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Interesting, so Barajas has not confessed. The one and only witness was not close enough to see if Barajas had a weapon in his hand and no weapon has been found. And, after two months the tests haven't come back on the gun residue (that's a little weird). We really have few facts to go on, for all we know they were all a bunch of gang bangers. However, I suspect the jury will go easy on Barajas and give him the benefit of the doubt. If he has a prior record or is found lying to the court though, he's toast. Should be an interesting case.
The whole notion that a person's children being murdered is some offense against the state and that the father of those children has no right to justice is one of the absurd notions governments bring us.
The justice you're entitled to involves due process. It's why laws exist. It's why prison exists.
What you're proposing is street justice.
If the driver wasn't impaired there would have been no accident. It rests solely on the drunk's shoulders.
It's reasonable to assume someone else might come along, but it's also reasonable to assume other drivers will be alert.
Maybe Texas is different but up here most non-highway roads can be legally parked on off to the side some. Between that, the potential for night time pedestrians, deer in the road, bicycles, broken down vehicles, drivers are expected to be alert at night. Not drunk.
We don't know that for sure and I think that is the point some are making. Regardless, the person who was drinking placed their ability to avoid such in serious doubt as "most" cases of intoxicated drivers are the result of their incapacitation.
Suppose the driver of the vehicle had had a seizure which caused the accident killing the kids.
Suppose the driver of the vehicle had been suffering from hyperglycemia which caused the accident killing the kids.
If Barajas had shot the driver then would you let him walk? Murdering the victim of an illness?
Well, the father was wrong, period. I hope nobody is arguing the actual action as being justified. Such action while understandable from an emotional position if it were such a nefarious action, the action of taking such immediate means into ones own hands is not acceptable for the very reasons you mention.
OK. Now, lets get something straight, and cut through the modern witch hunt propaganda BS about alcohol levels and this "Twice the Legal Limit" crap, because it is crap, (like Osama Bin Laden hiding in your underwear) since just about every state has reduced legal limits several times over the years, and is now a very low .08, which doesn't even come close to intoxication for most people. The truth is, .08 is 2 drinks for a 120 LB female, and 3 drinks for a 160 LB male. So, there are very few people who can claim never to have driven a car after having two beers, and I don't believe we should incarcerate or execute 90% of the college students in this country who drink well in excess of that several times a week, and likely driving too. OKAY?
When I was growing up, the legal limit was .15 and that was not a difficult number to reach .... nor is it a number that automatically equates to a staggering drunk unable to walk or function, and particularly not for someone who is a frequent weekend club goer/drinker, who's tolerance levels can be extraordinarily high. Back in those days, I can tell you that I drove over today's .08 limit virtually every weekend, for years, and frequently, approaching the .15 (or almost double today's legal limit). There were a few times when I did drive intoxicated, and I was lucky never to have had an incident ... but that .08 number is a joke, as I would drink 3 or 4 drinks before ever leaving the house, just to get a head start on the evening.
Back in those days, the police really were all bout about highway safety and not politics and money and jacking people up! Those police would administer field sobriety tests for people who showed outward signs of being intoxicated ... not those who may have had a couple or three drinks, like is common in today's police state gulag concentration camp. And because the limit has been reduced to such low levels, any indication of alcohol, such as the odor of it, will likely land you in jail, because if you've been drinking anything, you'll likely hit that low level, and they even prosecute DUI as well as DWI, where DUI can be even lower than the .08. It's a scam fraud, and has become a cottage industry all to itself, and it's a real money maker for a lot of people getting a slice of the action, from the high fines for the state, the incentives for police officers like extra days vacation for the most arrests, the lawyers and their fees, and the tow truck drivers and impoundment lots ... and the insurance companies LOVE IT, because a DWI will cost you 5 to 10 Grand or more in just additional insurance premiums. It's one big fracking orgy, and ALL of it is, of course, to protect the public safety, because they love us so much. The truth is, it's a scam, to milk the public like farm animals, much like everything else today.
So, it's gotten so bad now ... and people are so freaking brain washed, that if a person goes out and has a few drinks for the evening .. well, they are terrible people, worse than a hardened criminal. Heck, it's apparently OK to execute them on the side of the road now, according to a number of very deranged individuals here.
