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So most people on this thread would prefer to be a victim of theft ?

I live 4 blocks from the incident.

Seattle has less Police then 10 years ago which is less Police then 20 years ago, and the population has sky rocketed ...

I had a friend in the neighborhood catch someone in the act of stealing his stereo out of his car, destroying the dashboard in the process. He detained the criminal and called police. Waited over 4 hours for the Police to never show! Several times he contacted the police station that is less then 1 mile from the incident, ended up letting the criminal go and having his car damaged.

I ask now, what would you have done?

Was the criminal in my friends case deterred?

The shooting case is easy to look at in hind sight. What damage was done to the car? Would the car have been taken if the victim had not intervened? Did the criminal have a gun? What was the crime being committed? What portion of the outcome is the perp accountable for? Was the shooter justified?

Many on this thread don't justify the shooting. But of what is the justification for the act of the crime that originated it? Was it wrong to set out to steal? Why should the person who's possessions were to be stolen be expected to have insurance to recover items taken in a crime? the list goes on & on ...

Why is it so easy to discount the fact the someone set out to steal, to take someone else's life energy from them, (life energy used to work an earn money to buy possessions), is this exceptable but stopping this theft of this life energy is not exceptable even if the out come resulted in unintentional results.

What if the criminal had a gun, would you change your mind? Remember at the time it was unknown, only after the fact was it determined that no gun was on the criminal.
How much does one have to steal before theft becomes unexceptable, would a house full of stole property make a difference?

A man defends his property, his life force energy, now he loses his right to freedom and then his future right to have devices to aid him in protection, is this just?
 
So most people on this thread would prefer to be a victim of theft ?

I live 4 blocks from the incident.

Seattle has less Police then 10 years ago which is less Police then 20 years ago, and the population has sky rocketed ...

I had a friend in the neighborhood catch someone in the act of stealing his stereo out of his car, destroying the dashboard in the process. He detained the criminal and called police. Waited over 4 hours for the Police to never show! Several times he contacted the police station that is less then 1 mile from the incident, ended up letting the criminal go and having his car damaged.
First, I am calling BS on your friends story. There is no way he called the police and stated he was detaining a criminal and they did not show up. That would be a priority call. Especially if he was detaining them at gunpoint.

Second, nobody is saying they would prefer to be a victim of theft. They are saying they would prefer to react appropriately if they were victimized. Huge difference.
 
First, I am calling BS on your friends story. There is no way he called the police and stated he was detaining a criminal and they did not show up. That would be a priority call. Especially if he was detaining them at gunpoint.

>>>Well it is true, he had the guys legs pinned in the door so the guy could not run away. Secondly there is a large area of the city that has only 1 patrol officer on duty at times, if there is an issue downtown that officer is required to back up leaving the area without patrol, I don't know if this played a role or not, nonetheless it speaks of the situation and availability of police support. So although you may choose to call BS, the facts are otherwise ... I myself have caught someone breaking into another friends car and had to wait 25-30 minutes for the officer to arrive, the officers patrol area had him over 15 miles away and there are no Hiways to aid in movement from one side to the other.

Second, nobody is saying they would prefer to be a victim of theft. They are saying they would prefer to react appropriately if they were victimized. Huge difference.

>>>Maybe true, but the comments are based on after the incident occurred information, or hindsight if one will, not in real time so speculation is arm chair based. The victim or shooter in this case must have acted in what they felt, "Appropriately," given the circumstance and his observations.

Question: if you come upon someone breaking into your car at night, you have a gun, you call out "stop", but the person breaking into your car instead reaches into their belt/waist area, what is the preferred appropriate reaction ? Remember this is a confrontation, it is poorly lit, you have a gun and the person committing a crime against you is reacting in what you could perceive as an escalating threat towards your person, add to this his buddies are just a little bit further away in a car ... Now what would you do in the same circumstance but you did not have a gun, now what if the criminal did have a gun, what if the criminal had a gun but you didn't ? What is appropriate and why ?
 
>>>Maybe true, but the comments are based on after the incident occurred information, or hindsight if one will, not in real time so speculation is arm chair based. The victim or shooter in this case must have acted in what they felt, "Appropriately," given the circumstance and his observations.

Question: if you come upon someone breaking into your car at night, you have a gun, you call out "stop", but the person breaking into your car instead reaches into their belt/waist area, what is the preferred appropriate reaction ? Remember this is a confrontation, it is poorly lit, you have a gun and the person committing a crime against you is reacting in what you could perceive as an escalating threat towards your person, add to this his buddies are just a little bit further away in a car ... Now what would you do in the same circumstance but you did not have a gun, now what if the criminal did have a gun, what if the criminal had a gun but you didn't ? What is appropriate and why ?

