imported post
marine2000 wrote:
I am glad that the prosecutor was very reasonable and understanding ....considering the fact that the store owner had a blood alcohol content of 0.10.
Regardless the matter....everything worked out okay...!!!!
Not everyone thinks so.
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_tamara_0726jul26,0,7944748.column
Something shameful just went down in Suffolk, and it wasn't just the guy who grabbed a gun one night, walked over to his store and shot an unarmed burglar to death.
It was also commonwealth's attorney C. Phillips Ferguson's decision not to prosecute.
The official narrative:
At 4 a.m. on June 21, an alarm alerted James and Laura Durden to a break-in at their nearby store. A family member called police while Mrs. Durden walked over to investigate, followed by Mr. Durden and his .45-caliber handgun.
"While looking through a window on the south side of the building, Mr. Durden noticed (Ernest) Roop inside the store at the cash register. Roop turned toward Mr. Durden with something in his hands, which Mr. Durden thought was a firearm. Mr. Durden then fired his handgun three times in Roop's direction. Mr. Durden ducked down and when he looked up, he was face to face with Roop at the southside window as Roop had run around the counter and toward the glass where Mr. Durden was standing. Mr. Durden, still perceiving Roop to be a threat, fired a fourth shot. Roop's body was found lying on the floor directly under the window."
Roop didn't have a firearm. But he was, Ferguson writes, "armed with a hunting knife and crowbar."
Thus, Durden, "confronted with a very dangerous situation created by Roop ... was legally justified in using deadly force."
Maybe it's the low blood-sugar talking, but this report is outrageous both for what it does and doesn't say:
• It makes it sound as if Roop were brandishing deadly weapons, when in fact police say the knife was still in its sheath on his belt and the crowbar was on the other side of the counter from his body.
• The report also doesn't mention that Durden was drunk at the time. Blood-alcohol level of 0.10 — well beyond the limit for drunken driving.
Ferguson's report utterly ignores this fact. Asked about it Friday, Ferguson said 0.10 "doesn't mean somebody's necessarily drunk." He told one reporter earlier that Durden's inebriation was "irrelevant."
Really? In this state, it's illegal to carry a concealed weapon in a public place while drunk. It's illegal to go hunting with a firearm while drunk. But evidently it's perfectly legal to pursue and bag a burglar while drunk.
You can bet if an off-duty cop had blown away a burglary suspect, then blown a 0.10, citizens would be clamoring for his badge on a platter.
And let's talk cops.
Ferguson's decision makes their job that much more dangerous. Flat-out.
It means citizens can feel freer to grab firearms and use lethal force to protect their property — even if the suspect is unarmed, even if it's so dark they're not sure what they're seeing, even if they're so drunk they'd be arrested if they got behind the wheel.
At a burglary in progress now, how can an officer know if the guy with the gun skulking around is the perp or merely the property owner taking matters into his own hands?
How confident can an officer be that he won't get shot by mistake by a businessvigilante who's not just armed, but drunk on his feet?
• Consider the description of the shooting. Does anyone think it odd that a man, unarmed, who's just taken three bullets, inexplicably runs toward [/i]the guy still blasting away at him?
Then stands at the window to face him, still unarmed?
For the record, I support the right to bear arms. To defend your life with deadly force. And everybody — even Roop's parents — agrees Roop should not have burglarized that store.
But you should not, while drunk, pick up your firearm and head out to confront a stranger if you don't have to.
If the NRA disagrees, please enlighten me. (Then update your gun safety rules.)
If police officers are OK with inebriants taking firearms to a property crime in progress, ditto.
Virginia's law on deadly force is fuzzy. We must allow that people can honestly fear for their lives, and afterward discover they were mistaken. But we must be called on it if we help foment deadly and needless confrontations.
Case law would help clarify. But it never will if prosecutors refuse to tackle tough, unpopular cases.
For now, we cast stones. Then we lock and load.
