HOSTAGE KILLS ALLEGED ASSAILANT IN HOME

[Padraig18]

HOSTAGE KILLS ALLEGED ASSAILANT IN HOME

BY ANDREA HAHN
THE SOUTHERN

LAKE OF EGYPT -- A stormy relationship between two Williamson County teenagers ended in bloodshed Thursday, when a member of the girl's family shot and killed the young man, whom they said had been holding them hostage at gunpoint.

Jeffrey Scott Price, 19, of Marion, died at Saint Louis University Hospital Thursday morning after being shot in the head during the alleged home invasion.

<snip>

James said her parents told her Price entered their home without them knowing, wearing a ski mask and hooded sweatshirt. He awakened James' mother with a gun in her face, demanding to know where his ex-girlfriend, the woman's granddaughter, was.

Price ordered the couple into the living room, James said, and demanded they find a way to get his ex-girlfriend to come over without arousing suspicion. During the course of about an hour, James said, her mother was able to placate him to the point where he put away the gun. She excused herself to go to the bathroom, and so did her husband....

More: http://www.southernillinoisan.com/articles/2005/02/11/top/doc420cb381cdf63684168628.txt

[Eagle_Eye]

1. From the link provided:

"Capt. Debra Landmann, an investigator with the state police, said the investigation was still in its early stages. She said there are state laws allowing residents to protect themselves if threatened during a home invasion."

It is nice to know that the state of Illinois has seen fit to pass legislation ALLOWING residents to protect themselves.

[Padraig18]

2. Once you leave Cook County (Chicago)...

Illinois' laws regarding firearms ownership are actually pretty sane.

[Township75]

4. WTF are you talking about...

all that happened is that a guy barged into a house wearning a ski mask and jammed a gun into the owner's face. But after that, they got him to put down the gun, and when he wasn't looking, they threw it away.

It should have ended right there, even though he may have had another gun...this stuff happens to me all the time, and I just kick-back and share a few brews with the intruder, because if you don't do anything to provoke them, you have nothing to worry about. Hell just pretend your asleep.



(sarcasm off)

[iverglas]

6. such a few little words

... even though he may have had another gun ...

The thing is, either he did or he didn't. And if he didn't, nobody really is ALLOWED to shoot him in the back of the head, or anywhere else, without some other pretty good reason.

Somehow, James said, her mother was able to get Price's gun and throw it off the deck of the house. When her husband came back into the room, he pointed the gun at Price and told him he could either sit down or leave. James said Price told her parents he wouldn't leave without his ex-girlfriend.

James said her father told her mother to call the police with a cell phone, because Price had disabled the land line. As she went to do so, Price produced another gun. James said her father shot Price in the back of the head.

James said her father told her he intended to shoot Price in the leg.

One does wonder why yer average pissed-off teenager would have bothered acquiring *two* firearms to tote around with him in order to intimidate a couple of old people. I surely do hope the police have found both those guns.

Y'know ... I also hope they find the young man's fingerprints on those guns. It seems to me that the only word we have for what happened here at all is the word of the guy who killed somebody, and his wife. (edit -- who "somehow" managed to get a gun away from a pissed off much younger man ...). I certainly hope they didn't just have a few spare guns sitting around the house that they decided to toss about after shooting the young man with one of them.

Me, I wouldn't think of hazarding a guess about what actually happened. Given that:

By order of Johnson County State's Attorney Tricia Turner-Shelton, police are releasing few details about the incident. In a written statement, police said Price broke into or entered without permission a home in rural Johnson County. He was shot there at about 12:47 a.m. Thursday by one of the occupants of the house.

-- and that " the investigation <is> still in its early stages", and that the police have not confirmed any of the story told by the family in question -- well, me, I'll just be sitting quiet. So as not to risk looking real foolish if things turn out to be just a little different from the story the family is telling. Kinda like they did in the case of the accountant in Boca Raton who shot the kid in the back, which some here will clearly recall from a while back.

