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"who pose no immediate threat to you ornyour family?" You are making a BIG assumption.
IF you wait for some on to shoot at you before you shoot them, Poul probable WON'T get the chance to shoot them.
There has been very little talk about why the mother, who KNEW her son was tubular, let him out of the house at 2 in the morning at 12 YEARS OLD.
And I just love her statement that she knew he had committed several robberies but, "Never carried a gun". How in the hell does she know he never carried. She didn't even know where he was and what he was doing.
I kind of feel for the mother in this situation. She has eight kids and her husband died of stomach cancer a couple of years ago. Maybe this kid was acting out because his dad died and he was angry. My dad died too young, and my little brother was angry. Now, he didn't go robbing houses, but he also didn't live in the 'hood and surrounded by kids who did stuff like that. If he had, who knows what type of mischief he would have got into. My stepmother was deep in grief at that time, and I doubt she would have even noticed what her son was up to.
Still, the kid should have known that going into someone's locked backyard at 2AM could result in the owner shooting him. It's a sad case. It should be a wake-up call to him and his little buddies that what they're doing is dangerous. They have more to worry about than going to juvie.
Because he has stolen from multiple homes already and was in someone's locked backyard at 2 am. His own brother indicates that he was a kid with major problems living the normal, legal, productive life of a child his age and they were having difficulties getting him under control. Most people would agree the term punk applies to such a youth.
A nonviolent burglar how quaint. Now the inevitable comparisons to Trayvon. Ironically enough when Zimmerman forst called 911 he observed Trayvon looking into homes just like this little thief.
See if he did racially profile maybe the kid wouldn't be on life support. Profile people.
A little different than the Zimmerman case (it appears from this information).
It appears (from the story) that the teen was not threatening the life of the home owner. Therefore there would have been no reason to shoot him.
If I caught someone who had broken into my house (we have 3 12g combat load shotguns positioned around the house-already loaded and ready to go) and was stealing items, I would let them take what they had and simply demand that they leave. Who cares about "stuff"? It is not worth killing or dying over material things.
What is wrong with these gun idiots? Why couldn't he have warned him and fired a shot in the air?
JC
I'm not agreeing with the homeowner's decision to shoot this kid, but statements like this one always make me laugh. I'm guessing that the "gun idiots" understand the age old wisdom of "what goes up, must come down." You don't REALLY think that it's preferable to fire randomly into the air, letting the bullet fall down where and on whom chance dictates, do you?
Yes that is indeed all he was doing at that point. No matter what his previous history was, at the point when he was shot this child had not done anything illegal except jump the fence to intrude on the homeowner's property. The homeowner didn't know any of this 14-year-old's past history of theft, so that didn't enter into his decision to shoot the child in the head.
It is a legal shoot in Texas. Entering someones property at night is considered the immediate assumption of criminal mischief and lethal force is justified. If it were daytime, then there would need to be a proper escalation of force up to lethal, but not at night.
As for "all he did was intrude on the homeowners property". Well... consider this. You said "the homeowner didn't know his criminal history", correct... he didn't. He didn't know if he was a murder, a rapist, child molester, etc... The homeowner has no idea the intentions of him. He doesn't know if he is armed, planning to attack, rob, beat, kill, etc... What he does know is that this person jumped a fence to enter his property in the middle of the night.
If you are wondering, why this is a legal shoot in Texas. It is because the burden to identify the offenders motive is considered an endangerment of the property owner when it is at night because as I said, there is no reasonable means of a person being on someone elses property in the middle of the night. It is common sense you don't do that and it is dangerous.
The homeowner in this story is "legally" at fault because of their state laws (well, I haven't read their law there, but I don't think it is as specific as Texas). The homeowner should have been clear on the laws of the state in what he can do. He is guilty of negligence on that point alone, but as I said, in Texas, this is a legal shoot.
He was in a locked backed yard. How do you think he got there?
I don't think it matters. Even if the homeowner had the technical legal right to shoot (and I don't know whether he did or not, in this case) don't you think that he had an obligation to understand the situation and use some judgement here, that could have gotten the kid off his property without killing him? Yes, the kid had climbed the fence to get into his yard, and sure, the kid may have had bad intentions, but the homeowner, locked in his house with a gun and a dog, had options other than shooting the kid. The legal right to shoot is not an obligation to do so.
Guess the old man should have just let this thug attack him and murder him instead of defending his property with deadly force...what a f'ed up society we live in.Blame the victim aka the home owner and not the criminal.
The "cocktail" to which you refer requires another, essential, ingredient: Codiene, which was not in Trayvon's possession. Trayvon did not have a history of breaking into houses. He was on suspension from school, as are thousands of students across the country on a daily basis.
Trayvon was a 17 year old black teen being followed by a skinhead in the deep south. He had every reason to be afraid for his safety. The fact that Zimmerman tracked him by car and on foot is in itself threatening. I am a woman and I certainly would have felt threatened if a strange, shaved headed man followed me by car and on foot on a dark and rainy night.
So, you are wrong, anyone with common sense would have felt threatened by Zimmerman's behavior on that night. Trayvon was not on drugs, he had nothing to hide, he was not a violent thug, he was just walking home. Nothing would have happened to either Trayvon or Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had just stayed in his truck, as he was requested to do.
Oh, where to address the lies you've stated above. Firstly, where is any proof that Zimmerman was a skinhead? Sanford, Florida is hardly the deep south. Trayvon did have stolen property and burglary tools in his possession. Trayvon was walking home, but doubled back to confront Zimmerman. And he attacked Zimmerman, which makes him violent.
The biggest lie of all is that Trayvon was not on drugs. YES he was.
Zimmerman had every right to get out of his truck in his neighborhood. What exactly is the point of neighborhood watch type organizations if they must ignore people of color? Which is what I'm seeing here - Trayvon should have been allowed to walk around unhindered because he was black. That is racist.
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