Florida stand your ground. Dont play stupid games

[KLB]

Seems they both have a history of idiocy. Now what...???

Hang 'em both!

 

[churchmouse]

from what I saw on the video, none of what you would do happened. It looks to me that there are two different altercations going on, one verbal between 2 "adults" and since we have no sound why are we assuming he was yelling at her? and then we have a fellow who rushes out and and starts a physical altercation. There might be quite a few reasons why he hesitated to fire, shooting someone is a life changing decision, he had to take the safety off, he was making sure of what was behind the target...maybe not a perfect shoot, but not criminal.

If you look closely at the video it is pretty obvious he is yelling at the driver of the car parked in the crippled zone. He is adamantly outlining the space to her.
There is serious fail all across this entire thing. A chain of bad decisions that ended (literally) badly. All of this could and should have been avoided.

 

[shootersix]

I watched the video (numerous times) from the door opening to just after the shot, here's what I see
man yelling at lady
yelling man is so focused on the lady, he doesn't notice boyfriend walking up
boyfriend shoves yelling man
momentum from the push moves the boyfriend forward two steps causing boyfriend to have to pull up his shorts (could yelling man assume that bf is reaching for a gun?)
yelling man draws gun
boyfriend starts to move away from yelling man
boyfriend takes 3 steps backwards, hands partially up, and not in a threating manor.
yelling man shoots boyfriend.

use of stand your ground law is justified by local police, and probably will be by state attorney general.

will yelling man be sued for wrongful death?, oh hell yes he will, and if the jury sees this tape, yelling man will loose!, his past will be brought up, the circle a owner will testify, the person from the road rage incident will testify, and yelling man will be judged by "the court of public opinion" and even though they will try to seat a "fair and impartial jury" (idk about florida civil cases, but in Indiana its only 6 people on the jury) I bet they wont find one person who hasn't formed an opinion!

when you put on a gun (like I do) you have to think ahead, with a calm cool approach to EVERY situation, just because you can "protect yourself", does that give you the right to "project yourself" into a confrontational situation?

yelling man put himself into this situation! if yelling man was handicapped and she took the only handicap parking spot, he should have called the police, not "become the police!"

 

[Doug]

Amen.

 

[dusty88]

First off: by looking at the video would any of us thought the shooter was 47? Dude looked like Abe Vigoda standing there.

Second: My parents have a handicapped hang tag. Mom tells Dad not to walk so fast when they are parked in a handicapped spot. Mom is 80, Dad is 85!!

Third: Don't park in a handicapped spot if you're not authorized to do so. Getting called out for doing so should be the rule, not the exception.

Forth: This ain't stand your ground, it's self-defense. Abe Vigoda dude couldn't retreat because he was violently pushed to the ground.

Fifth: Circle A owner should be sued for ripping off Circle K.

Sixth: Circle A owner (who should be sued by Circle K) should've trespassed Abe Vigoda dude if he was a problem.

Everyone is forgetting one thing. If you are a woman in a car with a guy verbally chastising you from 3' away, don't get out of the car to confront him. I don't know what words were exchanged, but it looks like an escalation. It also put her closer to the older guy (who does look like he's out of shape and is reportedly disabled.... cardiac issues maybe?). Had she still been in the car when her boyfriend came out, it might have also not looked so worrisome to the boyfriend. And she could have even used the option of backing the car out of the spot, ya know giving in to the argument that she wasn't supposed to be there.

Three people made stupid choices.

 

[dusty88]

I keep repeating myself here BUT......
I'll bide my time and WAIT until I get all the facts. I have come to the realization that the media reports what is to their advantage.
When all is said and done I figure I'll have enough actual facts to come to my own conclusion. One snippet of video might not portray the actual facts.

Yes, whatever words were exchanged may be important as well. But I think we can predict how the media trial will go.

 

[rhino]

I agree that the 47 year old should not have accosted the woman in the car over parking in a handicapped spot. That's just stupid even if she doesn't have a boyfriend about to come out and push you down. It was also stupid for non-handicapped people to park in that spot, so both parties share responsibility for the stupid decisions that led to a death that could easily have been avoided.

Given that, I think there is more gray area here than some are allowing. I don't think some of the healthier, fitter guys perceive being pushed down on pavement the way someone like I would. In my case, if you successfully push me down on pavement, you're absolutely putting me in jeopardy of very serious injury (or death if I hit my head). I'm going to perceive being pushed down as deadly force being used against me. For a young guy who will just fall down and get right back up, that may not be a reasonable conclusion, but it could be for the guy who got pushed in this incident.