But my goodness ... the old gentleman intended to shoot the young man in the leg ... and shot him in the back of the head.

That's the kind of thing that would normally make me think "wow, would a good shot!" ... not "wow, what a lousy shot!" But then, I just have a suspicious mind.

At the very least, I have to wonder how come somebody had a brand spanking new never-used handgun in his bedroom -- just the one in the house, mind you -- and had never bothered to learn how to use it ...

Damned lucky he didn't shoot his wife, with aim as bad as that, is all I can think.


(html fixed)

[Squatch]

7. A person in need of basic anatomy lessons

"James said her father shot Price in the back of the head.

James said her father told her he intended to shoot Price in the leg."

Let's see, the knee bone is connected to the head bone...:shrug:

[iverglas]

8. snork

Rather fortuitously here ...



... the arm bone is apparently connected to the earbone!

[skippythwndrdog]

43. What better place to shoot the scum than in the back of the head?

He deserved it. Good riddance.

[iverglas]

45. I have no doubt there are numbers of people

who would say precisely the same thing about you. Or me. Or the leader of the free world.

Thank goodness for laws and courts and prisons, eh?

And for the occasional person who obeys the laws, if only out of fear of prison, rather than just giving us what we so richly deserve.

And heck, even for the very rare person who understands and acknowledges the difference between his/her opinion of someone (however exalted ... or pointless and moronic and utterly unfounded ... it may be) and whether what happens to that someone is legal or illegal, justified or unjustified, to be encouraged or deterred in a society that recognizes the fundamental rights of every individual in it ...

And even more especially, for the truly endangered species of person who just doesn't think that spewing his/her personal opinion of someone in public is a worthwhile use of his/her or anybody else's time.

[bobbobbins]

3. wow, that guys a real dumbass

first of all he wears a ski mask thinking that will protect his identity while asking for his ex-girlfriend. Then he puts the gun down and lets them both go to the bathroom. Then he lets a 70 year old woman get his gun...then when threatened at gunpoint, he tries to pull out another gun...talk about some poor decision making skills.

[Padraig18]

5. Sorta proves that Darwin was right.

:evilgrin:

[Lefty48197]

15. Not only that, here's another stupid thing he did:

when he allegedly pulled out his alleged second gun, he turned his back on the guy he was pulling the gun on, who them proceeded to shoot him in the back of the head. What was he planning to do? Hold up a mirror and shoot over his back ala Annie Oakley or something?
Yup. Something fishy about this one...

[Postmanx]

9. Just a little chlorine in the gene pool

[iverglas]

10. I never cease to be amazed

at how many people -- judging from responses in this thread -- will just believe any old thing at all ... or make like they do in the hope that someone else will ...

I'd surely hate to look that gullible myself.

[NorthernSpy]

11. I know exactly what you mean...

And that whole faux-Darwinian thing chaps my ass anew every time I hear it.

:eyes:

[Postmanx]

12. I'm sure the armed guy

with the ski mask and the two guns who broke into the old couple's home was just misunderstood,

[iverglas]

17. I know what I'm sure of

and it has very little to do with anybody "misunderstanding" anything at all.

[aikoaiko]

24. well there is "the innocent until proven guilty" thang..

;-)

But of course, there are lots of details missing that we don't know. As usual, newspaper accounts of defensive handgun use are sketchy and incomplete.

More will be revealed, but as long as the shooter claims self-defense and there is no obsvious evidence to the contrary, then I give the benefit of the doubt.

[Padraig18]

27. As the s/o of a former deputy sheriff, ...

... I found it enormously significant that no one was taken into custody, or removed from the scene for further questioning. The ISP are very professional, and that fact that they didn't do either of the aforementioned things speaks volumes about the whole scenario.

[iverglas]

31. ah yes

I found it enormously significant that no one was taken into custody, or removed from the scene for further questioning. The ISP are very professional, and that fact that they didn't do either of the aforementioned things speaks volumes about the whole scenario.

