Florida Stand Your Ground Shooting

[bohuggabee]

just watched the video. the assailant doesn't appear to simply keep attacking like he could have or you'd assume would have in an attack justifying stand your ground. i know that if someone punches you then you can punch back, but i've never heard of someone shoving you so that means you can shoot them. i believe the gunman committed murder, i believe he was assaulted, but his life was not in danger. i think the gunman was pissed off, had a gun and shot someone to get back at them for being shoved.

i've been shoved like that before. i never fell down, but the guy kept coming at me and clearly wanted to fight. he put his hand around my neck and i stood there, grabbed my key and shoved it into his pressure point on his wrist. he backed off an left. i never thought he was worth killing. just a testosterone crazed dude that had a bad day...

you see that once the gun is pulled the assailant is willing to leave. i believe my situation is very similar to this one, and having witnessed a downgraded state of aggression when the weapon is revealed means the guy wasn't continuing the threat and it ceased at that moment. its not a what if scenario anymore. its a de-escalated event after the weapon is drawn, and he chose to shoot someone that stepped away from from him. committing murder.

 

[Walkingwolf]

I posted this on another forum in regards to this incident.

I only care about three factors in this case.

There was a physical altercation

There was a shooting

So far that shooting has been ruled justified by the authorities

No matter what my opinion is it does not mean jack to the authorities, it is their ball game.

 

[Wise_A]

What I don’t understand about this shooting or the Zimmerman/Martin shooting is this: why were the deceased not allowed to “stand their ground”? Martin had truly done nothing, and this dead fellow MAY have pulled into a Handicapped space to go inside and bring out a handicapped person, or may have been disabled himself. It’s not like this second shooter was a doctor, right? No. But in both cases, somebody is graveyard dead and the party responsible is not charged.

Because "Stand Your Ground" is the media-friendly term for a statute which says "in a public place where you have the legal right to be, there is no duty or obligation to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense". Some states have it, others do not.

The deceased, both in Zimmerman and this case, was not acting in self-defense, as there was no overt threat. For instance, if Trayvon Martin, convinced he was being followed by Zimmerman, had turned around and used a lawfully-carried firearm against Zimmerman, he would be guilty of murder, since Zimmerman was not an immediate, unavoidable, grave threat.

Now, I understand why you'd think such a thing, because various...inexpert media sources make exactly that point about the deceased "standing their ground".

The way I like to think of it is that "SYG" is a sort of additional protection. In other words, you should retreat, regardless of what your legal obligation is. However, if deadly force becomes necessary, "SYG" protects you from the suggestion that you should have retreated, even though it wasn't a viable option.

 

[Protected One]

I am approaching this as a disabled individual. I have obtained my permits because I felt like my disabilities advertised my vulnerability. The last thing I want to do is cross the proverbial line in error.

Personally, I prefer the idea of picking which hill I die on. From much of what I have read, it seems as though I can be justified in most justifiable self defense scenarios provided that I didn't instigate the confrontation.

In this instance, the deceased appears to have chosen to violate the law by parking in a handicapped parking spot. The shooter appears to have instigated a verbal altercation with the woman that the deceased appears to be trying to defend. Was it worth his life? Virtually any man worth his salt would come to the aid of his woman.

I have a problem with this shooting and the statement of no charges. In the chain of events, the shooter appears to be the instigator in my book. Yes, the instigator got knocked on his *$$, but where was the threat of imminent bodily harm? In many respects, the shooter has an established history of self appointed predatory enforcement of the handicapped parking space, and an apparent history of a predisposition to threaten bodily harm towards violators in the past.

Personally, I just can't see this shooting as being deemed justifiable considering his role in instigating the initial confrontation which does escalate out of control.

There are ways to "come to the aid of his woman" WITHOUT initiating physicality. He should have used them.

You might want to read Florida's wording of their stand your ground law. It specifically includes a line that says (I paraphrase) *even if the victim initiated the incident*. I discovered this during the Travon Martin shooting.

 

[6518John]

i think the gunman was pissed off, had a gun and shot someone to get back at them for being shoved.

I think in that comment you just summed-up this whole stinking mess.

 

[Robspeire]

Sheriff Gualtieri began his law enforcement and public service career as a detention deputy working in the Pinellas County jail. After attending the police academy, he joined the Dunedin Police Department as a patrol officer and later rejoined the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office as a law enforcement deputy. Over the next 15 years, Sheriff Gualtieri served in many different components of the agency, including several years conducting domestic and international drug trafficking investigations as part of a DEA task force.

Sheriff Gualtieri earned his bachelor’s degree from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg and his law degree from Stetson University College of Law. After graduating from Stetson and being admitted to the Florida Bar, Sheriff Gualtieri entered private practice in Tampa, specializing in labor and employment defense.

Sheriff Gualtieri returned to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in 2006 as its general counsel and was appointed chief deputy (second in command) in 2008. Sheriff Gualtieri served in the dual role of general counsel and chief deputy until he became sheriff in 2011.


Seems like the Sheriff can't make up his mind whether he wants to be a LAWYER OR A Sherriff.
His duty is to arrest

 

[Walkingwolf]

His duty is to arrest

His duty is to enforce the law, he is as the law is written. That is why it is called law enforcement.

