Off-duty Cop walks into the wrong apartment after her shift, shoots and kills the man in who lives there. (drugs, attorney)
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The way the apartment and parking lot is set up, and with her just getting off of a very long shift, she thought she was on the floor that her apartment is on. All floors look exactly alike in the corridors. That's what she's claiming the reason for her mistake was. Extremely tired from just working a very long shift. The apartment she ended up going into by mistake was on a different story directly above or below her apartment.
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Originally Posted by FC76-81
I agree. If she had simply retreated back out of the apartment, she may have then realized outside of the apartment that she's on the wrong floor, or at best at the wrong apartment. Instead she took out her weapon and commenced to firing away.
The other issue she's got is they say she had shot someone during a traffic stop in 2017. If that's true, sounds like she's a real hot head with a short fuse.
I've been dead tired from working multiple jobs at a time. The biggest "mistake" I made was putting my aluminum foil in the refrigerator, and my newly wrapped left overs in the cupboard. Never once have I walked into the wrong apartment, no matter how tired I've been.
She is also not an every day citizen. She is a trained police officer. It is part of their job to be keenly observant of their surroundings. It doesn't matter if all the parking lots and hallways look the same, the numbers are right next to each apartment in big font, brightly lit up, and there was a red rug right in front of the door. Even if she didn't look down, she should have felt the difference beneath her feet, if not tripped on an edge since she didn't have one in front of hers.
As for the door being ajar - again, those are heavy fire doors. They do not stay open unless the occupant specifically props them open. They don't just hang open, partially, with nothing holding it open. That was demonstrated many, many, many pages back via video of the complex showing the doors and the key locks and how they both work.
IF the door was propped open, that's when she should have called for back up instead of barging in, waving her firearm around. If she was too damn tired to know where the hell she was, she's too damn tired to be pulling her weapon.
If I were on that jury, and her defense was: "I didn't know where I was" and "I was really tired", I'd find her guilty of murder.
Castle Doctrine - She was not in her own home, does the law apply if you merely believe that you are?
Stand Your Ground - Protects a person when they are in a place they have a legal right to be - she had no legal right to enter Botham's apartment, once again is mere believe enough to override reality?
LMAO
Fascinating legal questions. I'm not sure why the laws should protect someone who simply has some strange belief that they own the place where someone else lives.
I was talking with a friend of mine who lives in Texas just the other day and we went over all of this in great depth. I think she's completely in the wrong and should be tried, convicted and sentenced accordingly. My friend in Texas on the other hand has an opinion about it much like yours. Though my friend didn't have the idea that any of it could be justified as self defense. This shooting, Self Defense? That's the most ridiculous thing I've read so far. The only person who should be using the self defense argument is if the guy who got killed actually had a gun and shot her dead when she came into his apartment.
My friend's argument is that if they try to convict her of murder, the jury may not come to that conclusion. If they fail to convict her of murder, she will walk then because they won't be able to come back and try her again for the same incident for the lesser manslaughter or reckless homicide conviction. I completely disagree with all of this. I think she should be tried with appropriate verdict and go to prison for long time. But that's just me. Yes, it was a terrible mistake she made, but she walked into his home and killed him. No excuse for that. Yes, she has an excuse for going into the wrong apartment. No excuse for shooting him dead because of her going into his apartment and not hers.
Unfortunately, the way the Texas law is written, if the shooter consciously pulled the trigger with the intention of releasing a bullet at another person, then it's either murder or self-defense.
It is an asburd argument, you're right. Self-defense could not possibly apply here. She was never threatened or attacked! If I opened the door to my home and saw a strange, unarmed person inside, I'd run outside and call 911. I wouldn't shoot the person, even if I thought they were a burglar. I know that not all burglars want to attack or murder someone, they may just want to steal. She had a grand opportunity to simply walk back out of that apartment. However, she chose to shoot him dead instead of walking out.
In Texas, if you opened the door of your own apartment and saw a strange--but unarmed--person inside and shot him, it would be self-defense. It's unlikely the case would even go to trial.
I predict that she will walk, Texas has some crazy self defense laws, plus we have a white cop shooter and black victim and we all know how that usually works out.
If you can break into someone's home, issue verbal commands, shoot someone for failing to respond and claim that you were defending your own life that is some crazy chit.
If she walks the whole country should riot. That will mean that a cop can break into a house, shoot the actual occupant and still claim that it was a good shoot. If you can justify the murder of an innocent man in their own home, there is literally nothing that a cop can't get away with.
That's happened numerous times across the country. Elderly people have been shot and killed lying in their own beds. The police always walk away free.
Oh and how do you accidentally barge into somebody else's apartment and still not realize you were in the wrong apartment as soon as you saw the interior?
Anybody that much of an airhead shouldn't be a cop in the first place. (Makes you wonder how that even happened.)
A possibility is that she was fast-tracked like that other cop who ended up shooting the unarmed woman who had called them to report a sexual assault taking place. You know the one, she was out talking to the responding police when the officer sitting in the car shot her point blank. Yeah, that one. Maybe she was fast-tracked into the force like he was. You know they have to keep up with those specific quotas.
Oh and how do you accidentally barge into somebody else's apartment and still not realize you were in the wrong apartment as soon as you saw the interior?
I think the argument is that she didn't bother turning on lights, so in turn didn't notice. I'm guessing if this is what is being argued, the light she needed to see the guy was coming from the hallway through the open front door or street lights through the windows. Or, if she had time to pull her weapon, she may have also had time to pull out a flashlight and shine it at him before firing. Anyone have any ideas on this?
Unfortunately, the way the Texas law is written, if the shooter consciously pulled the trigger with the intention of releasing a bullet at another person, then it's either murder or self-defense.
To be convicted of manslaughter, a defendant must be proven beyond reasonable doubt to have recklessly caused the death of another person. As opposed to murder, intent does not need to be proven in order to convict someone of manslaughter.
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