Self-defense or manslaughter?

[U8395279]

The reason I asked for him to provide a link is because, as you've now also said, the shooting happened at a separate location.
Yet I've read multiple articles that say the shooting happened on the property and the man died at a separate location.
<broken link removed>

Well, it does not matter if the homeowner was still on his property when he fired. That is a totally moot point.

Once the homeowner chased the men out of his house he had won at that point. He had thwarted the home invasion. He should have realized that, and simply dialed 911.

What would he be protecting with the guys running away while still on his property? The men walking on his grass?

I don't know of a single state with a castle doctrine that would allow this shooting. Such laws generally refer to protecting your home.

Oregon's laws certainly would not condone this shooting. They are very specific about under what conditions using deadly force is justified.

===============================
Oregon Revised Statutes 161.219
Limitations on use of deadly physical force in defense of a person

Notwithstanding the provisions of ORS 161.209 (Use of physical force in defense of a person), a person is not justified in using deadly physical force upon another person unless the person reasonably believes that the other person is:

(1) Committing or attempting to commit a felony involving the use or threatened imminent use of physical force against a person; or

(2) Committing or attempting to commit a burglary in a dwelling; or

(3) Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force against a person. [1971 c.743 §23]

================================

If this sort of incident had taken place in Oregon, a homeowner could easily have justified shooting these men while they were still inside his home. But once they fled and were outside the dwelling and running away, all of a homeowner's legal justifications in using deadly force would then immediately vanish.

This is a very important thing for all gun owners to realize.

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[decklin]

I think you misunderstood the reason I pointed it out.
The point is we know almost nothing about this yet everybody is already passing judgement.
Anyone remember innocent until proven guilty?

 

[U8395279]

I think you misunderstood the reason I pointed it out.
The point is we know almost nothing about this yet everybody is already passing judgement.
Anyone remember innocent until proven guilty?

We know plenty enough to pass judgement. All of those shell casing scattered across the lawn clearly verifies that he pursued the men outside of his home, and that is where he opened fire on them.

Face it. This man made a critical error in judgement by doing that. He instantly changed from being a victim to being the aggressor. He deserves to be criticized for making such a fundamental and obvious mistake.

Let's hope that others can learn from this incident, and avoid sharing his fate of being arrested.

.

 

[U8395279]

This ABC News story about this shooting pretty much sums up the case against the homeowner:

================================
Lt. Rick Edwards said Hillis was held at gunpoint until he turned the tables by grabbing his own gun, which caused the suspects to run out of the home.

Edwards said the Castle Doctrine gives homeowners the right to protect themselves inside their homes, but in this case, Hillis is not covered.

"You're not protected by the Castle Doctrine when the suspects flee your home or your property and your life is no longer in danger," Edwards said. "In this case, the suspects took off running from the house."

=================================


Here is a link to the full news report:

<broken link removed>

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[Caveman Jim]

Did anyone else get any security alerts when you visited the Examiner.com website?

One of my security programs said it blocked an attempt made to connect to my computer's microphone. And my keyboard locked up while I was connected that website, and immediately cleared up once I closed and left it. Made me wonder if it was try to get through my key logging protection program.

Makes me wonder if the Examiner.com website has been hacked, and malicious software installed on it.

.

I will never go to any examiner websites!!!

 

[decklin]

You clearly don't understand.
Innocent until proven guilty.
You looked at a single random picture of some grass and you now have your mind made up.
Sure hope you never get arrested.
I was arrested when I was 18. I didn't do anything but it followed me for years.
As a result of the arrest I was kicked out of my home and ridiculed by everyone. Everyone "knew" what happened and yet nobody knew a damn thing.
I was falsely accused and almost went to jail.
So, yeah, I'm a little touchy about people making up their mind based off one picture and a few poorly written, spam filled "articles".

 

[decklin]

To be clear, I wasn't taking a shot at Dave's article. Just his site.

 

[U8395279]

You clearly don't understand.
Innocent until proven guilty.
You looked at a single random picture of some grass and you now have your mind made up.
Sure hope you never get arrested.
I was arrested when I was 18. I didn't do anything but it followed me for years.
As a result of the arrest I was kicked out of my home and ridiculed by everyone. Everyone "knew" what happened and yet nobody knew a damn thing.
I was falsely accused and almost went to jail.
So, yeah, I'm a little touchy about people making up their mind based off one picture and a few poorly written, spam filled "articles".

