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I wasn't aiming my comment at you necessarily (or at all for that matter). But any opinion formed based on a crumb of information is poorly formed no matter how moderate it may be.
Well the news media tends to trickle out bits of information in the format of crumbs, and I doubt you or I can change that.
Every opinion that gets posted to this forum, on this topic or every other, is worth exactly what you pay for it (zilch).
The story has been updated which provide a few key facts:
1. The person who was shot was engaging in illegal drug activity, and according to his friend had taken off running because he thought the police were coming.
2. Bloody gauze, broken glass, etc was located on the homeowners property, indicating the person was trespassing when shot.
3. Glass from the car window was on the homeowners driveway, which means in addition to illegal drug use, evading law enforcement, trespassing, and disturbing the peace, whoever parked the car there had violated city of Raleigh distance from driveway ordinance.
4. Given the evidence that's known today, it seems plausible that the homeowner may have thought the party goer was charging toward him, when in fact he intended to cut through the yard to evade police?
Either way this is NOT racking up as a first degree murder case. If this is the charge the prosecution pursues, they will most likely lose. There are at least four illegal activities the fallen party goer was involved in here. The homeowner is trying to get a good nights sleep.
By law everyone engaging in criminal activity in those circumstances that night is just as responsible for murder as the puller of the trigger.
The story has been updated which provide a few key facts:
1. The person who was shot was engaging in illegal drug activity, and according to his friend had taken off running because he thought the police were coming.
2. Bloody gauze, broken glass, etc was located on the homeowners property, indicating the person was trespassing when shot.
3. Glass from the car window was on the homeowners driveway, which means in addition to illegal drug use, evading law enforcement, trespassing, and disturbing the peace, whoever parked the car there had violated city of Raleigh distance from driveway ordinance.
4. Given the evidence that's known today, it seems plausible that the homeowner may have thought the party goer was charging toward him, when in fact he intended to cut through the yard to evade police?
Either way this is NOT racking up as a first degree murder case. If this is the charge the prosecution pursues, they will most likely lose. There are at least four illegal activities the fallen party goer was involved in here. The homeowner is trying to get a good nights sleep.
By law everyone engaging in criminal activity in those circumstances that night is just as responsible for murder as the puller of the trigger.
Perhaps the homeowner would have thought none of these things if he'd been indoors at such a late hour and waiting for police to arrive?
Just a thought.
He'd already CALLED THE POLICE.
You cannot do Community Watch with a loaded gun, firing "warning shots" into groups of people, I don't care what they are up to that late at night at the end of the driveway and/or in the street.
Maybe they won't get him with first degree murder, but he murdered someone who does not appear to have been planning to murder him or harm him physically in any way.
We cannot take things like "dude seems to have been buying or selling some pot" and turn that into "deserved to be shot down."
Please feel free to disagree with me, but even with the extra info you posted here, it still sounds like this homeowner was in the wrong.
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3. Glass from the car window was on the homeowners driveway, which means in addition to illegal drug use, evading law enforcement, trespassing, and disturbing the peace, whoever parked the car there had violated city of Raleigh distance from driveway ordinance.
Look at pictures 6 and 7 in the article. The broken glass is the garage window. It looks like he fired out of a closed garage through a window, hitting somebody running to a car out at the street because he didn't want to caught with some weed.
Perhaps the homeowner would have thought none of these things if he'd been indoors at such a late hour and waiting for police to arrive?
Just a thought.
He'd already CALLED THE POLICE.
You cannot do Community Watch with a loaded gun, firing "warning shots" into groups of people, I don't care what they are up to that late at night at the end of the driveway and/or in the street.
Maybe they won't get him with first degree murder, but he murdered someone who does not appear to have been planning to murder him or harm him physically in any way.
We cannot take things like "dude seems to have been buying or selling some pot" and turn that into "deserved to be shot down."
Please feel free to disagree with me, but even with the extra info you posted here, it still sounds like this homeowner was in the wrong.
Exactly, the whole thing sounds like George Zimmerman 2.0 if you ask me.
Perhaps the homeowner would have thought none of these things if he'd been indoors at such a late hour and waiting for police to arrive?
We cannot take things like "dude seems to have been buying or selling some pot" and turn that into "deserved to be shot down." Please feel free to disagree with me, but even with the extra info you posted here, it still sounds like this homeowner was in the wrong.
I didn't say anything like your quotes so if looking to debate that, it will need to be with someone else.
I've been talking about the law as it applies to situations where criminals were committing a less serious crime which resulted in an unintentional more serious crime. In other situations the law has said those criminals were just as guilty as murder. This would mean anyone involved in the situation that was breaking the law (including people inside who may have been engaging in illegal activity) are by law just as guilty of murder.
So unless we are making unreasonable exceptions based on subjective evaluations of circumstance, the law that applies to some cases must also apply to others.
If we don't like the law, we can lobby to change it, but we can't make up laws on the fly to suit our individual preferences or emotional response to trendy belief structures or whatever.
Looking at everything we have right now, I believe the homeowner was definitely in the wrong. I don't like the idea of paranoid homeowners firing willy nilly into the night any more than I like the idea of drugged up partiers running around the neighborhood screaming profanities, running from the cops etc.
But apparently some others were in the wrong too, and by law, some of them may be just as eligible for murder charges as the homeowner.
Just because someone is dead doesn't mean they should be completely absolved of all responsibility for their death, especially if they were committing multiple crimes that lead to their death, even if indirectly.
"They were showing a firearm, so I fired a warning shot, and somebody got hit." - the homeowner
There's no such thing as a warning shot. No one should ever fire a warning shot. This is probably why he's being charged with murder. If he had truly been in fear for his life, he would have shot with intent to kill.
Ding! First thing I thought when I read the article yesterday. That guys is the epitome of "dumb". One of my colleagues thinks he can shoot someone trying to steal his car as they are driving away. I explained that's not the case and he was just so dumb he tried to tell me it would be self defense over and over again despite how many statutes and cases I cited. I got up and walked away. Some people are just dumb, and usually the more kids they have the dumber they are....
Exactly, the whole thing sounds like George Zimmerman 2.0 if you ask me.
Zimmerman was patrolling the neighborhood on foot, as a self-assigned armed guard. But he was also physically attacked and had reason to defend himself.
There is another case that occurred a few years back that reminded me more of this than the Zimmerman case. It involved a homeowner that actually left his garage door open on purpose, hiding in the shadows with a shotgun, baiting the local kids to steal something (and he killed one of them). Now THAT was premeditated.
I thought this case was going to be similar to that at first, but the circumstances are quite different.
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