Posted on 11/09/2007 9:21:36 AM PST by SergeiRachmaninov
Selma — An intruder who police say was pinned between a car and a fence has died at the hospital.
John Reid said he pulled into his driveway near the intersection of Hawkins Road and U.S. Highway 301 between Micro and Selma Thursday afternoon when he noticed two men getting into a brown sedan outside a gate on his property.
Reid, whose property had been burglarized several times in the past year, said he did not want the pair to escape.
(Excerpt) Read more at wral.com ...
Case closed.
Wow. I hate to sound like a lib but lethal force is not called for when “protecting your property”. Only in self defense or justifiably perceived threat of personal harm!
Almost everyone knows “you cant shoot someone unless they break into your house” and even that doesn’t hold up in court these days. If you are going to use your car to ram someone just to ‘stop them from getting away’, then you might have to expect to do some prison time if that person dies. I understand they MAY have been committing a crime.
Not wanting somebody to get away is not considered grounds for justified use of deadly force. Mr. Reid was not being threatened in any way. It is likely that he’s in a lot of trouble.
-bflr-
Several states have passed “Shoot the burglar” laws. If someone breaks into your house you can shoot them in the act whether or not they threaten you. In Florida, homeowners are exempt from civil liability.
I agree.
In Texas we have the right to protect our property with deadly force in case of “theft by night”, but that is here and he is there.
Sad to say this fellow is toast and the perps family will more than likely be living in his house via a hefty lawsuit while he is in the pokey. Evil won this one.
The fact also that they were already off his property would more than likely negate your right in Texas as well.
Sometimes one’s luck just runs out.
In most places and cases, you can’t use deadly force to stop a property crime... and using a car is deadly force, since the weight alone can crush a person (and clearly, in this case, the suspect died).
If Reid is tried, he should plead insanity-in the heat of the moment he "lost all resason", etc.
Truck control! Truck control!
In this case, the perps not only weren’t in his house, they weren’t even on his property.
In some states, there exist laws that give homeowners the legal presumption of “reasonable fear” when the homeowner is inside the home and someone breaks into the house.
To my knowledge (and IANAL), Texas is the only state where lethal force may be used to protect property.
It pays to talk to a lawyer (or better yet, a DA) about the laws in one’s state about the use of force (lethal or otherwise) before a need arises to use it.
Looks like the law doesn't agree with you.
I'm not sure if that is true.
They were outside his gate, but I'd say there is a good chance they were still on his property. Not sure if "on property" or "outside gate" either one matter, in this case.
Well, in Texas, if someone is breaking and entering, or on your property in the process of doing so, you can legal defend your property with lethal force...as well you should be able to. Someone coming onto your property to steal your belongings MUST be considered as a mortal threat to your person.
Why shouldn’t lethal force be used to protect property? Many people rely on their property to make a living, and need to keep it. They cannot afford weeks of lost income while trying to convince an insurer to pay for what was stolen (which may never happen, if the theft cannot be proven because the thief got away), nor lawyers to bring civil suit against the perp to a) try to convince a judge that the perp took the property, and b) try to collect on a judgement.
ALL crime should be stopped in progress when it is detected in progress. A consistent policy of doing this would greatly change the reasoning processes of people considering committing crimes, in large part because they wouldn’t be operating within a social group consisted almost entirely of people who had committed brazen crimes and gotten away with them.
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