Thread: Oklahoma Incident

Originally Posted by JimR

The first shot got him in the head, and that slowed him down so I could get my other gun.

What kind of thought process is that?

Quite rational if the first weapon achieved no more than slowing the attacker down.

After he shot the four kids for brandishing a screwdriver and demending five dollars, Bernhard Goetz walked over to Darrel Cabey who was lying on the floor wounded and said, "You don't look so bad, have another." And he shot Darrel again, severing his spinal cord leaving him paralyzed for life. Goetz was hailed as a hero and aquitted of all charges except an illegal weapon charge for which he served a third of a year.

I tend to believe that there must be a clear and immediate threat to justify use of deadly force in self defense. I don't believe a kid lying unconscious on the deck bleeding poses any credible threat.

Brad

Video of event here.
Final shots seemed unnecessary to me, but the whole event took place inside 60 seconds, he would have still been panicing.
I wouldn't want to be a juror on that trial.

Why the hell was he charged with first degree murder though?

The clerk shoots the kid in the head and runs after the other robber. He then calmly waddles back in, has a look at the kid once more, gets the other gun and returns to finish him off.

The crazy gun laws in the US permit people to carry them around for "self defense" -- but with one perpetrator off like a flash and one knocked out and bleeding out the linoleum floor, the clerk had succeeded in defending himself and his property. He should have ensured the wounded robber was unarmed and subdued and then dialed 911.

There was recently a case in BC where a McDonalds drive-thru was held up with a knife... a guy with a knife, sitting in his car, tried to demand money from the window. If they had taken a step back and pressed the "close window" button, they'd have been perfectly safe. Instead, one of the workers tossed a litre of boiling fryer oil on the robber's face. I thought that was excessive force also.

why first degree?

my guess would be overzealous or activist prosecutor

see Duke Rape Case

after watching the video it is clear that he went back to shoot before calling the police

it is very possible to shoot someone in the head and them to survive for some time
the head presents a poor target
panic hampers good aim
things shot in the head tend to flop around a lot and still look alive

I think it is very possible that the store owner felt the wounded assailant hadn't been neutralized.
We need a autopsy report in order to determine the severity of the head wound.

If the head wound was fatal then it is moot.
If the head wound wasn't fatal, maybe a graze or through the cheek/frontal lobes/etc then the owner would be justified in firing until the assailant was "out" for sure.

What I mean is that if the head wound wasn't fatal in and of itself then the threat hadn't been neutralized.

here is an example
Shot in the head: the Brad Beck incident | American Handgunner | Find Articles at BNET

this man was shot in the forehead at arms length and still managed to put three extra holes in his attacker

the simple fact is that a grazing head wound can knock you down, maybe loopy, but you CAN come back
we need an autopsy

Originally Posted by Blade Wielder

If they had taken a step back and pressed the "close window" button, they'd have been perfectly safe. Instead, one of the workers tossed a litre of boiling fryer oil on the robber's face. I thought that was excessive force also.

I hope you are aware that car doors are designed to open.
Wonder of wonders, the front door of the building is designed in a very similar fashion.

You assume a lot.
I'm glad you aren't charged with safeguarding my life.

I've got mixed feelings on this one.

On one hand, it does seem a bit extreme to pop the guy in the head, and go back with another gun and keep filling the corpse with lead.

Also, given that they were previously robbed, and that it entailed employees being savagely beaten, I can only conclude that the pharmacist couldn't have possibly been in his right mind.


On the other hand, if you're going to shoot somebody because you believe that your life is in danger, it only makes sense to me that you should keep shooting until the person is absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt, completely dead and beyond the help of anything short of divine intervention.

Let's say that the guy survives the wound to the head. (I know it's unlikely, but it does happen depending on the gun, round, range, entrance and exit)

When the guy wakes up, and then eventually get's out of jail, he's not going to be happy. Since we already know he is a low life criminal, as evidenced by the fact he was there committing robbery, there's a chance he might come back looking for pay-back.

So, to a certain extent, I say never pull the trigger, or keep shooting until you're out of bullets. There's no point in going half-way.

1st degree requires premeditation. That was obviously not the case. He'll be acquitted on that one. Anything else they want to throw at him though, he could be in trouble.
He was absolutely right to defend himself and his employees. Coming back to finish him off was a little ridiculous. As a juror, I would certainly empathize, but he got a bit gun happy. With the situation in hand, he could have made sure the guy was out of the fight peacefully. He was mad, and amped up, and wanted to shoot him.
And all this talk about the robbers being criminal scumbags...really? Yes, they took their lives in to their own hands when they went in with guns, and they got what was coming to them, but these were hardly hardened professional crooks. They're a couple of kids. Look how useless the kid who gets shot was. He was scared out of his gourd. And did he even have a gun? I didn't see it...He spent most of the time fixing his mask.
Bring on the angry rebuttals...

why do the rebuttals have to be angry?

how do you know the guy was mad?
how do you know these guys hadn't done this before?
how do you know what happened off camera?

since we can't see the man "getting finished off" how do we know what the owner was thinking?

How DO we know what he was thinking?

fact is, he probably (almost certainly) wasn't thinking.

he was REACTING
big big difference

Originally Posted by gratewhitehuntr

you shoot to kill
if you don't want to kill them then you have no business using a firearm
they are the machinery of death plain and simple

I agree that if you shoot as a reaction to deadly force, you shoot to kill, because shooting to hurt is not going to prevent the other person from shooting back at you.

But if the threat has ended and there is no risk of deadly force anymore because the other guys is on the ground and unable to do anything, then by legal definition, you are taking the law in your own hands by executing the attacker.

Whether I would personally agree is a matter of context (I know nothing of the case) but legally, he is in a lot of trouble, and the context is what will decide the outcome of the jury deliberations.