God Bless America, the land of the deceived and the home of the depraved!
A nightmare from hell played out before a father's eyes. I do not care about any of the specifics when I think about that. He had a right to kill, he didn't have a right to kill, the alcohol level was over the limt, the alcohol level was not over the limit, the cars lights were out, the car's light were on..what is the difference? The father went berserk, crazy, nuts, insane, whacko, out of his ****ing mind. Maybe he smelled alcohol on the driver and that was the straw that broke his back after witnessing a scene from a horror movie play out starring his sons. I can undertand this man's torment. **** happens and no one including you, really knows what went down right before and after his kids got crushed!
Last edited by sickofnyc; 02-16-2013 at 09:46 PM..
Here's the deal ..... the road was labeled as rural ... and here in Texas, that generally means dark as hell, in the country. Broken down vehicles generally mean that they aren't running, so why would you assume that it did have it's lights on ... or that it would make much of a difference? You do realize that brake lights are designed to alert cars behind you that you are slowing down or stopping because you cannot detect that easily at night, and emergency flashers are there to indicate a vehicle is stopped, because you cannot tell that a vehicle is stopped in the road even if you can see tail lights. Have none of you people driven at night before?
It is pretty much night all the time during the winter in Alaska, not to mention icy. If I cannot stop at the point that my headlights can reach, or I can easily see, I slow down until I reach a speed where I can see what is in front of me AND be able to react if necessary. I have frequently come up behind road-graders, snow plows, ditch divers, and all manner of disabled or slow moving traffic, and I have never yet run into the back of any of them. If the driver cannot react fast enough under the conditions to what they see, they are driving too fast.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GuyNTexas
Have you never driven on dark rural roads at night, and cannot visualize the hazard that a broken down vehicle being pushed could be? Here in Texas, most rural roads have pretty high speed limits, and it's not uncommon at all for single lane roads posted at 55 and even 65 MPH. I usually step that down to 40 or 45 at night, simply in an effort to lessen the possibility of an accident with deer, but that often results in people flying up behind me ... so the issue isn't as simple as people are trying to make it here. You'll be as much of a hazard on such roads by driving too slow ... never mind almost stopped. How fast do you think they could push that truck, anyways?
Just because the speed limit is posted does not mean one must drive at that speed. You step it down at night because the conditions are different than during the day when you can see further. The further you can see, the more time you have to react. I would wager that if you were on the same road at night, you would have been able to react fast enough to avoid a collision, because you drive according to the conditions of the road.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GuyNTexas
Again, the presence of alcohol does not automatically make that the cause of the accident, and frankly, the cause was actually a broken down truck, and the poor decision to push it, instead of getting it safely off the road, and since the house was so close by ... get the family home, and deal with the truck in the morning when it was DAYLIGHT. So try to use some common sense and a little logic ... because most of you all sound like irrational mad dogs attacking a pork chop here, kinda like the mad dog father, who's immediate reaction seemed to be to leave the scene and fetch a pistol, instead of the normal reaction of attending to his family. If that were to happen to me, I would have been paralyzed with shock and terror, and my only concern would have been attending to my injured kids. I would have been incapable of thinking about anything else. Hey, if the father had grabbed the guy and choked him ... that I could see that as an emotional break to the shock ... but he made the conscious decision to go to the house and grab his gun, return, and execute this guy in a very deliberate and cold blooded manner. And you all seem to think he's a rock star for doing it ... which means we're all living on borrowed time, because we are now just one gigantic insane asylum without the locked doors and padded rooms.
The story doesn't offer enough details, so a certain amount of speculation is required to fill in the blanks. Nevertheless, the reality is, it's really not even safe to push broken down vehicles in the roadway in broad daylight, and just crazy to do it at night on a dark road ... and I really cannot even believe that this requires so much explanation. I feel like I've just entered the freaking Twilight zone. What is wrong with you people?
