>That whole Andy Griffith Mayberry thing has great potential for catastrophic failure.
>Just saying...
And, as this incident shows, this style of approach ALSO has potential for great failure... unless, that is, you are willing to discount the shedding of innocent blood as failure.
Although its sad that his life went that way, he gets no special latitude to go get a shotgun and go confront the cops. Anything the family says about his service might be true,,, the ptsd might be true,, but that just explains how he got there. It didn’t give him license,,
Lots of violent criminals were victims of horrifying abuse as small innocent children. It explains some things for us,,, but we never excuse what they did. Same for this kid, the neighbor has a right to not live in fear, no matter how honorable his service was.
This guy sounds like he should have been institutionalized. His own sister says he sometimes had hallucinations that he was actually IN Iraq.
Lots of vets have flashbacks,, but for most, its a whiff a diesel or jet exhaust that gives you that ‘oh yeah’ memory,, its the unexpected firework at Disneyland that makes you jump right out of your skin, or hit the deck,,and feel kinda embarrassed in front of people. But if that boy actually couldnt tell reality from delusion,,, and people knew it, he should have been an inpatient somewhere.
But i’m sure a lot of people will be blaming themselves for a long time.
yeah, a shotty is lethal, but I doubt the po-po shoulda been so skeered, being as tho they had numbers and ranged weapons, and the will to use em...