Intruder killed by Columbia club owner

[Walter_Bowman]

Intruder killed by Columbia club owner
Published Fri, Aug 8, 2003
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A club owner shot and killed an intruder who broke into his business, authorities say.
Harold Thomas Weed, 21, was shot in the face early Thursday morning inside The Foxhole club, authorities said.

Club owner Leslie G. Snider, 58, told Richland County deputies he was getting ready to close the club when he heard someone kick in a side door, sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Chris Cowan said.

Snider told deputies he never spoke to Weed before firing one shot, Cowan said.

Weed was on parole for two aggravated assault convictions in September 2002, prosecutor John Meadors said.

http://www.beaufortgazette.com/state_news/regional/story/2760908p-2559394c.html

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. Colombia: 130 trade union murders in 1 year

I wonder if this had something to do with a labor dispute?

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=13



From the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF):

With great sorrow and anger we inform you of the murder of another officer of the Colombian rural workers union SINTRAINAGRO. Juan de Jesús Gómez, president of the local SINTRAINAGRO organization of Minas, in the municipality of San Martín, Cesar department, was gunned down on May 1 in the city of San Alberto.

SINTRAINAGRO, in an official release, has stated that his murder can only benefit employers hostile to collective bargaining with workers and their trade union organizations.

Gómez and the union he led had been seeking unsuccessfully to get the palm oil company Palmas del Cesar S.A. to the negotiating table.

Despite the union's declared willingness to negotiate compromises on issues concerning productivity and the organization of work, the company management had rejected all negotiations and was instead firing SINTRAINAGRO members and bribing others to leave the union.

SINTRAINAGRO's requests to meet with the government ministry for social protection in connection with the conflict had all gone unanswered.

The murder of Jesús Gómez brings to over 130 the number of union leaders murdered in Colombia over the past year. To date, no one has been prosecuted or even detained by the authorities in connection with these serial murders.

Some two weeks ago we reported that protection for union vice-president Guillermo Rivera (scheduled to take over again as SINTRAINAGRO president) had been restored after being removed from him and other union leaders who had previously benefited from police protection earlier this year. Clearly, the existing level of protection provided by the state is not enough to ensure the lives of trade union members and leaders in Colombia. Some 425 SINTRAINAGRO members and officers have now been murdered.

We urge you to join with us in calling on the Colombian authorities to ensure that all trade union leaders in Colombia who request protection by the state are given adequate levels of protection, without conditions.



English translation of the message we are urging you to send follows:


Mr. President,

Juan de Jesús Gómez, president of the local SINTRAINAGRO organization of Minas, in the municipality of San Martín, Cesar department, was gunned down on May 1 in the city of San Alberto. Gómez and the union he led had been seeking unsuccessfully to get the palm oil company Palmas del Cesar S.A. to the negotiating table. Rather than negotiate a collective agreement with the union, company management had been firing SINTRAINAGRO members and bribing others to leave the union.

More than 425 officers and members of SINTRAINAGRO have been murdered since the union was founded. Over 130 trade union leaders have been murdered in your country over the past year.

In view of this unparalleled record of anti-union violence, it is essential that your government provide, without condition, the necessary protective measures for all leaders of SINTRAINAGRO and other trade unions who request such protection.

Given your government's failure to investigate these murders and apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators, and in the absence of the necessary protective measures, the trade union movement and democratic public opinion internationally will hold the Colombian authorities directly accountable for the lives and wellbeing of your country's trade union leaders.

I look forward to immediate action on your part.

[BiggJawn]

2. And this is germain to a B and E in Columbia, South Carolina...

...HOW?

I thought thread hijacking was a lounge thing?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

5. uh, oops

sorry :)

[iverglas]

14. that's "never mind"!

;)

Gilda Radner as Emily Litella: "What's all this fuss I hear about sex and violins on TV?"

http://www.tvguide.ca/netcetera/gilda_radner.html

What's all this fuss I hear about endangered feces? That's outrageous. Why is feces endangered? How can you possibly run out of such a thing? Just look around you – you can see it all over the place. And besides, who wants to save that anyway?

What's all this fuss I hear about making Puerto Rico a steak? Let me warn all of you: if you make Puerto Rico a steak, the next thing they'll want is a baked potato – with sour cream and chives and little bacon bits. And then they'll probably want a salad bar! Why, they'll be lined up for miles!

What's all this fuss I hear about 1976 presidential erections? ...

Oh. Never mind!

And never mind too -- because it never hurts anyone to learn a little about the real world that s/he might otherwise have thought could be disregarded.

.

[slackmaster]

16. I'm deeply concerned about youth in Asia

And Soviet Jewelry as well.

