http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...e-the-footage/
Printable View
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails just call me Lucifer
I'm in need of some restraint
I would have to believe that there's a little more going on with this story than has come to light just yet. Hard to say at this point with this little information.
I don't know about the deleting video part, but I give a LOT of leeway to police officers. The man held a shotgun up in the air. Open or not, why not relieve your cold, grubby hands of that deadly weapon, separating it from the weapon so there is no danger of it being fired? Stupid.
These men risk their lives every moment of their day. Give them a break when there's a man holding a deadly weapon. I have a concealed weapon permit, and carry, and have been stopped twice by officers while I was carrying. I voluntarily revealed I was carrying, to let them know and they could treat me as they should to protect themselves. I have no problem with that. They don't know me.
Reading the Sheriff's version of the story --The yahoo pointed a deadly weapon at the trespasser, detaining him at gunpoint until the police arrived. You are not permitted to use deadly force to protect property under the law, only to protect lives.
I am not buying the guy's story that he never pointed the weapon at the trespasser. The trespasser would not have stayed where he was if the guy didn't threaten him in some manner. I call BS on his story that cited his military training as never pointing at someone he didn't intend to shoot, other than he perhaps pointed it at the guy, fully intending to shoot if he tried to get away.
I give the police a WHOLE lot more credit here than the story does. And frankly, I have little-to-no empathy for people telling the police, "No you won't" take the phone for evidence and crap like that. Frankly, I'd want her discontinuing it just to eliminate distractions that are occurring with life-threatening weapons around and who knows what else. You're already in a hostile environment, as evidenced by comments made by the arrested guy and his wife--who knows if there's a brother, older son, or whoever hanging around with a crossbow or other shotgun ready, willing, and able to escalate it beyond where it is.
Listen, I have issues with police officers, like I do with lawyers, or politicians, or pastors, from time to time. They're all people. But police officers have a difficult job to do, far more difficult than many of us realize, and forced to make decisions to protect others and themselves at the spur of the moment, with life-threatening distractions around. I saw nothing in the video that gave me pause for what they did.
The biggest problem a lot of people will have with the situation is the part Darrell mentioned: you aren't allowed to use deadly force to defend property.
Basically if this guy had walked up the driveway and tried to steal his car out of his own front yard this property owner still had no right to point a gun at him at law. THe law says you have to stand there and wave goodbye to your car unless he is threatening you in some way. There are nuances, like whether you could try to stop him without a weapon, but many people find that an unacceptable legal principle.
The Castle Doctrine has been passed in many states to deal with the fact that it extended into your own home. If the guy broke in and was stealing your TV you still couldn't use deadly force unless your life was in danger. Well at 3am in the dark with a guy coming in your house how the hell are you supposed to know if he's armed or will try to kill you and rape your wife after he gets the TV? So the Castle Doctrine was passed in states which says, depending on the state variant, that if the guy is in your house you have a presumption of being at risk of life which means deadly force is justified by default. You don't have to ask him if he's going to just take the TV or if he plans on hurting you too.
In some states Castle is only in your home, in some it extends to someone trying to enter your home (Kentucky is in that group), in some few it extends to the property line but I'm sure in Michigan it's the home if they have one at all. A number of states still have an obligation to retreat no matter what, so if the burglar kicks in the front door your legal duty is to go out the back door and let him take whatever he wants. Apparently b/c we don't want to hurt the scumbag so he can go about his merry life victimizing people as much as possible.
Long story short a lot of people would have no issue with this property owner holding a trespasser at gunpoint or at least with threat of a gun in some way until the cops came to deal with him, and would not see him as having done anything wrong. Their issue will be that the cops showed up at this guys' request to deal with a trespasser and instead arrested the property owner for protecting his property. The problem is the law is pretty lax on the notion of protecting one's property these days. They could have arrested this guy if the trespasser was riding off having burglarized his home, much less just riding across his land. The law prefers you just wave goodbye to your stuff in that case.
I do have an issue with the officers telling her to delete the video, if they did, and maybe even with taking the phone. You can pry my phone out of my cold dead hands as far as I'm concerned, lol. I need my phone. I also don't give them a complete pass on the situation as they don't seem 100% sure on who he threatened with the gun, etc. I agree with Darrell the last thing you want to be doing when the cops arrive is waving a gun in the air, it needed to not be in his hands, but I also doubt he really pointed it in a threatening manner at the officers, which was some part of their initial claims. that feels a little "trumped up" to me and may be based on past interactions with this guy that were alluded to , and that's not something material to this case.
Honestly I also have a problem with this rising to the level of charges, and wonder if again it's not b/c of issues the Sheriff's office may have with this guy. Those issues may be legit, but on their side it sounds like they've complained of trespassers often and nothing much was done, maybe he got fed up and finally held one at gunpoint but he's rubbed these officers the wrong way so they're going after him. In the Andy Griffith world they'd have shown up, secured the weapon, told the owner that if he held anyone else at gunpoint he'd lose the gun and maybe be charged, tell the trespasser to tell his friends that they may get accidentally shot if they keep coming on his property and go home. Of course maybe that scenario has played out in the past and this was the breaking point in some way.
need more history on this situation, but mostly I think people just won't like the way the law is written on dealing with trespassers. In Kentucky you can only use deadly force to prevent arson if you are on your property but outside your home. If he's stealing your fancy new car tough luck, and people don't care for that approach to justice.
There are too many cowboy law enforcement officers out there that aren't properly trained and try to illegally bully the public.
I know of a lot of good law enforcement officers, and have run across some incompetent ones as well. The good ones would have never reacted as the deputies in the article did.
Based on my experience those who bully do so to compensate for lack of knowledge, skills dealing with others, etc.