no substantiation of prior road rage by a witness and the woman's testimony was inconsistent, that's different.
One version of the story circulating in the neighborhood says she shot him in the back. The plot thickens. He might have still been at the car door and simply twisted to avoid being shot. No issue there. But suppose the guy tried to open the car door, saw her gun, immediately backed away 20 feet with his hands in the air, and turned his back to walk away, and then she shot him. Applying the Castle Doctrine now gets tricky because you're into a "continuation" scenario where it's arguable whether the woman still has a reasonable belief that she is in imminent peril. Suppose further that she pursued him for 50 feet and then shot him. (The version of the story circulating in the neighborhood says she emptied the clip in her gun.) I don't know how that one plays with the DA or a jury for that matter.
But a story circulating in the neighborhood doesn't mean that's the way it went down. For all we know, the guy was visibly armed with a gun or a knife, and in that case the woman has more leeway to use deadly force. The facts that have been publicized could fit with a hundred different scenarios. In the absence of further evidence, I believe the RPD and the DA's office made the right call.
Last edited by wizard-xyzzy; 08-04-2023 at 02:36 PM..
Road rage incident escalated to a life-or-death situation when the man involved followed a woman into the Food Lion parking lot and attempted to forcibly enter her vehicle. Raleigh PD not filing charges, citing that the shooting was consistent with the Castle Doctrine laws in NC.
I don't understand how anyone is even near the fence on this one. Easy call to make.
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