# Felony Murder? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 18, 2026, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932 "2026-10-18T03:41:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/1 "2026-10-18T03:41:17Z")
Lately I’ve been getting some video clips on FaceBook Reels about armed HOA “enforcers”, hired by the HOA president, to draw their weapons to intimidate residents or just aggravated assault. And there seems to be many lately where the resident is a marine, seal, special forces, or some other flavor of combat experienced service member. In these videos the enforcers end up hauled away in an ambulance and are placed under arrest after their injuries have been treated. The Resident GI gets a nod from the Sheriff, and the HOA president gets arrested and gets a lesser sentence than the muscle. So here’s my question… what if while defending himself, the resident ends up fatally perforating one or several of the enforcers. Since it was self-defense the resident is cleared and the enforcers were committing aggravated assault, impersonating an officer, harassment, etc, would any survivors be guilty of Felony Murder too? How about the HOA president who hired these enforcers, armed them or approved of their weaponry, and ordered them to harass the resident? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan\_myers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@aruvqan\_myers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan_myers)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/2 "2026-10-18T03:51:55Z")
First, those all tend to be AI twaddle, and absolute bullshit. In the US you are allowed to defend yourself- but not like The Untouchables - not they bring a knife, you bring a gun. If someone hits you, you can hit back in self defense. If they are hitting someone else [like me] you nay step in and use the same type of force against them. [I first ran into several of those crap videos - memorably was ‘some woman’ moved into a house that her husband had moved in first [I think she was delayed by like a couple weeks] and she had the temerity to leave a moving truck parked in the drive … vague upshot was she was a high level officer at the local army base having just been moved to the duty station … so obviously something something HOA something about the truck to get absolutely shamed because the woman she was yelling at WAS the high end officer in the army. Yup. Just getting clicks. Just like a retelling of a little old woman wearing a chest full of medals getting accused of stolen valor to turn out to be some top female warfighter in WW2 and those were her actual awards. Sorry. AI slop is offensive. If they use ‘now keep this in your mind’ or phrases like that, it is 99% AI generated. Also, word mispronunciations read/read, lead/lead, sayig dates like one thousand and ninety seven instead of nineteen ninety seven [because the script was written with 1997 instead of nineteen ninety seven] and stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/3 "2026-10-18T04:01:54Z")
> [@aruvqan\_myers](#): > > First, those all tend to be AI twaddle, and absolute bullshit. Yeah. That sort of shit simply does not occur, except maybe once. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/4 "2026-10-18T04:21:08Z")
> [@aruvqan\_myers](#): > > If they are hitting someone else [like me] you nay step in and use the same type of force against them. Not true in all cases. If you are in fear of bodily harm (who knows how far it will go) you are allowed to use force to stop it. I’m 80 years old. If a drugged crazy starts attacking me or my family I’m not going to start karate chopping. Hell, if I tried a spin kick I would fall on my face. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/5 "2026-10-18T04:24:12Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > So here’s my question… what if while defending himself, the resident ends up fatally perforating one or several of the enforcers. Since it was self-defense the resident is cleared and the enforcers were committing aggravated assault, impersonating an officer, harassment, etc, would any survivors be guilty of Felony Murder too? How about the HOA president who hired these enforcers, armed them or approved of their weaponry, and ordered them to harass the resident? Not sure what the exact precedents are but I know there have been cases where two or more guys have staged a robbery, one of the robbers was shot by a guard, and the surviving robbers were convicted of felony murder. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/6 "2026-10-18T04:54:59Z")
While details vary bu US State, the basic elements of _felony murder_ generally include: 1 a group of people act together to commit a felony. 2 some person is killed during this (either one of them, a guard, or a bystander). 3 all of the group can then be charged with _felony murder_, since the murder happened during commission of a felony. A classic example is a bank robbery, where one of the robbers inside is shot & killed by a guard, and the getaway driver waiting outside is caught and charged with felony murder, And can be convicted. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/7 "2026-10-18T05:19:57Z")
I keep getting these HOA rage-bait videos, and they are designed to entice you to click for part 2. It’s either “they cut down my trees”, or “they think they have the right to use my driveway”, or “I was here before the HOA and am not a part no matter how much they insist”, “HOA lady has key to my house”, “HOA thinks they own the pond my grandpa built”, etc. Obviously not that many HOA’s are stupid enough to do this and let the “victim” film it. What ain’t AI is staged. I don’t understand why, because as I understand, there’s no money paid for content on Instagram unless things have changed. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/8 "2026-10-18T05:22:30Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > If you are in fear of bodily harm (who knows how far it will go) you are allowed to use force to stop it. I can shed a _little_ more light on the legalities here, but not much. First off, IANAL, but I do teach self-defense, mostly to senior citizens. In my training to become a self-defense trainer, the key takeaway I’ve gotten is you can use the force necessary to eliminate the threat, but anything further than that and you may be subject to criminal repercussions. For instance, you get mugged but you get the better of your attacker and manage to put him down temporarily. For instance, you may have kneed him in the groin. You know that a knee to the groin is not always a fight ender and you have a legitimate fear the mugger will chase after you after a very short recovery, so you break his knee for good measure. Because you had that legitimate fear, you should be ok (although that won’t stop Monday morning quarterbacks from debating the legitimacy of that fear). If, however, you’re so pissed off at the mugger that - while he’s lying on the ground moaning and groaning clutching his groin and knee - you proceed to kick his face repeatedly until it looks like hamburger, there’s a pretty good chance you could be arrested and charged with some level of assault. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/felony-murder/1033932/9 "2026-10-18T05:54:01Z")
I assume they come from troll farms and are meant to get us some combination of enraged and dispirited. If I’m going to watch AI glurge, let it be cats dancing or smashing other cats’ faces into cream pies. _If._