It is much better to have an opinion based on facts and what the law says, rather than to make an opinion based on personal bias and emotions.

Go ahead and ignore what the law says about when it is legal to use deadly force. Go ahead and ignore the fact that he pursued the men outside of his home and then opened fire.

What you don't seem to understand here is that even if this man is able to avoid a conviction at trial, HE STILL SCREWED UP!! THAT IS BECAUSE HE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE IN JUDGEMENT.

That is what everyone is criticizing.

I see absolutely no evidence of any rush to judgement by the police here. They worked on this case for two weeks with the involvement of the District Attorney's office, before bringing any charges.

I think that your personal experience is clouding your judgement here.


.

 

[decklin]

It is much better to have an opinion based on facts and what the law says, rather than to make an opinion based on personal bias and emotions.

Go ahead and ignore what the law says about when it is legal to use deadly force. Go ahead and ignore the fact that he pursued the men outside of his home and then opened fire.

What you don't seem to understand here is that even if this man is able to avoid a conviction at trial, HE STILL SCREWED UP!! THAT IS BECAUSE HE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE IN JUDGEMENT.

That is what everyone is criticizing.

I see absolutely no evidence of any rush to judgement by the police here. They worked on this case for two weeks with the involvement of the District Attorney's office, before bringing any charges.

I think that your personal experience is clouding your judgement here.


.

Again you still aren't understanding. Why don't you wait for the police report to come out before passing judgment.
What is difficult about that.
Everything you say is pure speculation.
What is difficult about that?
An arrest does not equal a conviction.
What is difficult about that?
I just broke it down Barney style for you. If you need further explanations then you'll need to seek professional help.

 

[U8395279]

I really don't understand why you are so personally invested in this case.

I'm sorry to hear that you were a victim of false accusations in the past. Many people have suffered greatly in such cases, and it is true that many times police due pursue such allegations with bias.

However, this case has nothing whatsoever to do with false allegations, or even allegations of any kind at all. No one has made any allegations against this man, that prompted him to be investigated. There are no accusers in this case. HE SHOT AND KILLED SOMEONE. That is why he was investigated. He brought this all down upon himself.

Everything you say is pure speculation.

Really? That is quite a good joke. You are saying that the laws that I referred to do not exist and do not need to be obeyed? That all of those spent shell cases the police found outside the house do not exist? Dude, you are in total state of denial.

If you need further explanations then you'll need to seek professional help.

People in glass houses should not make personal ad hominem attacks against other people like that. If you were so badly traumatized by what happened to you back when you were 18 that it is still affecting you today, then I think that you are the person here that most definitely needs some mental health counseling.

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[Bon Sauvage]

Many of the early news reports linked in the beginning of this article do not provide any details about the circumstances of the shooting. But if you go to the later report by the local Fox News station, you will see that the homeowner ran outside of his home and chased after the men, and fired somewhere around 6 to 8 shots ( according to a neighbor ) at them as they fled. This all happened quite some distance from the home.

In this scene in the photo below, you can see where police have placed markers for 4 shell casings that they have found, as they look for more with metal detectors.

View attachment 252835

The Examiner.com article is poorly written, as it should have made it clear that the scene of the shooting was at a different location. This may well have been done intentionally, in a disingenuous manner to stir up controversy. At the very least, it was a major oversight on their part.

Oregon's self-defense laws pretty much give a homeowner Carte Blanche authority to shoot someone that has entered your home to commit a crime. But that protection from prosecution disappears once that person goes outside your residence. For after all, you can simply stay inside your residence and be safe, and wait for police to arrive, at that point in time.

Once he chased the men outside of his home, the homeowner should have simply dialed 911.

Here is the link to the Fox News story:

http://fox8.com/2015/08/17/man-who-shot-home-invasion-suspect-charged-with-voluntary-manslaughter/

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I see evidence markers. That doesn't mean that they're marking shell cases though. My computer is pretty much a hunk of junk, and I may have missed it. Did it say these were cases in the story line or is this a supposition?

 

[Hybrid Slave]

Shooting someone who is fleeing is different (and most likely wrong) than shooting someone in the back.

The time it takes to pull the trigger can be long enough for them to spin, thus getting someone in the back.