We are judging after the fact yes. But we also don't know if the guy was really reaching into his waste band, that is what the guy said, but I would say the same thing in his place whether it was true or not.

In other words we don't know all the facts either pro or con except this, a burglar was shot dead in the back of the head from a balcony and he was un-armed. Doesn't look good.
 
We are judging after the fact yes. But we also don't know if the guy was really reaching into his waste band, that is what the guy said, but I would say the same thing in his place whether it was true or not.

In other words we don't know all the facts either pro or con except this, a burglar was shot dead in the back of the head from a balcony and he was un-armed. Doesn't look good.

The burglars entry wound came from the back & no gun was found at the scene ... It does not mean intent was to shoot a fleeing criminal from behind or that the criminal did not have a weapon ... Could it be his buddies retrieved a weapon ... there are a lot of if's or could be's, the "facts" as known can change.

Very interesting incident to look at ...
 
only the cops can shoot people fleeing the scene sad but true

They are not supposed to. They have rules to abide by too. They just don't do it because they are not accountable to the system that us plebs are.

Two systems of law. Tax payers and tax consumers.

The guy did the right thing. If you are going to shoot, make sure only one version of the story is in court. Yours. I guess he messed up by not getting the other assailants.

This sets precedent in Seattle that if you kill to defend your property you will be guilty. It will be twisted that way on the next case regardless of the facts. The guy is now a convicted felon. He will have to put that on every job application, rental application and pretty much any form of application for credit. He will have to go to a parole officer and have to pay for it. He will have to pay damages to the "victim " and the STATE in restitution. His gun is now impounded. He probably wont get it back and he probably wont be able to own a firearm anymore.

And as a personal experience in Vancouver, the police don't give an excrement about your car or you. I had a car broken into, with an eye witness, with a tag number for their car, with a tool used to break the window, with fingerprints all over the place and boot prints. The police wouldn't even show up or proceed with a report.

The police are only around to extract revenue for the STATE. They are not there for you.

See Warren v. District of Columbia

- stating... "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen."
 
People need to be thought a lesson. They will not learn if they are dead. I would have cuffed him and took him to the police station. If i was really pissed i'd take him to the woods and scared the **** out of him. I will not go into detail but trust me...... he would never ride in another car let alone steal from one.
 
they are not supposed to. They have rules to abide by too. They just don't do it because they are not accountable to the system that us plebs are.

Two systems of law. Tax payers and tax consumers.

The guy did the right thing. If you are going to shoot, make sure only one version of the story is in court. Yours. I guess he messed up by not getting the other assailants.

This sets precedent in seattle that if you kill to defend your property you will be guilty. It will be twisted that way on the next case regardless of the facts. The guy is now a convicted felon. He will have to put that on every job application, rental application and pretty much any form of application for credit. He will have to go to a parole officer and have to pay for it. He will have to pay damages to the "victim " and the state in restitution. His gun is now impounded. He probably wont get it back and he probably wont be able to own a firearm anymore.

And as a personal experience in vancouver, the police don't give an excrement about your car or you. I had a car broken into, with an eye witness, with a tag number for their car, with a tool used to break the window, with fingerprints all over the place and boot prints. The police wouldn't even show up or proceed with a report.

The police are only around to extract revenue for the state. They are not there for you.

See warren v. District of columbia

- stating... "fundamental principle of american law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen."

excellent !
 
People need to be thought a lesson. They will not learn if they are dead. I would have cuffed him and took him to the police station. If i was really pissed i'd take him to the woods and scared the **** out of him. I will not go into detail but trust me...... he would never ride in another car let alone steal from one.

You would have just committed a crime, false imprisonment, kidnapping, and other no doubt ... Here lay the problem, there are more laws protecting the guilty and subduing those protecting themselves ...

<broken link removed>
 
People need to be thought a lesson. They will not learn if they are dead. I would have cuffed him and took him to the police station. If i was really pissed i'd take him to the woods and scared the **** out of him. I will not go into detail but trust me...... he would never ride in another car let alone steal from one.

The problem with that is he the former criminal and now victim could have called the police shortly after his release from your kidnapping and had you arrested and you would likely be doing considerably more time than 9 months.

As citizens we have the right to protect ourselves and our property, we have zero rights to punish any offenders.
 