Just like it did back in Boca Raton back in 2003 ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=18563#18632

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=18326#18331

West Boca · Tears and inconsolable grief were not enough to hide the anger and disbelief among almost 300 friends and relatives who gathered at a Catholic Church on Sunday afternoon to pray for a beloved teen shot to death in a prank gone awry just hours after his 16th birthday party.

Mark Drewes, out with a friend ringing doorbells along Woodbury Road about 12:30 a.m. Saturday, was shot by a neighbor, Jay Steven Levin, 40. Levin, permitted for 12 years to own a concealed handgun, told police he shot Drewes thinking he was a burglar.

"Why is this man not in jail? These kids are going to be trick-or-treating in a couple of days. What happens when they knock on his door then?" said Laura Twomey, whose son Sean, was a lifelong friend of Mark's.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pshot27oct27,0,826974.story?coll=sfla-news-palm

A selection of comments from DoNotRefill, with my own interspersed in italics:

The kid sounds like a little juvenile delinquent to me. I'm wondering what the rest of the facts are. The fact that the shooter wasn't immediately arrested makes me think that there had to be some other evidence showing that he acted reasonably, at least to the cops on the scene. Otherwise, he certainly WOULD have been taken into custody.

Even if one agreed that the scenario you hypothesize was "not what happened here", we have absolutely no basis for concluding that there was ANY evidence that in ANY way suggested that the shooting was NOT a criminal act, LET ALONE that it was an act of self-defence.

Except, of course, for the FACT that the cops didn't arrest the shooter on the spot. Believe it or not, most cops DO arrest murder suspects down here when they find them. That's part of their job.

Fact: The shooter admitted shooting the kid.
Fact: The kid was dead.
Fact: The police didn't arrest the shooter despite
having him right there to arrest.
Based upon those facts, what's the most likely inference that you can make?

How about: the police are continuing to investigate and have not yet reached a conclusion?

Various updates to the tale:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=21309#21428
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=19679#19867
(that one complete with a rebuttal presenting "incontrovertible scientific evidence" of how someone shot in the back wasn't really running away)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=22603#22716
Days, weeks, went on before the arrest and charge.

We just didn't see any rapid retractions hereabouts in that case:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=29140
-- as I said then:

Kinda like they all admitted that the asshole who shot a teenager in the back in Boca Raton in October was not acting in defence of anything ... and that the fact that he was not charged on the spot did not mean that the cops had concluded that he had done nothing illegal? I mean, given how assiduously I provided follow-up on that case -- in which the man who killed the kid has now been charged with homicide -- I would've expected something like that.

And now, drum roll, the conclusion ... and damned if I wasn't right: the police had been continuing to investigate and had not yet reached a conclusion:
http://news.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2004102304.html

The plea deal came less than 24 hours after a circuit jury was seated on Thursday after four days of selection. Levin's trial was supposed to start Friday morning.

Under the deal, Levin will serve one year in the county jail – but on weekends only. He will also have to fulfill community service conditions and will be on probation for a number of years.

Levin was charged with fatally shooting 16-year-old Mark Drewes, a neighbor, a year ago this month as Drewes and a friend played a prank in which they rang doorbells at homes in West Boca and ran away on Oct. 25.

And yet ... he wasn't arrested immediately after the shooting, and wasn't charged until quite a lot of time after the shooting.

Funny how some police just like to INVESTIGATE before making a decision about charging someone with something -- and how, them being so professional and all, their failure to charge someone with something within 30 minutes just is not intended by them to be understood by anyone as a conclusion that nobody should be charged with anything.

[alwynsw]

13. Interesting.

Person takes others hostage. Person is killed for his trouble.

Happy ending, IMO.

[Padraig18]

14. Unless the investigation reveals something else, I agree.

Rule #1 about guns (as taught to me by my brother):

"Don't ever pull a gun on someone unless you're prepared to have it shoved right up your ass ungreased, or worse."

[alwynsw]

19. Same here. I just failed to qualify it. n/t

[Lefty48197]

16. I wonder what the laws are concerning "reasonable retreat"?

?