But, if they are fleeing ..
- 1 Police have a duty to protect, regular citizens do not
- 2 Location, if you are in a city / suburb you have different resources than someone rural
- 3 Do you reasonably believe that if you don't stop them with deadly force that they will harm or kill others?
- 4 Can you make that decision in the split seconds you have?


As I am not a cop, my mindset is to Stop the threat; and that threat stops when they leave. But, I am not going to come off the sights - people can and do shoot behind themselves.



Tough questions in both cases.


Thanks Dave.

There is case precedence on the issue of shooting a fleeing suspect. I recall this from a CJ class that I took when I was thinking about going into LE.

I'll have to dig up my old notes for the case name and details, but I can tell you that the supreme court ruled, sometime back in the 80s, that LE could not arbitrarily shoot a fleeing suspect.

The reasons were based on lack of direct and eminent danger to the officers or others.

From what I recall, this case was also cited during the debate about high speed pursuits, stating that in many cases officers actually unnecessarily escalate situations at times when discretion, as opposed to aggression, would be better applied by the officer. Easy to say, I know. But like everything, continued training and practice in the field can work.

Lack of training in conflict resolution was cited by one of my instructors as the major cause. It is far easier to resort to aggression and force (especially when under pressure), and much more difficult (and scary) to try and defuse a situation.

But the Supreme Court also ruled that once the direct threat is eminent, LE could let bullets fly.

The grey area of late has been defining exactly how we define eminent danger, particularly when an LEO empties a magazine into an idiot who cannot follow directions, and then finds out that the guy was unarmed.

Such directions are often being screamed and shouted by the LEO when he's standing only a few feet away. Does this serve to quell tensions? Probably not.

I know that wrong or right, I don't dig it when someone is screaming or barking at me like some rabid dog while they are pointing a gun at me. It puts the hairs on my back on end and makes me want to fight. And yes I've had plenty of guns pointed at me in my time by both LEOs and other people (grew up in Los Angeles).

Any way, main point is, no, you cannot shoot a fleeing suspect according to the Supreme Court. Secondary point is that better training and more required education in certain fields of study such as human behavior and conflict resolution could save lives on both ends. But hiring better educated officers is an whole other can of worms.

 

[Bon Sauvage]

 

[Hybrid Slave]

Many of the early news reports linked in the beginning of this article do not provide any details about the circumstances of the shooting. But if you go to the later report by the local Fox News station, you will see that the homeowner ran outside of his home and chased after the men, and fired somewhere around 6 to 8 shots ( according to a neighbor ) at them as they fled. This all happened quite some distance from the home.

In this scene in the photo below, you can see where police have placed markers for 4 shell casings that they have found, as they look for more with metal detectors.

View attachment 252835

The Examiner.com article is poorly written, as it should have made it clear that the scene of the shooting was at a different location. This may well have been done intentionally, in a disingenuous manner to stir up controversy. At the very least, it was a major oversight on their part.

Oregon's self-defense laws pretty much give a homeowner Carte Blanche authority to shoot someone that has entered your home to commit a crime. But that protection from prosecution disappears once that person goes outside your residence. For after all, you can simply stay inside your residence and be safe, and wait for police to arrive, at that point in time.

Once he chased the men outside of his home, the homeowner should have simply dialed 911.

Here is the link to the Fox News story:

http://fox8.com/2015/08/17/man-who-shot-home-invasion-suspect-charged-with-voluntary-manslaughter/

.

That is not so bad compared to California. There, they have something called a "preclusion" clause that states more or less that you have to have your back against a wall with no means of retreat in order to justify a shooting.

If the DA has a hair up their tail, they can charge you if they feel that you didn't try hard enough to run away, even to the point of leaving your own home.

Sure, turn and run out of your house so the jumpy itchy triggered cops can shoot you on your way out of your own back window. So glad I left that forsaken state.

 

[pchewn]

(1) Committing or attempting to commit a felony involving the use or threatened imminent use of physical force against a person; or

(2) Committing or attempting to commit a burglary in a dwelling; or

(3) Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force against a person.

Using the above from Oregon law, if I were on a jury I might conclude that a person in the act of fleeing (with a gun) from a home is "STILL" engaged in all 3 of these activities, which allow the home-owner to shoot him.