So I'm a Looter...

[catnhatnh]

In New Orleans after Katrina. I am scum and clever and know where the most expensive shit is. I have food and water but see opportunity. I can steal 10k in stuff a day but have to move it cheaper to my fence. But if I live for a week after things settle down and have stolen 70k in stuff and can get even 35k, I know there is no death penalty for theft.

Except there was. There is NO property theft statute in America that includes shooting people. When this became debatable I have no idea...But it was the same "slippery slope" that allowed the Kristalnaacht and rounding up Jews.

If you shoot a person you intend to kill-this ain't no John Wayne shit-it is center mass and death. And NOPD cops did this without the slightest provocation or excuse. All told probably less than 100 were killed "spuriously". But odds are almost none were even petty thieves.

They were just folks like you or me in a place where cops could kill.

And they did.

If you mistakenly believe theft deserves being shot, why does Bernie Madoff Breathe?

[timo]

1. sorry amigo

If i wake up in the middle of the night and your in my house stealing your not walking out, and I dont know about Louisiana but here in Texas with our castle laws its a done deal, and I am well within my rights to do so.

[Dappleganger]

2. OK, John Wayne.

There's a hell of a big difference between a person defending his own castle and a cop out target-shooting people who are trying to survive a flood while government chinooks are flying over without dropping any supplies.

[Webster Green]

4. Huge difference!

John Wayne is one sorry amigo indeed. :smoke:

[timo]

7. the op clearly

states they arent out after food n water, or trying to "survive a flood" he clearly states that he is out getting expensive loot, with the intention of selling it for gain, stealing stereos vs. stealing food n water :(

[slampoet]

5. How would you know your rights when you can't use "Your" properly?

[Better Today]

8. I'm huge on gun rights, and an ex-Texan, but even little ol' me at

100#s and 50 years old will not shoot someone for robbing me. I have an alert system, a dog, and I intend and have practiced standing at the end of the bedroom hallway. I have a clear shot of anyone coming toward the bedrooms where people might be. I intend and practice announcing loudly that they (whomever) should leave now, taking whatever, but if they cross the threshold to the hallway they are dead meat. After reading about people accidentally shooting loved ones who've arrived unannounced, I have no intention of shooting my firearm without absolutely knowing that my or my loved ones' lives are actually in danger, and giving the offender the chance to leave unharmed, or in case it is someone I know and care about arriving unannounced, a chance to inform me that I'm about to shoot a person wrongly.

[flvegan]

3. This would have been a good OP less the second paragraph.

You can't lump cops killing Katrina victims to common property theft and the defense of same.

[Lyric]

15. Yup. In fact, I don't believe that there's anyone here

who WOULDN'T do the same if they were in exactly the same circumstances and under the same level of stress. I've already told Rhythm that if and when society ever breaks down and the looting starts, we're ignoring the electronics shops and going for the small neighborhood pharmacy. Antibiotics and other lifesaving medicines will be a lot more useful than TVs and stereos.

:hi:

[timo]

6. test

your theory and start breaking into houses down here and see how long it takes for someone to put some John Wayne shit on you!!
if you mistakenly beleive that breaking into houses and stealing is ok, your not going to be long for the free world.

Castle Doctrines are legislated by state, and not all states in the US have a Castle Doctrine. The term "Make My Day Law" comes from the landmark 1985 Colorado statute that protects people from any criminal charge or civil suit if they use force – including deadly force – against an invader of the home

[Occulus]

11. "Hello, Mr. Wayne?

"I'm going to roll over not only your home or your street, but rather your entire town, and the two or three towns nearest you. I'm not going to leave any of your flimsy structures standing, and if I do, they'll be left uninhabitable. I'm going to leave total destruction and poisoned water in my wake, all your food will be spoiled, your electricity will be out for the foreseeable future, and oh yeah, you aren't going to have a roof over your head or a place to call home.

"Afterward, your government is going to come to your town, declare it unfit for human habitation, and refuse to allow you back in even to pick up small, cherished family mementos for several months. In the meantime, nobody will be guarding your "stuff", nobody will care if it gets stolen, and your property will be sold out from under you (even if you own it outright), and nobody will give a golden damn, because you'll have been deported (along with what family you have still alive after I leave) to some far-flung place from which you will likely never return.