[iverglas]

18. don't forget to wonder

what the laws are concerning shooting someone in the back of the head when he never had a gun to start with, and then lying to the police about it.

Hey, *I* am not saying that's how it happened. But maybe I'll try saying it, and see what reasons anybody can offer for disbelieving me and believing the as yet totally uncorroborated and quite fantabulous tale told by the folks who were parties to the shooting.

[Fescue4u]

20. They guy was in their house as an intruder threatening the family

Thats all the justification I need to hear for shooting him.

I really don't care about follow up nuances of the home invaders behavior.

Shot in the back, shot in the face...who cares....the important part is that he was *SHOT IN THEIR HOUSE AS AN INTRUDER*.

Happy Ending for all involved that MATTERS.

[alwynsw]

25. What's to wonder?

Gun. No gun. The deceased was the intruder. In my state and Arizona, the authorities are not concerned with where the bullet entered the body. They would be concerned with the fact that the deceased was an intruder. There's no reasonable retreat in one's own home in KY. AZ requires only that one be in fear for his/her life - the intruder need not have a weapon. AZ courts have held that each home is essentially an arsenal of sorts because of sporting equipment such as ball bats, golf clubs, etc. and usual household contents including knives, hammers, etc. that the intruder can easily obtain during the invasion and use as weapons, therefore the courts assume (rightfully) that the occupant is indeed justified in killing an intruder because of fear for his/her life. In KY, the act of being in another's home via illegal entry or with the intent to rob or with the intent to threaten or do bodily harm is ample reason for the occupant to end the intruder's miserable exixtence without fear of prosecution. Given the age of the intruder in this instance, most septegenarians would reasonably be in fear for their lives when confronted by someone of that age holding them hostage.

I'll stick with jeff Cooper's thoughts on the subject: (not an exact quote, but the gist is the same) "When confronted by and intruder, the consequences of not killing (in Cooper's lexicon killing translates as shooting) him are likely far worse than the consequences of killing him." I'd prefer to answer the cops questions about why and how I shot than spend time in the hospital or morgue because I didn't shoot.

Happy ending for this story, IMO.

[Billy Ruffian]

26. The hostage was perfectly justified

based on the information in the story.

A young man, having forced his way at gunpoint into the home of an elderly couple, has placed his victims in reasonable fear for their lives. Lethal force on the part of the victim is justified.

There may be other information that will be published, but until then, your story may as well be that the moon is made of green cheese.

[iverglas]

28. so many legal experts ...

So little law.

Mine says this (emphasis added):

34. (1) Every one who is unlawfully assaulted without having provoked the assault is justified in repelling force by force if the force he uses is not intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm and is no more than is necessary to enable him to defend himself.

(2) Every one who is unlawfully assaulted and who causes death or grievous bodily harm in repelling the assault is justified if

(a) he causes it under reasonable apprehension of death or grievous bodily harm from the violence with which the assault was originally made or with which the assailant pursues his purposes; and

(b) he believes, on reasonable grounds, that he cannot otherwise preserve himself from death or grievous bodily harm.

I suspect that all civilized societies have analogous provisions.

And I just kinda think that the fact that someone was shot in the back of the head is one of those prima facie evidence things that would just kinda suggest that the individual who did the shooting could NOT have believed, on reasonable grounds, that he could NOT have OTHERWISE preserved himself.

Anybody getting it?

The issue is not necessarily whether the householder was justified in using force; the issue is whether he was justified in killing.

I'll still be waiting for the investigation to turn up those two guns that the intruder was allegedly carrying, of course, in order to determine whether the householder was justified in using any force at all.

The householders actually did have to be in fear of death or grievous bodily harm, and actually do have to be able to provide some reasonable story to back up their claim to have been in such fear. No matter what anybody's personal revenge fantasies might lead him/her to approve of. No presumption that an intruder presents a threat to life and limb is actually a fact, and the actual facts may indeed rebut the presumption.