Whether or not the pusher/boyfriend was no longer a threat is unclear to me from that video. It ultimately boils down to how the guy on the ground perceived it at the time. Putting myself in his position, I don't know that I would have chosen to shoot, but I also don't know that I would have decided I wasn't still being attacked.

The additional background that the pushee has a history of threatening people with shooting (if factual) complicates things. No way to know about that in the potentially criminal part of this, but it would certainly be a significant consideration were I on the jury for the inevitable civil suit.

 

[Trigger Time]

Rhino is right. Depends on health conditions a lot. But if you are in fear of your life for being pushed down, you had better have the medical documentation to back that up around Indiana I think. I dont know if even marion county would be so unwilling to press charges.
(Rhino I'm sure you do if you say you do, I'm just speaking in general for discussion sake)

 

[JettaKnight]

Parking illegally in a handicap spot.............FAIL
Getting into a shout match over parking.....FAIL
Throwing a man to the ground..................FAIL
Shooting a man who is not a threat...........FAIL
Calling someone "old" when they're 47........FAIL



IMHO, There was never any follow up to the initial attack; bad shoot.


This I do know, that constant Florida heat and humidity makes people crazy.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Whether or not the pusher/boyfriend was no longer a threat is unclear to me from that video. It ultimately boils down to how the guy on the ground perceived it at the time. Putting myself in his position, I don't know that I would have chosen to shoot, but I also don't know that I would have decided I wasn't still being attacked.

The additional background that the pushee has a history of threatening people with shooting (if factual) complicates things. No way to know about that in the potentially criminal part of this, but it would certainly be a significant consideration were I on the jury for the inevitable civil suit.

I was thinking the same thing. When I first saw the video, it looked to me like the shooting was more retaliation than preservation, and I still lean that way. But, like you said, I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have reacted the same way as the shooter. Not sure if I would have felt like I was still in danger, or that maybe my adrenaline would be flooding my brain with fight-or-flight impulse (and being on the ground, flight wouldn't be a choice in the moment). It's also a possibility that I might not feel in danger, but that I would be so pissed off, being pushed to the ground, that I might shoot out of pure anger. That being said, I've seen lots of folks do things in public like parking where they shouldn't, and I've never even thought about getting in someone's face over it.

The video does give us a good view of the events, and reports of prior bad behavior on the parts of both individuals is irrelevant to whether or not the shooting was justified, but they do provide some insight into maybe how the situation unfolded the way that it did.

 

[rhino]

I was thinking the same thing. When I first saw the video, it looked to me like the shooting was more retaliation than preservation, and I still lean that way. But, like you said, I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have reacted the same way as the shooter. Not sure if I would have felt like I was still in danger, or that maybe my adrenaline would be flooding my brain with fight-or-flight impulse (and being on the ground, flight wouldn't be a choice in the moment). It's also a possibility that I might not feel in danger, but that I would be so pissed off, being pushed to the ground, that I might shoot out of pure anger. That being said, I've seen lots of folks do things in public like parking where they shouldn't, and I've never even thought about getting in someone's face over it.

The video does give us a good view of the events, and reports of prior bad behavior on the parts of both individuals is irrelevant to whether or not the shooting was justified, but they do provide some insight into maybe how the situation unfolded the way that it did.

There also the potential issue that his brain had already made the decision to shoot and the guy started to back up after that decision was made, but the shooter's brain couldn't stop the signal to press shoot in time. Some will dismiss this because they see plenty of time to make that decision and change it, but people get shot in the back as they're turning to run away and it's not always because the defender chose to shoot them in the back, but rather because the signal was sent from their brain to shoot and in the meantime the person who was turning moved quicker. It happens.

 

[JettaKnight]

We'll never know, but perhaps this guy had a superiority complex going on... "I got a gun, I'm going to enforce the law, nobody can hurt me, 'cause I got a gun."


Me, I'd rather have the mentality of trying to avoid conflict because, "I got a gun, someone could die, it might even be me." Now if conflict is unavoidable...


Oh, and verbal self-defense should be in everyone's toolkit.


PS - The victim here is the three kids who lost their father because the three adults couldn't handle conflict in a healthy manner.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

There also the potential issue that his brain had already made the decision to shoot and the guy started to back up after that decision was made, but the shooter's brain couldn't stop the signal to press shoot in time. Some will dismiss this because they see plenty of time to make that decision and change it, but people get shot in the back as they're turning to run away and it's not always because the defender chose to shoot them in the back, but rather because the signal was sent from their brain to shoot and in the meantime the person who was turning moved quicker. It happens.