"If you don't like it, kiss my lily-white ass. You are personally responsible for all of it.

Love and kisses,

Katrina"

[timo]

13. hahahahahh

thats not what the op was about at all, but nice one trying to duck n dodge. I have weathered many storms and will weather many more!!

[pitohui]

9. what are you asking me?

yes in my hood a man stayed behind put a sign, "looters will be shot" and if he killed anyone he was smart enough to dispose of them such that they haven't been found 5 years later

he saved my neighborhood, he saved my house, AND HE SAVED MY FUTURE because the existence of looters being allowed to run amok means that next time our men don't leave and they get killed by the storm

i don't believe riley should have given an official order for looters to be shot, BUT yes...looters very badly need to be shot just off the books and privately

riley fumbled the ball but he was trying to do the right thing

in a hurricane looters simply CAN'T be allowed to loot for storm season comes every year and if looters are allowed to live it means the men of our family can't leave either -- you think it's about property, if you haven't been there, NO, it's about people being able to evacuate w.out the fear of being financially destroyed EVEN IF THERE ISN"T A STORM since usu. the storm misses

in katrina 80% evac'd, and of those who remained, a lot of people were killed just for breathing by police...this means in the next serious storm people can breathe a sigh of relief and evac and not leave behind a man to die and be killed in the storm, because the bad guys TOO know that police neighborhood watch etc. was killing the fucking looters

it's shitty for the innocents if any killed but yes looters need to die because their very existence kills

[Rochester]

10. The law should draw a difference between

personal-use property and business property. People should be able to use deadly force in defense of themselves, their place of residence and its contents, but not in defense of business property like stuff in a store.

SO if a guy walks into a corner store and steals something the owner can call the cops but he should not be able to shoot him. BUT if he tries to rob the store or the owner with a gun then the owner should be able to shoot him in self-defense if his life is on the line. AND if he breaks into the somebody's house the guy who lives there should be able to shoot him.

The New Orleans Cops who shot random people who might or might not have been looting stuff are scum and deserve whatever punishment that Louisiana or the Feds can throw at them. I think it's safe to assume that they were enjoying the anarchy a little too much and going on a power trip killing people they didn't like the looks of thinking it would never come back to bite them in the ass. I remember something in the paper about how when the word started to get out they had an emergency meeting amongst themselves so they could get their stories stright and lie each other up. Probably swilling doughnuts the whole time. Bastards.

[LAGC]

12. Welcome to DU!

A very sensible post indeed.

[Lyric]

14. The problem with the idea that "looting" is only justified for food/water/etc. is this:

Quite often, there simply aren't any basic necessities left. Someone else has already taken them all, or they've spoiled in the wet and heat. So what do you do? A smart person realizes that if he or she takes something ELSE valuable but temporarily useless (like a flat-screen TV), then there might be someone out there who's willing to TRADE food/water/dry clothes/etc. for that flat-screen TV. The objective of the looting is still the same--to obtain basic necessities. So why do we automatically assume the worst of them instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt?

I deeply dislike the whole "good looter/bad looter" false dilemma. People who looted stuff like TVs, stereos, etc. are not automatically "bad" looters, just like people who looted food/water are not automatically "good" looters. Some people took big-ticket items to try and trade them for the food and clean water that they couldn't find themselves. Some people took MUCH more food and water than they actually needed in order to sell it to other victims for ridiculously inflated prices and make a profit.

Looting TVs does not automatically indicate greed, and looting only food/water/clothes does not automatically indicate nobility. Sometimes the greediest, foulest people of all are the ones who hoard necessities, knowing that others will be forced to pay dearly for them. In that kind of situation, society breaks down to its most crude and vicious level. Sitting here in our warm, well-fed, comfy homes and lives and pointing fingers of judgement at people whose suffering and circumstances were a LOT more complicated and uncertain than we can hope to understand is boorish behavior at best, if not outright malicious ignorance.