[iverglas]

18. I once thought that one was mine

Many years ago, I had a dream in which I was playing charades. I had to act out "euthanasia". I did it by rocking an invisible baby in my arms, giving the sign for "in", and making slanty eyes. Hey, we aren't responsible for our subconsciouses. I woke up snorting and gasping, as I do when I amuse myself hugely in dreams and think I'm laughing.

I once also thought I'd coined (as it were) "Brother, can you paradigm?" Well, who knows, maybe I did, and the several hundred other people who have used that one on internet sites just all read my mind all those years ago. Or we experienced some kinda simultaneous pun attack from outer space.

.

[Desperadoe]

3. I wonder if this had something to do with a labor dispute?

Those goddamn commie union scum landed their plane in the wrong Colombia. Thank God for the good ol' KKK, Republican, NRA club owners that this invasion was thwarted.
ROTFLMAO!!!

[bocadem]

4. Great.

Now that guy will be featured in the NRA newsletter: People who use guns to take the law into their own hands.

[slackmaster]

6. What would you have done in the same situation?

.

[iverglas]

17. well, gosh

"What would you have done in the same situation?"

That's a tough one, isn't it?

Not.

If I were in my place of business and heard someone break in "a side door", I'd head for the front door, if I were afraid for my safety. That's a sure way of protecting myself from harm, I'd think, whereas sticking around for a confrontation with a potential assailant, armed with who knows what, and with no way of knowing what the outcome of any showdown would be, is just a little iffier. I mean, assuming I could reach the door and all.

If I couldn't reach the door, and if I had a firearm (not being a bar owner in the US, I have no way of knowing whether I'd have a firearm if I were), I guess I'd get it out and hold it up.

And then I might fire it at the ceiling or something, on the chance that whoever was on his/her way through the door might think better of the plan and leave. And call out to someone else to see what was happening. (Yeah, even if someone else weren't there. Me, being fairly clever, I'd have thought this out in advance, given that I was a bar owner in the US, even if my wits weren't quick enough to think of it in the instant.)

And then, assuming I had that firearm, I'd have levelled it in the direction from which the breaker-in would be coming, and shouted again. And if the person still emerged from wherever that side door was (because we're told that the bar owner "heard", not "saw", the person break in, I'm assuming it was out of sight), I'd make sure s/he saw that firearm when s/he did emerge.

And then if the person had actually been holding a firearm aimed anywhere near me, and had not immediately retreated, I might well have fired mine. I do tend to think that in order to *kill* someone with one shot, one must really be *trying* to kill, so I'd think I might be capable of *not* killing the person when I shot.

If the person had emerged and not been holding a firearm, I would have expected him/her to see my firearm and think better of the plan. If s/he didn't, I'd have had lots of time, and no reason not to, to shoot him/her in the leg or some such.

That's all just so hypothetical, isn't it?

But somehow, I just don't think that I would have shot an unarmed person point-blank dead on sight without further ado. And no, I don't think that a baseball bat or whatever said person might have been holding at the time would give me reason to do that.

What I know I wouldn't have done (well, me as me, not me as a bar owner in the US) is feel entitled to kill someone because s/he was planning to steal my money. That I am very very sure of. And that is very much how what this person did looks to me.

.

[Cthulu_2004]

7. what should he have done?

just stood there and be beaten to death?

[slackmaster]

9. Maybe he could have made a citizen's arrest

And thus into his own hands, the law, taken.

[BiggJawn]

8. Oh, indeed...

Better to be an Obituary listing than an alive businessman. I can hardly not agree....

NOT.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most, if not all, states allow you to use deadly force, including guns, against someone who kicks in your door?

Oh, I'm SORRY...Yes, I see, he SHOULD have dialed 911 and hoped that he could have held out the 20 minutes it would have taken the cops to come and shoot the guy...

How silly of me!

[blindpig]

10. what exactly is the point of this post?

[slackmaster]

11. Probably to see how quickly it gets moved to the Dungeon

:shrug:

[CO Liberal]

12. I Don't Know Where It Was Posted Originally.......

...but it's in the Dungeon now.

:-)

[iverglas]

13. oh lookie

Club owner Leslie G. Snider, 58, told Richland County deputies he was getting ready to close the club when he heard someone kick in a side door ...

Snider told deputies he never spoke to Weed before firing one shot, Cowan said.

... Deputies don't plan to charge Snider. Meadors said prosecutors will review the case to determine whether Snider acted reasonably.

Who will be first to offer us a copy of SC's statute setting out the requirements for the self-defence justification for assault/homicide in that state? Someone? And explain how not charging the killer would be consistent with that law?

Who will point out where SC's laws (don't?) say that a person must have a reasonable belief that the use of force was immediately necessary in order to avoid reasonably apprehended death or serious injury (i.e., whether anyone who can't use a dictionary likes it or not, that there was no other way to avoid death or serious injury)?

