The shooter was a guy who repeatedly made a pain in the ass of himself by being an irritating busybody and he carried a gun. That makes me think he packed heat just to deal with any situation he might get himself into by being so irritating, no too different from packing while going to a biker bar to deal with trouble resulting from insulting a Hell's Angel's old lady. Far better to rely on courtesy and discretion than the weapon to deal with such situations.
Then, turning to the situation itself, it looks like the decedent gave the shooter a hard, double handed push, knocking the shooter to the ground and immediately backed off when the shooter drew his weapon. In self-defense law, that means the aggression that would have justified firing the weapon had ceased and the shooter had no remaining right to fire. Hence, there"s a good chance he could be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
This also differs profoundly from the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin cases because Brown and Martin were actively attempting to murder their victims, potential murders that were stopped by timely, legitimate, moral shootings.
I have not looked at the video but it seems to me if you are carrying you have an extra responsibility to avoid provoking a dispute. Being a self appointed handicapped cop police is provoking a dispute.
On prior posts commenting on this event many say the shooter was justified. In my mind, he provoked it and shouldn’t have been carrying.
Moral of the story is: Keep your hands to yourself.
Especially in those states which allow lunatics to carry pistols.
New Law.
If you are considered a pain in the ass, you are not allowed to defend yourself after a Thug violently shoves you to the ground because you were arguing with his Baby Mama.
The way I viewed it, McGlockton gave Drejka a hard shove onto the parking lot, and advanced toward him while he was down. He intended to do some damage to Drejka. However, Drejka pulled the gun and then McGlockton backed off. You can make the case for something less than murder, but McGlockton got what he deserved.
It’s called hindsight because it’s so easy to make an ass of yourself.
I agree with you. Before the shot was fired, the boyfriend/husband/babydaddy was back-pedaling upon seeing the gun.
Hate it when non-handicap people use those spaces but since I can’t park there either, I don’t have any ::ahem:: “standing”...
But leave that damn shopping cart between cars and not in the coral (or return it to the store front) and I’ll shoot your ass dead. You lazy, selfish, vile, stinking, no-good POS...
Yep. At the moment he shoots the shooter appears to be retaliating rather than defending himself. But, I acknowledge that’s a pretty easy conclusion to draw after the fact from a comfy office chair. But, if you are going to carry you have an obligation to avoid conflict rather than precipitate it.
Wonder how many comments and hurt feelings this thread will create? LOL
To me immediately I knew this was not a justified killing
And in front of the man’s five year old son
And the more you learn about the coward who shot him and his history of brandishing his gun starting trouble
What amazed me is probably 80 percent of freeper men are the sorts who think it’s justifiable to murder someone for knocking you down or hitting you
It’s called steel courage for a reason
After two decades of bang list parcipitstion here it’ll never look the same again
Freeper men apparently don’t fight...they shoot
Simply absurd to me and yes the sherrif is wrong
This guy makes ccw folks look bad
He’ll get charged at some point
Somehow I don't think this is the last we'll see of Mr. Drejka.
shooter has issues and had he minded his own beeswax none of this would have happened.
SO WHAT if she parked in the wrong spot? Call a cop and let him ticket her. Not his job to go around correcting other folks.
and no, i don’t park handicapped. But i don’t look at the people that do to make sure they should be. Not my job.
Girl in parking in handicapped spot quoted in a news report “I’ve got the right to park anywhere I want”.
My takeaway:
1) Girl had the right to violate the law and park anywhere she wanted.
2) Her boyfriend had the right to assault anyone he wanted.
3) Guy on the ground had no rights except to take a beating.
I watched the video, and based on what I could see the attacker backed way off when the busybody pulled his gun. There did not appear to be a need to shoot. The now-dead guy was overzealous in his reaction when he shoved the guy, but I saw no justification for the shooting. No, I wasn’t there, and of course there is no audio. I don’t know how I would react if I saw someone harassing my spouse and kid. Hopefully would first address the situation verbally rather than a knee-jerk body slam.
My 2 cents.
Don’t be an a-hole, you’ll eventually meet a bigger one. This time it was McGlockton’s turn. But sooner or later Drejka will draw the short straw.
Plus, if there’s a civil case (100% likely), Drejka is not going to enjoy being in front of that jury.
This is why he wasn't arrested. It's not Stand Your Ground. It's the self defense immunity provisions.
"...the agency may not arrest the person for using or threatening to use force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used or threatened was unlawful."
As the article points out, he's also wrong on other things, like subjective fear being sufficient to claim self defense. Which is probably why he decided there wasn't probable cause. But I expect other people will disagree with him and the shooter will be charged.
784.011 Assault.—
(1) An “assault” is an intentional, unlawful threat by word or act to do violence to the person of another, coupled with an apparent ability to do so, and doing some act which creates a well-founded fear in such other person that such violence is imminent.
According to what I’ve read, the dead guy didn’t threaten by word or act, he just did the deed. That’s Battery according to Florida law (and that of other places):
784.03 Battery; felony battery.—
(1)(a) The offense of battery occurs when a person:
1. Actually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other; or
2. Intentionally causes bodily harm to another person.
Where does that leave us? Well, according to what I’ve read, the shooter was “talking” to the dead guy’s woman and doing so loudly enough to attract the attention of passersby. We don’t seem to know whether or not his talk constituted an “unlawful threat by word or act to do violence to” the woman, but if it did his talk constituted an assault. The dead guy may have reasonably believed the shooter was assaulting his woman (threatening by word or act to do violence) and acted in accord with the Florida Stand Your Ground law which states:
776.012 Use or threatened use of force in defense of person.—
(1) A person is justified in using or threatening to use force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. A person who uses or threatens to use force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat before using or threatening to use such force. (Emphasis added.)
I wrote “the dead guy may have believed”, but we don’t know what he believed. I believe the whole thing needs to be put before a jury.
Maybe, if one has to put someone else on the ground, it’s advisable to close with the adversary and make sure they aren’t able to harm you when you retreat, just by disarming them if possible and necessary. That’s a hard problem.
The woman got out of the car distracting the shooter and then Mark shoved him to the ground at the same time. Didn’t look like Mark was backing up till he saw a gun coming out. With two pissed black folk confronting him he could feel fear for his life after being assaulted. The woman’s reaction to being dissed escalated the meeting with the ask whole parking police who happen to be right!
But, had the shooter NOT fired, he could very well have been arrested - charged with recklessly “brandishing” the handgun. Pretty much, if you, who is not a police officer, draw a gun, you HAVE to shoot to avoid brandishing charges.