True, I hadn't thought of that. Just one of the reasons that I hope never to be in a position to be judged by a jury.

 

[JettaKnight]

There also the potential issue that his brain had already made the decision to shoot and the guy started to back up after that decision was made, but the shooter's brain couldn't stop the signal to press shoot in time. Some will dismiss this because they see plenty of time to make that decision and change it, but people get shot in the back as they're turning to run away and it's not always because the defender chose to shoot them in the back, but rather because the signal was sent from their brain to shoot and in the meantime the person who was turning moved quicker. It happens.

While that maybe be true, that's going to be terribly hard to convince jurors or the public.

 

[KMaC]

Let me throw some gas on this issue. We are missing the audio part of the equation.
Some people love confrontation and from the events on video I'm guessing that woman, old guy and deceased are all pretty confrontational.
What if woman exits car threatening to kick old man's butt? What if deceased's last words were "So you think I'm afraid of that gun? I'm gonna shove it yada yada yada."
Does this give old man reason to fear that both woman and deceased are about to tag team him?
Anybody got a match?

 

[indytechnerd]

the only issue I see with a reactionary shot due to perceived threat is he fired 1 round. That's either an awful lot of confidence in your shot placement, or total shutdown of the shooter after the initial boom, leaving him unable to fire additional shots. How many of us would have fired only once into a large human standing over us while we're on the ground? Hell, even the police shootings we see are practically mag dumps.

 

[Benp]

Being someone who makes comments, complains to, or yells at people illegally parking in handicapped parking spaces doesn't help anything. It will not make them think about their actions and decide to not do that in the future.
So many bad decisions in this video.

 

[Benp]

the only issue I see with a reactionary shot due to perceived threat is he fired 1 round. That's either an awful lot of confidence in your shot placement, or total shutdown of the shooter after the initial boom, leaving him unable to fire additional shots. How many of us would have fired only once into a large human standing over us while we're on the ground? Hell, even the police shootings we see are practically mag dumps.

Also the long delay in shooting. If you have time to get your breathing under control, get comfortable and place a single shot like you are at the range, then it sure seems like it isn't warranted, but again I'll mention the "we don't have all the facts" disclaimer.

 

[foszoe]

I guess judges in civil and criminal courts are a bunch of fools then, because it matters very much to them who did what and how a situation evolved. The elderly 47 year old clearly started this whole fiasco.

If the car was parked properly it never would have started. Put the blame at the beginning of the chain of events.

 

[shootersix]

I doubt there's going to be a criminal trial, the police have said this is a clear case of stand your ground...BUT the civil trial will be a different story, in Indiana the difference is "beyond all shadow of a doubt" vs. "preponderance of the evidence"

beyond all shadow of a doubt (criminal trial)=100 percent! if you have even a 1% chance the person is innocent, you should vote to acquit

preponderance of the evidence (civil trial)=51 percent! if you think that someone was 51% wrong, they loose.

this will be a "trial of social justice", if the jury sees what I noticed in the video, he better have a lot of money (the lawyer bill wont be cheap!)

you read the articles about the shooter and deceased, both have had "run ins with others", looks like both had aggression issues, this was a storm waiting to happen, if not with each other, with someone else. i'd like to think that I have a "cooler head" than both of them. had the shooter NOT pulled the trigger, the "victim" would be alive, and possibly arrested for assault.

even though the person was parked in a handicap spot, the shooter was the "aggressor" he approached the car, he made contact, at what point did he call the police?.

the first thing the plaintiff's attorney will say ask "are you a police officer?, were you authorized by the circle a to enforce parking laws? why did you think you needed to take the law into your own hands?", I'm not a smart man, but I know whats going to happen, and the last words of the trial will be "your honor we find the defendant guilty, and award monetary damages in the amount of" what ever the family sues for.

I was on a civil trial a couple of years ago, the judge's instructions were, if thy think the defendant was 100% wrong, you rule for the plaintiff, if you think the plaintiff was 100% wrong you rule for the defendant, if you think they were both wrong you rule for the defendant (a car was traveling thru a green light, and didn't yield to a volunteer firetruck that was going through a red light, we took all of 1 minuet to find for the fire department) but in the "both wrong" instruction, it meant 51% would be placed on the plaintiff.

this is a situation the we who carry guns have to think about...what would I do? (personally I wouldn't have approached the car!)