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Accused Movie Theater Shooter Said He Was 'In Fear of Being Attacked'
Yahoo News/Good Morning America ^ | STEVE OSUNSAMI, SENI TIENABESO and COLLEEN CURRY (GMA)

Posted on 01/15/2014 5:09:04 AM PST by Anton.Rutter

Edited on 01/15/2014 6:21:09 AM PST by Sidebar Moderator. [history]

The elderly man accused of shooting a movie theater patron in Florida after an argument over text messaging told police that he fired because he "was in fear of being attacked."

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a news conference today that the victim, Chad Oulson, 43, was texting his young daughter's babysitter when an argument erupted with Reeves over texting during previews before the movie "Lone Survivor."


(Excerpt) Read more at gma.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: assaultpopcorn; banglist; curtisreeves; dontyouknowwhoiam; donutwatch; elderly; floriduh; murder; ohyeahmakeme; respectmyauthority
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To: School of Rational Thought
The 71 year old cop knew he was no match for the younger man and had to defend himself from great bodily harm.

Yeh sure -- he is 6'1" and 270 lbs with all that police training -- a real no match right!!!

481 posted on 01/16/2014 4:52:41 AM PST by Uncle Chip
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To: Albion Wilde
"I would get after you for reading comprehension,..."

I would get after you for constant use of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but I would guess that you are doing it intentionally.

482 posted on 01/16/2014 5:04:33 AM PST by Durus (You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. Ayn Rand)
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To: Durus
I would get after you for constant use of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but I would guess that you are doing it intentionally.

Oooh, Latin! Please demonstrate where I have drawn a conclusion in order to prove a conclusion. To me, it's the folks who say, "Cops are bad; therefore the cop is guilty" rather than looking at the facts that are reasonably established to propose that the older man is guilty of a crime, not the victim. Copitude is just a part of his personality. It doesn't matter to me why he did it; but that he did it, and that texting is not a reasonable excuse for shooting someone, if, in fact, testimony and evidence prove to a court that he did it.

483 posted on 01/16/2014 5:23:34 AM PST by Albion Wilde (The less a man knows, the more certain he is that he knows it all.)
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To: JoeTheGeorgian
You must be very old and senile, because I never hear any other old timers talk about how great it was back in the day when people just went around ruining everyone else’s day by acting like arseholes.

Until the late 60s, most people, at least in the south where this incident took place, were a great deal more polite than we see today. I am old enough to remember that much, but hardly senile, as I am just now working on a second graduate degree.

More importantly, a person who cannot concentrate or enjoy a movie because someone else is texting is a person who has still to learn how to live and let live, or to enjoy life regardless of minor distractions. Perhaps this person has grown up addicted to media.

There's an app for that: daily prayer, and intensive, one-on-one meditation and yoga instructions for a period of years, cultivating the ability to turn off the devices and enjoy inner and outer peace and quiet, regardless of what people are doing in the vicinity.

484 posted on 01/16/2014 5:38:30 AM PST by Albion Wilde (The less a man knows, the more certain he is that he knows it all.)
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To: Balding_Eagle

<>When under assault, it’s reasonable for the victim to consider the risk of great bodily harm.<>

You must have missed this:

Police said despite Reeves’ claim that he was in fear for his safety, this was not a case for Florida’s “stand your ground” defense.

“Working with the state attorney’s office it was determined that stand-your-ground does not fly here in this case,” Nocco said.

Authorities said a preliminary investigation determined that there was no physical contact during the incident. It was popcorn, thrown by Oulson, that struck Reeves.

Tepper said there was no evidence to support the claim that the shooter was a victim. She denied him bond.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/15/justice/florida-movie-theater-shooting/index.html


485 posted on 01/16/2014 5:39:15 AM PST by Uncle Chip
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To: Balding_Eagle
Don’t mess with us old guys, we know we aren’t as strong as some young buck anymore so we might just go straight for the gun.

We will likely see how well you old guys do in a prison environment.

And be polite to us.

Make sure he tells his cellmate that.

But thanks for the heads up. If I'm in a movie theater and I see one of you grumpy old guys packing then I should probably shoot on sight out of self defense, because we never know what's going to set you old coots off.

486 posted on 01/16/2014 5:40:13 AM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: Balding_Eagle
Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said Tuesday: “It didn’t matter what he had done previously in his life. You don’t shoot someone over a texting incident.”

At the hearing, Judge Lynn Tepper said she found the evidence significant enough to warrant the no-bond order.

The judge said that throwing “an unknown object does not equal taking out a gun” and shooting someone.

Maybe he should abandon the "defending myself from popcorn" strategy and try the "I'm old and afraid" bit.

487 posted on 01/16/2014 5:42:57 AM PST by Anton.Rutter
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To: Anton.Rutter
OMG! It breaks my heart to see the picture of this beautiful young family and know that it is broken now.

I hope the old bas...d goes to jail for the rest of his miserable life!

488 posted on 01/16/2014 5:49:05 AM PST by Ditter
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To: JoeTheGeorgian
You don’t know what was said in the theatre or anything else that went down besides “popcorn” and “bang”. You’re just as bad as the people who convicted the Duke LaCrosse team and Zimmerman before the facts came out. Maybe if the dead texter was black instead of a cop, you’d be all for “waiting until we know the facts”.

It really doesn't matter what was said. What matters are the facts on the ground: a man is dead. The shooting was witnessed. The shooter was apprehended by an ex-cop and handed off, with his weapon, to the proper jurisdictional authorities. The shooter was held for trial without bond. The dead guy was unarmed, as determined by the arresting officers. Race does not enter into these facts; and in view that you do not know me, you are making a leap to accuse me of racism, which is not the case here, but you'll have to take my word for it. Nor does the former occupation of police officer of the shooter matter to me or to the facts above; it merely provides a clue about a possible motive (lost authority issues).