(html fixed)

[benEzra]

30. There was an article in Police Marksman a few years ago...

, covering a police use-of-force study, that addressed this issue.

Since you are a lawyer (yes?), I'm surprised you aren't familiar with this scenario in police use-of-force cases, explaining why so many police-involved justifiable homicides involve the suspect being shot non-frontally. Essentially, it only takes a fraction of a second for an assailant to spin, and an assailant that close to you is not automatically a non-danger.

In self-defense case law, a non-frontal entrance wound is NOT automatically evidence of a non-justifiable homicide. It will certainly flag the incident for closer examination, but in a close-quarters violent confrontation is usually ruled justified, in both police and non-LEO civilian cases. And no, I'm not a lawyer, but I do study self-defense law a bit. I'll try to dig up the article when I get home and post a cite for you if you want to check it out (pm me if I don't post it by tomorrow). I'm sure this is just as applicable in Canada.

[iverglas]

32. heh heh

Why, I was just citing that little study as we were simultaneously posting.

It had been cited hereabouts back in 2003
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=19679#19876?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=19679
http://www.lapdonline.org/general_information/dept_pub_program/physical_lag.htm
when so very many hereabouts were so hot to convict, in the court of their opinion, the little delinquent who was shot in the back in Boca Raton ... by one of those licensed-to-carry types.

"Incontrovertible scientific evidence", it was called ... and indeed it is, in situations to which it applies. Methinks that there first has to be some indication that the situation is one to which it applies.

Are ALL people shot in the back of the head engaged in the act of spinning?

Or hmm ... are, maybe, some people insisting that a particular shooting in the back of the head was necessarily justified the ones doing that?


btw, no, I am not a lawyer. You need to be careful what gossip you listen to -- you would certainly have not got the message that I am a lawyer from moi, so I assume you have got it from someone else, and whoever it is appears to be less than reliable, and you might want to take this fact into account when deciding whom to listen to in future.

I *was* a practising lawyer, until some more than a decade ago. I now work in a related field that involves the law and courts and suchlike, but I do not practise or give professional opinions or advice.

[benEzra]

37. I didn't say that automatically exonerates the shooter...

only that it doesn't automatically implicate the shooter. I'm sure police will examine the totality of the evidence and press charges accordingly.

Re: you being a lawyer, I'm afraid I jumped to that conclusion based on a statement you made about being involved with the courts and such, and you undeniably are a gifted debater, so I put two and two together and...guessed incorrectly. But at least I was close, you were a lawyer... :)

[iverglas]

42. nope ... and funny thing ...

I didn't say that automatically exonerates the shooter...
only that it doesn't automatically implicate the shooter.

*I* didn't say that it automatically inculpated anyone.

Me, I'm just shocked and appalled at the, er, naive gullibility some folks put on display with such wild abandon.

I'd missed this earlier display until just a few minutes ago ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x99491
I can't tell who was being gullible; CNN, I guess, and I suppose anybody who takes CNN as gospel. The story's still readable at the link in that thread, but I'm peeved that I just can't find any more information about what the real story was.

Woman didn't throw baby from car, Joey didn't heroically save his friends from gunfire, accountant in Boca Raton didn't have any reason at all to shoot teenager in the back. What are people who tell their stories to police/the news media coming to? It's just shocking and appalling to think that you can't believe every such story you read ...

My clients' credibility was actually my stock in trade back in the lawyer days. A refugee claimant doesn't often have much other than his/her credibility for making a fear-of-persecution case. And, unfair though it kinda was, my own credibility (and certain other lawyers' lack thereof) also weighed in that balance.

Not just refugees. I had two favourite stories, that I told to applicants whose cases were based on marriage, to demonstrate the importance of their credibility (and dissuade them from telling porkies to me or immigration officers).