Who will try to "prove" that this law permitting the killing of someone who broke into a business without requiring that those conditions be met -- or this decision not to lay a charge under it (depending on what the law says) -- is justified by the fact that prohibiting someone from killing a person who has broken into his/her place of business would amount to denying that person the right to "defend" some property without which s/he might not be able to go on living? (Supplementary question, Mr./Madam Speaker: who will twist that concept into "property without which s/he might not be able to earn a living, and pretend that this has something to do with something?)

Who will (again) just come right out and say that anybody whose business establishment door is kicked down HAS THE RIGHT to kill the person who did it?

And who then will decline to offer any acceptable justification for the state permitting people to kill other people with impunity in such circumstances?

.

[slackmaster]

15. What would YOU have done under the circumstances?

America wants to know.

I do appreciate your critique of what you presume to be South Carolina law, but the other side of the coin is that the guy who got shot knew that breaking into a place of business carried a risk of getting shot. He made a poor career choice and an even poorer choice for his crime target.

And I can't say with certainty what I would do under the same circumstances. Having shot someone, even with legal (if not moral) justification would be a terrible burden for me, or for most people.

[iverglas]

19. answered above

More simultaneity.

If you can quote my "critique of what <I> presume to be South Carolina law" for me, I'd be grateful. As far as I was aware, I was ASKING what that law is, and how the decision not to prosecute this killer either is or is not consistent with it.

... the other side of the coin is that the guy who got shot
knew that breaking into a place of business carried a risk of
getting shot."

Ah, it's legal maxim time again.

Volenti non fit injuria. Yes indeed. That to which a person consents cannot be considered an injury. It applies to things like boxing matches.

But here we'll be needing jody, I think, and her inalienable rights. The right to life is one of them, no? (Don't disappoint me; say "no".)

And then we'll consider what "inalienable" actually means, which is: "that cannot be transferred to another". Cannot be given away, given up, sold, all that -- disposed of in any way.

Your society (if I may presume here) does not even recognize a right to have another person assist in one's own suicide -- precisely because that involves alienating one's right to life: consenting to someone else killing one.

If the right may not be waived, if that consent may not be given, expressly, how could you possibly imagine that it may be waived or given implicitly, by inference from some other action??

"He made a poor career choice and an even poorer choice for
his crime target."

Darn tootin.

What he didn't do was consent to being killed, because he MAY NOT consent to that.

I quite fail to see what coin what you're saying that your thesis might be the other side of. One side of the coin is that no one may kill someone else without justification, which justification is strictly defined and narrowly interpreted. The other side of the coin is actually that no one may consent to anyone else killing him or her, I'd say.

Perhaps what you are really talking about is not a dime, but a digm. And you have not a dime with a pair of sides, but a paradigm. The one in which property is valued more than persons, or private individuals are entitled to punish other individuals for alleged crimes without even having any burden of proving those crimes, let alone having to establish the necessity of what they did, for a purpose recognized as sufficient.

"Having shot someone, even with legal (if not moral) justification
would be a terrible burden for me, or for most people."

I'd like to think it would be for most people, and that this is actually a rather effective deterrent to doing it. After all, personal values tend to be more effective, as deterrents, than laws in most cases.

Unfortunately, our homicidal bar owner does look rather like the exception that would test any rule that *all* people would find this a terrible burden, and leave us with, at best, those "most people".

And that would still leave us with the people who don't really give a shit, them being the ones that we tend to hope laws will deter, since the rest of us could get by fairly well with just our consciences.

Of course, there are also always the people who have some sort of conscience but manage not to let it make them feel too uncomfortable, by rationalizing, or otherwise sidelining thoughts of, the nasty things they have done. Laws might have some salutary effect on them too.

Laws that aren't enforced don't have much effect on anything, of course. That's one reason why I'm curious as to what the SC law actually says.

.

[slackmaster]

20. I took a quick look and couldn't find much

This is from a martial arts page:

§ 11-8-8 Injury or death – Defense.

In the event that any person shall die or shall sustain a personal injury in any way or for any cause while in the commission of any criminal offense enumerated in §§ 11-8-2 – 11-8-6, it shall be rebuttably presumed as a matter of law in any civil or criminal proceeding that the owner, tenant, or occupier of the place where the offense was committed acted by reasonable means in self-defense and in the reasonable belief that the person engaged in the criminal offense was about to inflict great bodily harm or death upon that person or any other individual lawfully in the place where the criminal offense was committed. There shall be no duty on the part of an owner, tenant, or occupier to retreat from any person engaged in the commission of any criminal offense enumerated in §§ 11-8-2 – 11-8-6.