Father shoots/kills daughter's boyfriendFollow

He's getting stupider just for the sake of arguing.

You have to be an oblivious idiot to believe "he was reaching for something" when there was no evidence of a threat. The 5 year old was obviously an hyperbole for killing someone with no threat simply because you didn't know the person and was in your house.

Did you mean to quote me? 'Cause if you did, then your response was a complete non sequitur.

Maybe Alma felt intellectually threatened?

Orrrrrr...... it's demonstrating that simply seeing someone that you don't recognize in your house doesn't justify headshots, that you have to take the entire situation into account. As Xsarus pionted out, there's a huge a difference between a near adult in the middle of the night and a 5 year old during the day. If you're going to take the environment into consideration, then you must also take into consideration that the boy was the same age as the girl, the girl didn't appear frightened, the girl didn't ask for help, the boy didn't have a weapon out, etc.

If the story doesn't say that it happened, then either they are lying or it didn't happen.

The side he's on is the one that get the most people to respond to him.

Depends, can I put him to work?

Because I expect my daughters to eventually lure some guy into the house who I can sucker into lifting heavy things and such in a feeble attempt to get on my good side.

I don't believe that the kid was soft spoken at all, especially after being thrown under the bus by his supposedly girlfriend. Nor do I believe that the father was a raging lunatic or he would have shot him immediately. I DO believe that the father ignored all of the contrary evidence of any assault and overreacted by the "possible" gesture of the boy "reaching for something.

You're trying to pin me as being one sided, when in reality I'm just reacting to facts. The boy had an opportunity to leave and he didn't. That was his biggest mistake. That tells me that he was not this innocent soft spoken person. That also supports the notion that he was not armed. The fact that the father was sent to the hospital for having a panic attack, supports the notion that he panicked and overreacted. He didn't go order a pizza afterwards.

I keep a collapsible steel chair near the front door.

Are you kidding? Father hears noises or is told about noises coming from his teen daughters room. He bursts in with his gun to see a hulking figure in there (did you look at the picture of the 17 year old in the article?). He points his gun at demands to know what's going on. Daughter tells the father that she doesn't know who this huge man is in her bedroom at 2AM is. Father tells the intruder to stay still while he calls the cops. Intruder doesn't stay still. Bam.

I'm sorry. It's a tragic set of circumstances, but I totally do not blame the father at all for doing what he did. He had every reason in the world to think that this guy was an intruder in his daughters room, presumably there to rape/kill her.



No moreso than any other parent. I think most parents have a blind spot in this regard. Doubly so for a 16 year old daughter. We can't make assumptions about what the father did or didn't know about his daughters sexual activity.



Again, it's about what the father knew when he fired. Is he supposed to be a mind reader or something?



The fact that he sneaked in kinda suggests that he knew that the head of the household didn't know he was there. That was the point, right? So yeah, he is taking a risk doing that. If he'd been at the house for dinner with the whole family and the father had said "Sure. Stay the night in my daughters room", and then had shot him in this manner, there would be more suspicion about his reasons for doing so (just like the Bladerunner case). But that's not what happened.



Uh. As several people have pointed out, the mere presence of someone in the house who the father does not know gives him legal grounds to shot. If I hear sounds coming from my living room, and I go to investigate and there's someone I've never seen before in my living room, I'm under zero obligation to even engage that person in conversation. I can legally simply shoot the intruder. In this case, the father could have simply burst in, seen some stranger with his daughter and shot him and been legally in the right. Taking the time to ask a few questions and find out what's going on was not even necessary in this case.


The lesson is that if you want to legally be in someone's house you need to make sure that you're openly invited there. One person sneaking you in doesn't count. You're still an intruder. Everyone who lives in a house needs to know you are there.

I think that in most states, you're allowed to shoot an intruder in your home without being required to engage in conversation first. In my case, I live alone, so it's a lot more clear cut.

The castle doctrine refers to a specific type of law which means that you aren't required to attempt to flee if possible. In practice though, even in the absence of a specific castle doctrine law, the odds of a homeowner being charged for shooting an intruder in the home are somewhere very very close to zero.

In Maryland; if you have ANY way to escape your house in the case of home invasion then you are expected to run away...
You're in your living room with a gun in your couch and knife wielding men burst in and you have a back door.. RUN AWAY!!!
..but if you are legally justified that you believed that your life was in immediate danger; only then are you justified to shoot.
Far cry from some other states with Stand Your Ground and Cattle Rancher laws..


The fact of the matter is.. it is only proper "etiquette" if you have a gun drawn on you that unless you are trying to attack the person (or escape) you stand still, keep your hands visible, and don't make any sudden moves. Trust me.. no matter how much fear you may have.. when a gun is pointed at you and you see the sweat on the brow of the person bearing down at you.. you'd be pretty remiss in your survival instinct to do otherwise.. that is unless you are planning to a) defend yourself or b) escape... so if this guy was cornered in a bedroom his only viable alternative to surrendering would be to attack.. hence the shooting.


This would be a much more relevant topic of conversation:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e33_1394667109
The cop shoots a 70 year old man with a cane... Now granted.. it's pretty dumb to get out of your vehicle during a traffic stop and reach for something in your car... but shouldn't police training include the ability to properly discern the situation as well as part of the job to take the risk that if you don't actually SEE a gun then it MAY not be a gun?
If this happened in a home and I shot an old man with a cane surely I would not get away with it.


Edited, Mar 17th 2014 6:46pm by Kelvyquayo