You are contending that the reportage could be entirely false. You may be right. But time will tell.

489 posted on 01/16/2014 6:14:48 AM PST by Albion Wilde (The less a man knows, the more certain he is that he knows it all.)
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To: JoeTheGeorgian

What????? “What was “said” in the theater”

What could I say that would be bad enough that someone could kill me for it? I have not laid a hand on anyone and I am armed only with popcorn but the words out of my mouth are enough to get me killed?? And then YOU play the race card! Unbelievable!


490 posted on 01/16/2014 6:29:34 AM PST by Ditter
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To: Albion Wilde; NautiNurse
I believe I've met you at one of the DC Chapter dinners after maybe GOE. If that was you, you seem like a nice person. I really doubt that even throwing their drinks on you would have made you kill them, or try to use it as a defense in court.

I think Jesus' command to, "Turn the other cheek" is relevant here.

A slap on the cheek is not a potentially deadly assault. It's an insult, much like having a drink or popcorn thrown on you.

Being insulted, as such, does not justify violence in return, much less lethal force.

Violence and deadly force are sometimes justified, but not because someone has dissed you.

491 posted on 01/16/2014 6:30:20 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Uncle Chip

That is for a jury to decide. I am just speculating on what the defense arguments might be.


492 posted on 01/16/2014 6:32:11 AM PST by School of Rational Thought
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To: babygene
Defending yourself with a gun because you thought someone “might” through a punch at you doesn’t cut it....

I did not read that the cop said a punch was an issue. For all we know, the popcorn was to divert from the deceased pulling his own weapon. If you have other info. other that original link post it.

493 posted on 01/16/2014 6:34:57 AM PST by School of Rational Thought
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To: School of Rational Thought

Since the police confirmed that he was unarmed, how could he pull a weapon he did not have?


494 posted on 01/16/2014 6:38:35 AM PST by sport
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To: Eaker
If you are carrying a gun sometimes you just need to STFU.

If he wanted to fist fight fine, but if you are armed you need to keep calm and walk away.

Excellent points, and a factor in CCW that I think gets too little attention.

If two unarmed, untrained men get into a fistfight there is some possibility of severe injury or even death, but it's not great, simply because they are in all likelihood both out of shape and not really up to the demands of seriously injuring the other person. Most likely result is bruises and such.

Add a lethal weapon to the mix and the dynamics change. The person with the weapon will feel a logical need to use it, simply to keep the other person from obtaining control of the weapon and using it against him. Similarly, the unarmed (at start of fight) person will quite reasonably feel a desperate need to get control of the weapon to prevent it from being used against him. If he does get control of the weapon, he will then feel the same need to use it to keep from having it taken away.

So the mere presence of a weapon escalates what might very well have been a mere scuffle into a life or death struggle.

This is not an argument against CCW. It's an argument that those who choose to carry lethal weapons recognize their much greater consequent responsibility to avoid confrontations that might escalate into a scuffle and from there into somebody becoming dead.

With great power comes great responsibility. Armed men have great power.

I think statistics show the vast majority of those who CCW understand and apply this. But there are some, as with cops and security guards, who get off on the fantasy of exercising the inherent power over others of being armed. Such men are very dangerous.

495 posted on 01/16/2014 6:41:16 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: School of Rational Thought
For all we know, the popcorn was to divert from the deceased pulling his own weapon.

Is that more speculation on your part on what the defense arguments might be???

496 posted on 01/16/2014 6:50:11 AM PST by Uncle Chip
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To: Albion Wilde
"Please demonstrate where I have drawn a conclusion in order to prove a conclusion."

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is Latin for "after this, therefore because of this" meaning that you are drawing a conclusion that does not logically follow from events at hand. "It doesn't matter to me why he did it; but that he did it, and that texting is not a reasonable excuse for shooting someone..."

See, right there, classic "after this, therefore because of this". You might as well say he was shot because he put his child in day care or that he bought popcorn.

Out of curiosity were you one of those people here on FR that was calling for Zimmerman's head before all the facts were in?

497 posted on 01/16/2014 6:50:33 AM PST by Durus (You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. Ayn Rand)
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To: Uncle Chip
What was Chad Oulson thinking and planning to do next at the moment he was standing with his back to the movie screen directly in front of Reeves, and hurling the bag of popcorn?

Hint: If you don't know, is it possible that Reeves did not know either?

498 posted on 01/16/2014 7:08:20 AM PST by NautiNurse (Obama sends U.S. Marines to pick up his dog & basketballs. Benghazi? Nope.)
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To: Sherman Logan

Bravo!
I’ve practiced martial arts and been licensed to carry for many years. While I’ve been in or around numerous situations where the use of either may have been justified, I can count on one finger the number of times that’s the been the chosen route.
Even when justified, you have to live with the consequences of your actions. The trigger happy morons on this thread are either all talk or soulless dirtbags that deserve the miserable lives they likely lead.


499 posted on 01/16/2014 7:08:27 AM PST by Zansman (Not at the table Carlos.)
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To: JoeTheGeorgian
No, you dolt, the texter started the confrontation by violating the rules of the cinema. Try to keep up.

Ah, so this a justifiable homicide.

Why was Reeves charged with 2nd degree murder and is being held without bond if he acted in self-defense?

500 posted on 01/16/2014 7:16:20 AM PST by Ol' Dan Tucker (People should not be afraid of the government. Government should be afraid of the people)
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