This reminds me of a night I was driving home in the Wash Metro area ... we had just had a blizzard, and the roads were covered in packed snow, which is highly unusual for the area. I was driving on interstate 495, near Tyson's Corner ... the packed snow provided decent traction, I had a 4x4, and so I was moving at about 45 MPG on an open highway. Up ahead, about 300 yards or so, I noticed tail lights ... several pair, and they appeared oddly aligned, but you couldn't tell they were stationary. (This was a very well lit section of the interstate). As I got closer, it became clear that I could see some people standing outside their cars, which alerted me that the cars were indeed stopped, and that's when it was clear that this was a multi-car accident. So I started slowing up, and noticed another car quickly approaching from my rear ... I put on the hazard lights to alert the driver behind me of a problem ahead ... he changed lanes and was coming up along side, so I put my arm out the window, motioning him to slow down ... he keeps going and when he's parallel I even point up ahead, but what does he do? He flipped me the one finger salute, and speeded up past me ... the freaking moron, heading straight at the pile up. And all I could do is pray, but it was looking pretty ugly at that point. So by now I've slowed to about 15 MPH ... he's doing 50-60 .. and by the time this knuckle head realizes it ... he's 30 yards from the pile up, and slams on his brakes. His big Town Car goes sideways, front hitting one car, and his tail end hitting another, and then bounced into two others ... hitting 4 out of the 7 cars in total before coming to a stop. Luckily for the idiots standing out in the middle of the interstate exchanging information like brain dead morons from planet pop tart ... they scurried to the shoulder on foot, and avoided being run over by this clown, because I was blowing my freaking horn at them long before Mr. Moron had gotten to within striking distance. I was now slowed to a crawl, and weaved my way through the pile of cars ... and I told them to get their EFFING god damned cars off to the shoulder, before their fender benders became fatalities, and then I pulled along side the Town Car moron, and gave him the finger, and told him what a moronic azz he was, and then I left, because I didn't want to get wrapped up with these clowns, with more traffic likely to come along.
So what's the moral to this story? We're living neck deep in a sea of idiocy, and people do not possess basic common sense anymore ... that was 30 years ago, and it's only worse now. The other part of the story here is that even on a well lit interstate 4 lanes wide, vehicles stopped in the middle of it are an extreme hazard, that you cannot readily detect them being stopped. The tail lights look like regular traffic until you get close, so on a single lane rural road in the dark, it's a disaster waiting to happen ... drunk or sober, it's still a disastrous thing to do being in the middle of a dark road at night, pushing a freaking truck.
If you still don't get that, you won't get much.
I agree, and will not judge the kid based upon whether or not he was drunk until their is a toxicology report. Then we will know whether or not alcohol was a contributing factor. I would, however, also add youth and inexperience into the cause of this tragedy.
Having been in a similar situation, I can understand the father's state of mind. He was in shock, and people react differently. I would not be surprised if he did not remember what happened immediately after the accident for several hours. You just go numb.
Of course not. They are drunk, they are not going to be doing much calculating of anything. Nevertheless, they are behind the wheel of a deadly weapon and are responsible for the actions they take. This would be no different than if he used a firearm on the two boys. I do not know Texas law, but in Alaska, they would be charged with manslaughter. Furthermore, the adult who sold or gave the 20 year-old booze in the first place would also be charged.
I had a similar event happen to me. A friend of mine and I were walking back home from a park, when a drunk driver swerved off the road and struck my friend head-on doing about 45 mph, clipping me with the passenger-side mirror. My friend was thrown about 50 feet in front of the sedan into the middle of the road. The sedan end up in the ditch.
I ran over to help my friend, but when I picked up his left arm to take his pulse, his arm separated from his socket and came out of his short-sleeved shirt. There was very little blood, but I knew he was dead. I heard the sedan try to pull out of the ditch, and I turned around, picked up the biggest rock I could find, and threw it through the driver's side window. When I picked up another rock to throw, the sedan stopped trying to back out of the ditch.
I do not know how long I stood there. I never called the police or ambulance, but someone apparently did, because the next thing I remember is it was dark, raining, and there were police everywhere, and I was still holding a rock. I did not even know that my arm had been broken when he clipped me until the next morning.
I never did find out what happened to the driver of the sedan, I do not even know if it was a female or male, and I did not care.
Yes, and should be licensed as such just like guns are.
I know what a crime of passion is. The father deserves to be sentenced and jailed.
The father is not a danger to society. You just want to lock him away out of spite, not because society needs protection from him. The drunk was an obvious danger to society and we're better off with one less drunk driver who would have been given a slap on the wrist and would have killed again.
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