Police say grandad fatally shot 6-year-old over watermelon

[Liberal_in_LA]

Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution

Police say grandad fatally shot 6-year-old

By Chip Towers

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

COMMERCE —- Neighbors saw the signs of abuse, but no one thought it would ever go this far.

Police say a watermelon may have triggered the deadly shooting of a 6-year-old boy by his grandfather Sunday afternoon.

Robert L. Clark Jr., 55, shot and killed his 6-year-old grandson and wounded his wife before police shot him, according to Commerce Police Chief John Gaissert.

“At this point in the investigation we believe the argument precipitated over a watermelon,” Gaissert said from the scene Monday. “The child either dropped the watermelon or cut it prematurely. The ensuing argument escalated and resulted in deadly violence.”

The dead boy was identified as Michael Levigne. His 5-year-old brother was in the home at the time but escaped unhurt and now is in the custody of Family and Children Services.

Read more: http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/06/09/grandfather0609.html

[uppityperson]

1. Was going to make a bad joke but after reading the article, this is a heartbreaking situation, poor

kids

[aquart]

2. Conveniently, a gun was in the house. To protect them, of course.

[Egnever]

3. Oh please this dude was a wack job

Don't equate his behavior with those of responsible citizens.

[Fumesucker]

4. Good thing there are no other "wack jobs" around.. n/t

[Egnever]

5. Yea and no criminals either

[Fumesucker]

6. There are enough laws these days that basically any adult is a "criminal"

Of one sort or another.

[summer borealis]

9. More whack jobs have guns,

than do criminals it seems.

[Javaman]

15. Well, this all could have been solved if the 6 year old was armed.

:yoiks: :hide:

[aquart]

7. But you want wack jobs to be free to have guns. And he is.

So yes, I do equate you "responsible citizens" with the wack jobs. I have to as long as you insist that all of you have gun rights equally.

While you're armed, you all look strangely alike.

[clixtox]

8. You have the wack(whack?) part right!

Guns are the perfect tool for a "wack(sic) job".

Children are too often the ones getting whacked with the guns permeating our lives, homes and culture.

Only real gun nuts dispute the carnage created constantly throughout the USA because of the ready availability of instantly lethal guns of all types.

There is no rational argument for keeping the current paradigm.

Those parroting the right wing talking point about personal guns being the last defense against tyranny obviously aren't paying attention.

If that was even slightly true though, there already would have been an insurrection.

More likely the cement head gun owners would ally with a future fascist neo-con leader to inflict a Taliban type regime right here in the USA.

By the way: I don't recall reading that anyone equated "this dude", or his aberrant behavior, with a "responsible citizen".

[Egnever]

11. Some interesting numbers for you.

in 2004 there were an estimated 57 million adult gun owners

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/13/1/15

Also in 2004 there were 29,569 deaths attributed to firearms in the US. at the same time there were 43,432 traffic related deaths.
I suppose we should outlaw cars as well. Lots of carnage there and I guarantee you a car never protected anyone.

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

Apparently either whack or wack are acceptable. Of course I was using it inferring the guy was crazy like a wacko. According to the free dictionary whacko is a variant of Wacko. So I'll stick with my spelling.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/whacko

[booley]

14. Oh Gawds not this again

Look Guns and Cars ARE NOT THE SAME!

Or did you, in your search for numbers, gloss over the numbers of drivers vs gun owners or how much more often cars are used (hence increasing the odds of accidents)?

Let me help you..80 million gun owners as opposed to almost 200 million car owners. Over 90% of Americans use cars almost every day to get to work.

I admit I didn't have time to look it up but I am going to bet that accidents with guns are more likely to be fatal then car accidents.

Which means guns are still more likely to kill people proportionally.

Whether any gun laws would have stopped this tragedy or not, the car vs gun death argument is deeply flawed and only seems to make pro-gun people sound as if they can't do simple math.

[Javaman]

16. ahh but if we could only mount guns on the cars!!!

just sayin'! :hide:

[Rebubula]

10. Meh..

...when I was a kid in Evansville, Ind in 1980...our neighbor from down the street killed his kids with a shovel when I know that he had several guns available to him.

Sometimes, crazy people do insane things. To attach your own positions to the tragedy is cheap.

[Javaman]

17. Well, there is one handy guy!

why use a gun when a shovel will do!

:hide:

[undergroundnomore]

12. Yet another

tragic loss of an innocent child. I just saw this story http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl060609mlrape.5629f688.html last night and I sobbed. How can we call ourselves a civilized nation when adults are allowed to cruelly torture and/or kill young children? Are we as a people judged by how we treat the least of us (read innocents)? Since children are not a "voting block" we adults need to speak out on their behalf. Stop the ABUSE! Break the cycle.

[Blandocyte]

13. If THAT wackjob hadn't had THAT gun

the kid wouldn't have been shot by him. I bet the kid and the grandmother wished the shooter hadn't had a gun. Maybe right now the shooter wishes he hadn't had a gun, too. Tell me how allowing him to have that gun was an awesome thing again.

[Javaman]

18. Because anger management is for wimps

and it's just easier to solve your problems, a mis-cut watermelon, with a gun.

[No Elephants]

19. A freakin' watermelon. Poor kid. RIP