Case #1: A Franco-Ontarian Canadian woman married to a North African man who had been illegally in Canada for many years, and who had resisted applying to regularize his status because he did not want to appear to be exploiting his spouse. At the interview with the tough-minded enforcement officer, they were separated and asked the one of a myriad of possible credibility-testing questions he liked to ask, to establish the bona fides of the marriage: "what did you have for breakfast?" Husband puffs himself up and says "well, I had yogourt and an orange, and I made toast for <Jane>." Husband leaves room, wife comes in for chat, officer says "what did you have for breakfast?" Wife grimaces, and says "well, he got himself some yogourt and an orange, and burned my toast." End of interview; application accepted. You can't fake that kind of spontaneous, unrehearsed credibility.

Case #2: A Caribbean-Canadian woman married to a Caribbean man. Same interview process, equally tough-minded enforcement officer. Question: "where did you spend your wedding night?" Husband: "at my apartment." Wife: "at my apartment." Officer looks askance at me, me never having thought to ask apparently genuine newlyweds where they spent their wedding night, and I mumble "hey, don't look at me; I wasn't there." Officer nonetheless gives couple "benefit of the doubt"; three months later, couple arrive in my office seeking divorce ... and are referred to separate independent counsel.

Moral of my tale: we all assess credibility all the time in our everyday lives. We all have a sense of what rings true and what doesn't. (And it's no more tolerable to pretend to believe fantabulous tales in the hope of persuading someone else to believe them than it is to tell them one's self.) I don't put on a blindfold and earplugs just because I happen to like the person telling me something, or because I hope s/he is telling me the truth. Hell, I'd still be living with that Texan I evicted 14 years ago, if that were the case ...

[skippythwndrdog]

44. I've always heard: Once a lawyer always a lawyer

Even if not currently practicing. For example, a gentleman down the street in his late eighties still considers himself to be a lawyer, even though it has been nearly thirty years since he has practiced. I guess we could consider you a reformed lawyer :D

[Fescue4u]

38. don't need to be a legal expert

To understand right and wrong.

The intruder was wrong.

The hostage was right.

Now whether the government will choose the persecute the hostage under the guise of legality is a different matter.

[MyMouth]

34. A new low.

I have been lurking in the Gungeon for over a year now. You have sunk to a new low.

A person threatens the lives of residents in their own home. He is, quite justifiably, killed for it. And you all but out-and-out accuse the homeowners of murder and evidence tampering.

I almost hope that someday you have your home broken into. I almost hope that you find yourself with a gun in your hand while a thug intent on murder turns and presents you with the back of his head while he levels a gun on a loved one. I almost hope that you are put in the same position as the homeowner in this thread. And I almost hope that you have to decide to either shoot a thug in the back of the head or watch a loved one be murdered when you could stop it.

Almost, but not quite. So don't bother to write a 15,000 word essay in reply to this post, like you usually do.

[iverglas]

35. I only wish I could say the same

I wish I could say that your

- making of unsupported claims of fact (when the facts you assert without qualification have not been demonstrated in any manner that any person engaged in civil discourse would characterize as proof), and

-making of unsupported representations of what I have said (when what I have said in no way resembles what you characterize it as being "all but")

were a new low ...

... but I can't. It's just another day in the dungeon. Complete with

So don't bother to write a 15,000 word essay in reply to this post, like you usually do.

Gosh. What original thoughts you have.

If you want to try something truly new and different, try responding to something I've said.

For background, try reading some of the discussion of the Boca Raton homicide to which I have provided links. Read all the approving noises made about the poor self-defending homeowner who shot the kid, by whom he claimed to feel threatened, in the back ... read how the homeowner was eventually, after the police had thoroughly investigated, charged with manslaughter ... read how said homeowner recently pleaded guilty to the charge (and, if you like, express outrage that he must now serve a year of weekends, as I understand it, for killing a kid when he had not a reason in the world to have felt threatened by the kid).

Then go looking for the retractions made by any of the folks here who made all those approving noises, who insisted that had the homeowner was plainly justified in killing the kid, and that had he done anything illegal he would have been arrested and charged on the spot.

I'm afraid that you'll find they were strangely silent, to a one.

So really, try doing something original.

