Welcome to Florida. Beware of gunmen standing their ground
Posted on Saturday, 03.24.12
Welcome to Florida. Beware of gunmen standing their ground
In its zeal to champion property owners and the gun lobby, the state of Florida has created an outrageous legal loophole.
BY DAVID SIMON
www.hbo.com/treme
Almost a quarter-century ago — in the halcyon days when human life was seen as more precious than property and people were regarded as something more than impoverished and non-influential corporations — I happened to be present at the tragic and needless shooting death of a black teenager.
It was 1988 in Baltimore, Maryland and I was a journalist embedded in the city’s homicide unit, a bystander to a particular tragedy involving an elderly white homeowner and a black kid shot in the head while trying to steal a dirt bike
As the kid crept from the homeowner’s rear yard with the bike, the old man stood in his rear window, raised a rifle, and shot the juvenile dead. He readily acknowledged that he had done so, noting that he had been a victim of prior thefts and that given his age, he saw no other way to stop the crime.
After all, it was his son’s bike. And it was his home. And in shooting the teenager to death, he was protecting all of that. He was a kindly man, exceedingly polite to detectives and prosecutors, unfailingly sincere in his answers
More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/24/2711539/welcome-to-florida-beware-of-gunmen.html#storylink=cpy
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