You would have just committed a crime, false imprisonment, kidnapping, and other no doubt ... Here lay the problem, there are more laws protecting the guilty and subduing those protecting themselves ...

<broken link removed>

I'm not sure what the rules are for Washington, but under ORS 161.255 (I'm not a lawyer, but I do play one on the internet) :

161.255 - Use of physical force by private person making citizen's arrest
(1) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, a private person acting on the person's own account is justified in using physical force upon another person when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes it necessary to make an arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of an arrested person whom the person has arrested under ORS 133.225.

(2) A private person acting under the circumstances prescribed in subsection (1) of this section is justified in using deadly physical force only when the person reasonably believes it necessary for self-defense or to defend a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force.

[1971 c.743 §31; 1973 c.836 §339]

Putting him in handcuffs would fall under "prevent the escape from custody" IMO.

elsie
 
I'm not sure what the rules are for Washington, but under ORS 161.255 (I'm not a lawyer, but I do play one on the internet) :


161.255 - Use of physical force by private person making citizen's arrest
(1) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, a private person acting on the person's own account is justified in using physical force upon another person when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes it necessary to make an arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of an arrested person whom the person has arrested under ORS 133.225.

(2) A private person acting under the circumstances prescribed in subsection (1) of this section is justified in using deadly physical force only when the person reasonably believes it necessary for self-defense or to defend a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force.

[1971 c.743 §31; 1973 c.836 §339]

Putting him in handcuffs would fall under "prevent the escape from custody" IMO.

elsie

(I'm not a lawyer, but I do play one on the internet) EXCELLENT !!! :)

Much the same here, but it does come down to he said she said, and both parties can file charges ...

Section 1 above fits the shooting circumstance this thread was started over. (1) of this section is justified in using deadly physical force only when the person reasonably believes it necessary for self-defense or to defend a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force. A group of 3-4 people in the act of committing a crime, running when faced with getting caught, reaching to waist band while holding stolen property, at night with poor lighting ...

Let's hope none of us has to face like circumstances ...
 
I wish I'd seen this when it was posted, let alone actually read local news because this is the first I'd heard of this story.

The guy shot a car prowler walking away from his car with his goods. He shot him from an elevated position with a rifle and never was directly confronted by the car prowler? Followed by the defense of "he was reaching for something" and "I didn't intend to kill him" after shooting him in the head?

The defendant deserves to go to jail for stupidity at the very least, murder at the very most.

Someone raised the issue of police not caring that their car was burglarized. If the police were staffed to handle the reported car prowlings that occur, we would need about 5x the number of street officers that we have, and that number is low. There's no bandwidth and ability to chase down leads and as much as it sucks having your stuff stolen (I've had a car stolen from me) I understand the why. And before someone says it, yes, I know there are plenty of officers that don't give two nickels for those kinds of problems, but for every officer I've met that's been a prick I've met ten that are overworked, underpaid, and still trying to protect/serve because it's their job. I don't envy those guys their work/life choices at all.

If they had been in his house/apartment, it's a different story. He has to protect himself and maybe his family. Someone walking away from your car? That's just a punitive shot that - while many of us would like to take - most of us know you shouldn't.

And if the guy was really reaching for a gun AND you have position and surprise on your side, if you don't let him expose the firearm and face you, you're accepting the risk that he has nothing and isn't actually checking himself to make sure he didn't just piss his pants. Someone turning to shoot is not going to be Antonio Banderas Desperado accurate, so you still hold your advantage.

That said, I don't feel particularly bad for the dude who got shot. Sounds like an unemployment solution, and I'm not a fan of thieves. But should he have died for his crime? No, I don't buy into that. The guys that stole my old Grand Cherokee - well, I could think of a LOT of things I wanted to do to them over a slow fire - but if they had been caught, I'd rather see them in jail making restitution than pushing up flowers.

Edit: And let's quit taking the "reaching into his waistband" as gospel. If I just murdered a dude and no gun was found next to or on the body, you're damn sure I'd be saying, "I saw him reaching for something" too.
 
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Edit: And let's quit taking the "reaching into his waistband" as gospel. If I just murdered a dude and no gun was found next to or on the body, you're damn sure I'd be saying, "I saw him reaching for something" too.

I don't think anyone here on any side of the debate is taking it as gospel. My thoughs are that there is a doubt and the benefit of the doubt goes to the victim (shooter) not the justice system.
 
Had the victim used a "drop gun" like the police do when they kill people, there would have been no doubt the victim was acting in self defense. ;)
 

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