 

[bohuggabee]

alot of people forget that stand your ground is there to protect people against severe bodily harm or death by the hands of another. simply shoving someone is not severe bodily harm. i've shoved shopping carts in the grocery store that almost hit me and i never shot someone... its not there to empower the fearful/hateful to commit murder. if you can not properly assess a threat and the level of a threat then you are not mentally competent to exercise the right and law of stand your ground.

 

[Hapworth]

Couple of things:

1) As usual, the Monday morning quarterbacks are out jumping to conclusions without the evidence required to do so. Most significantly, we have no knowledge of what was said and how it was said between the three parties involved here. That's critical in determining if this was clean or not; until we have it (and we may never), we can't say.

2) For those asking why SYG applies since the shooter was pushed off his feet -- SYG has nothing to do with the ability to retreat or lack thereof (or "standing" in the literal sense); it's the exact opposite, it removes the question of retreat altogether.

3) To clarify, the State attorney has NOT determined this a clean shoot; local law enforcement believes it meets the threshold for legal self-defense but is referring it up the chain to the State's attorney for final determination. Wait and see.

4) It's reported that many in local law enforcement and DA's offices resent new aspects of Florida's SYG laws that place the burden on the prosecution to prove in pre-trial that a shoot wasn't clean, rather than it being incumbent upon the defense to prove that it was, as it had been until recently. That's a lot more work for LEs and DAs, who perceive an uptick in bad faith shoots invoking SYG because the defense loses nothing when it's on the prosecution to prove otherwise. I suspect in a seemingly messy self-defense case like this, passing it up to the State's attorney sends the message from LE's and DA's "you, the governor and the state legislature changed the law, you do the work".

 

[ColbyBruce]

Here in Georgia state law governs handicapped parking spaces. Does the state of Florida employ gun toting civilians to manage handicapped parking spaces?

 

[Walkingwolf]

Displaying anger on the internet is not a bright idea. It could come back to bite you.

 

[Hapworth]

An incident happened just a month or so ago. Seems he doesn’t like folks who don’t look like him.

On what facts do you base this apparent assumption? Where do we know what Rick Kelly "looks" like, vis-a-vis the shooter and the decedent?

 

[fredj338]

I am excusing it. That is exactly my mindset.

Somebody whacks me in the Achilles with a shopping cart? That's cool, fine, whatever.

Guy dives into a parking space I had my blinker on for? Super, that's swell, have a blessed day.

It's not a decision based on carrying or not. It has to do with avoiding confrontations, not getting killed, and not having to kill. Aside from the fact that, when I'm actually successful at this--damn, it is hard--man, I'm just so serene about everything. I feel a lot better.

Zimmerman was--and I hate talking about both the shooting and the halfwits involved--entirely different. He didn't willingly get into a confrontation, he simply failed at every single level to avoid one. It wasn't a confrontation or a fight, it was an ambush.

Zimmerman didn't shoot because he had to protect his gun. The immediate threat was that he was having his head slammed into the sidewalk. Each time could have been last second as a living non-vegetable.

If you want a case that's similar to this one in ways that matter, check out the Larry Hickey shooting. Same deal, except lethal force was justified.

I disagrre on Zim, always have. His shooting was justified but he caused it by pursuing a black guy into unknown circumstances, confontation was likely & it happenned. Neighborhood watch is not armed security in any community I am aware of. He brought a weapon to a confrontation just as surely as the guy in the parking space event, exactly the same thing except, the guy in the parking lot was not being beaten into an unconscious state & losing his gun.

 

[Hapworth]

When the deceased pushed the perp to the ground he should have followed thru and stomped him. Instead of being a target...

And in doing so you'd remove any doubt that deadly force was justified in stopping you.

Talk about getting it bass ackwards...

 

[mnshutterbug]

In my opinion, anybody with that short of a fuse shouldn't be allowed to carry. Being shoved to the ground is no justification for taking someone's life. This sends a dangerous message to others carrying.

 

[fredj338]

His duty is to enforce the law, he is as the law is written. That is why it is called law enforcement.

That is funny. We all know spirit of the law vs letter of the law. Arrest him, maybe, but to not arrest & then interpret syg, uh no, not his job either. Arrest, let the da or a grand jury decide. He did commit a homicide, that is not arguable. Justified or not, that is the question. Why carry a gun is such a huge responsibility. Anyone doing so needs to understamd use of force & how that all plays into the confrontation. At best, that was a simple assault, no deadly force response. Maybe the DA will step up.

 

[Hapworth]

Let's be careful on re-litigating Zimmerman; it isn't the subject, doesn't really apply, always overheats and gets locked.

 

[Retired Cop]

I am in my seventies now and I will shoot at any threat of life or serious bodily injury. Now who was it that said a .380 is anemic and can't kill you! The aggressor may have walked away but he didn't get far. That was one shot from a Kel Tek P3AT to the gut from what I can ascertain.

 

[s&wchad]

I watched the video and have my own opinion. I’ll keep it to myself...

We’re done here.