I feel badly that two people who should have been raised to know better, but weren’t, are now dead because of it.*
I’d love to be able to ask what the mothers did when their spawn first started bringing home guns. Did they kick them out then? Did they kick them out when they saw that their broodlings had new things w/o any jobs or visible means of support?
What active stance did the mothers take when it became painfully obvious that their kids jobs were armed robbery, menacing, terroristic threats and possibly murder?
*Someone asked me in another thread why I had such a “thing” about stupidity hurting and suggesting that meanness should hurt instead. This is the type of case I was thinking of. Oddly enough, if they were arrested… turned in… jailed and serving time,
they would probably be alive today. Being arrested would hurt, turning in your kid would hurt, but but the stupidity of their actions should hurt, if only because being dead is a whole lot worse. IMHO.
Given the facts in the article, I think the bystander acted appropriately, I’d like to believe that, faced with similar circumstances, I’d have the presence of mind to respond likewise. Moreso, given this cite here by Cheesesteak, it seems that the bystander would have even been legally justified in using lethal force had the assailants not pulled their guns on him and chosen to flee instead, as they were witnessed in the act of armed robbery. Personally, I’d have much rather they not pull their guns or attempt to flee and accept that they’d been caught, but they didn’t, and it’s unfortunate, but it is what it is.
And I do feel sympathy for the mothers as well. Yes, they very well may have been oblivious or possibly even straight up bad mothers, but raising children isn’t an exact science, and there’s countless cases out there where children raised by the same parents end up with very different lives because of decisions they made, not their parents. But even if we accept that they were poor parents, I think their grief is completely understandable, and that it clouds their ability to accept that their kids were, in fact, violent criminals. Their reaction is expected. Hell, I think most parents would respond with a similar level of shock and irrationality. How would we expect them to react? “Oh, well, they made their bed, they have to lie in it.”
If anyone should be shamed, and I don’t even really think they should, it’s the coverage which raises a level of controversy here that doesn’t really exist. Two guys justly shot and killed in commission of a violent crime. Two mothers in grief over the deaths of their sons due to poor decision making. I think the story would have been best covered by just sticking to the facts of the crime and not interviewing the family of the assailants at all.
It’s a “my clan, right or wrong,” type of sentiment, expressed by exactly the sorts of people who never really bought into the social contract and the rule of law as most of us understand it.
And yet, it’s standardly given that, upon witnessing a crime, one should call the police and leave it to them, and this is the logic against public citizen vigilantism.
No…the bystander would still have justification. They came armed with guns and they weren’t home free yet. They came with the obvious intention to kill if they got in a bad situation. There was still plenty of time for them to kill someone. Even if they were in the process of leaving and someone killed them, the shooter is still in the clear. How do we know they wouldn’t have blasted out their getaway car windows while leaving to obscure the license plate?
I love how the mother says the police should have handled it yet her son wasn’t interested in waiting around for the police to arrest him. I guess he would have turned himself in because that’s the right thing to do.
“In addition to being exempt from criminal charges, Adams said because of the Castle Doctrine, the shooter now has civil protection from being sued by the families.”
That was a very brave thing the guy did and he could have my back any day. We need more people like him.
That’s pretty much where I come down, too. The ‘concerned citizen’ may well have been a bit too eager to play hero, but it’s a hard call to make if you weren’t there. But the guys who decided to make their living threatening people with guns for money had to expect that they might wind up being the ones that get ventilated. Live by the gun, die by the gun. No pity here.
Tell them they are holding a press conference where they will be allowed to speak…immediately after begins the awards ceremony where they pin a couple medals on the guy, and a cash reward for cleaning up the city as well as announcing his lucrative book and movie deals.
So now you know, resisting a citizen’s arrest can go down just as badly as resisting a peace officer’s arrest. It would have been to their advantage to submit and wait for real police.
And yes, it is an annoyance for the camera crews to descend on the families of all parts affected, perps, victims and witnesses alive, and shove a mic in their faces while they’re still trying to get over the news of a calamity.
as to why would it be the Castle Doctrine that applies here, since it happened in the public street outside the shop, not in his property or living space. Is it that whatever provision in Pennsylvania that is invoked for justifiable self-defense also codifies the Castle Doctrine? He’s obviously trying to say that it’s a clear case of justifiable self defense and since it was justifiable, no wrong was done and he’s protected from civil actions.
as to why would it be the Castle Doctrine that applies here, since it happened in the public street outside the shop, not in his property or living space. Is it that whatever provision in Pennsylvania that is invoked for justifiable self-defense also codifies the Castle Doctrine? He’s obviously trying to say that it’s a clear case of justifiable self defense and since it was justifiable, no wrong was done and he’s protected from civil actions.