Try not behaving like a gun-licking doodlehead who has no interest whatsoever in facts, and wishes only to take every opportunity, no matter how inappropriate or downright ludicrous, to make the world look like a great big jungle in which everyone must arm him/herself to the teeth at all times, and in which all right-thinking people must praise any complete stranger who claims to have used a firearm, in a situation about which we all know precisely nothing, in self-defence.

Or not. As usual, I don't much care.

And just by the bye, when you say things like He is, quite justifiably, killed for it without citing anything at all as your authority for the statement (unless we consider the question of whether something is "justifiable" to be properly resolved by your saying so, which I don't happen to), you might as well say that John Lennon encouraged immorality among our youth and he was, quite justifiably, killed for it, for all the shit I give. I'm no more interested in knowing your personal opinion about the justification for anybody's death than I am in, well, knowing your personal opinion about much of anything.

But then, you probably grew up watching Jerry Springer and learning to worship people who just have an opinion, no matter how useless or stupid it is. If only we did a better job of conveying the message that, really, not everybody deserves to have all that self-esteem ...


(editing incoherency fixed)

[Fescue4u]

39. not quite 15,000 words

but close enough.

One could write 100,000 words and it won't make the intruder right.

[iverglas]

40. not quite devoid of thought

Oh no, wait. It was.

[Fescue4u]

41. yes

it was.

[davepc]

21. Most states you have no duty to retreat when inside your own home

good old "castle doctrine".

[Padraig18]

22. Illinois follows the 'presumed hostile intent' doctrine.

A very good friend of ours is the four-term States' Attorney in an adjoining county, an experienced prosecutor, IOW; he said that in Illinois the legal presumptions under the scenario outlined in the opening post are:

a.) any intruder is presumed to have a hostile intent, particularly if the intruder is armed;

b.) no homeowner or resident is under any legal duty whatsoever to retreat or withdraw in their own home or place of business.

[RoeBear]

23. It seems the headline should have been:

ALLEGED HOSTAGE ALLEGEDLY KILLS ALLEGED ASSAILANT IN ALLEGED HOME

just to cover their bases.

[MyMouth]

33. Better put an "Alleged" before that "Alleged"....

Before you offend someone.

[iverglas]

29. following the story ...

http://www.southernillinoisan.com/articles/2005/02/12/top/doc420e05d6d8e99990303759.txt

Johnson County State's Attorney Tricia Turner Shelton continued Friday to decline to comment on the case. A state police news release stated Price was shot inside a home in rural Johnson County at about 12:47 a.m. Thursday by one of the occupants of the house.

... Because of the lack of comment from police or the state's attorney, Cooper <mother of the teenaged boy who was shot> said the public is hearing all sorts of conflicting and contradictory information.

"The media is just eating this up," she said. "And since the police aren't talking, they're getting their information from neighbors or from the family of the person who actually shot him. Now that he's dead, they can say whatever they want to about him."

I do hope that those who are saying it hereabouts will continue to comb the media for updates, and possibly some information from somewhere other than a source with a pretty damned obvious reason to be giving a particular version of the facts, even if it is not an accurate version.

[iverglas]

36. here's one moral to this story

If your name is Jeffrey Price ... stay the hell away from firearms.

http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/10889304.htm

Jeffrey Price was killed by a gunshot to the head on May 26, 2004, at the home of his ex-boyfriend Shawn Bublo in Edwardsville.

... Price held the gun at arm’s length with the barrel pointed at his face, and asked Shawn Bublo if he thought it was loaded. He tripped the gun, and the shot pierced his head above his left eyebrow.

He died instantly.

Shawn ran from his house to a neighbor’s, from where he called police and said his friend was shot. He had snot all over his face from crying and he washed his face and hands. This is why investigators never performed a powder test on Bublo to see if he was connected to the shooting.

Those who delight in dispensing advice as to how to persuade police that a shooting was justified ... apparently regardless of whether it was actually justified in law ... might want to remember that snot trick, and instead make the case that the big bad burglar just accidentally shot himself ...