Posted on 04/14/2018 1:39:45 AM PDT by BBell
DETROIT (AP) — A black 14-year-old boy who got lost in a Detroit suburban neighborhood while trying to get to school was shot at by a white homeowner after knocking on a door to ask directions, prosecutors said Friday, citing home security video and the account of the boy.
Jeffery Zeigler, a retired Detroit firefighter, was arraigned Friday on charges including assault with intent to murder.
Oakland County sheriff's deputies were called to Zeigler's Rochester Hills' home about 8:20 a.m. Thursday after a woman told 911 that her husband had chased a black male who tried to break in. Deputies learned that a shot had been fired and found Brennan Walker — unharmed — down the street.
Walker's statement to police differed from that given by Zeigler, according to assistant prosecutor Kelly Collins.
"We do have the benefit of home security video," Collins told the court Friday. He said Zeigler's account was not borne out by the video.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
There he was all alone minding his own business while breaking into this man’s home, when all of a sudden from no where, this guy took a shot at him....
As of late the race baiting is getting really out of hand. I’m not sure what ends the race baiters are trying to achieve.
If America remains asleep at the wheel it will soon be illegal or too expensive(legal fees) for homeowners to defend themselves, their families and property.
The blue wave is coming, everyone better get off their butts right now or kiss it goodbye.
Find out who your local PC is and if there isn’t one your it, contact your local Republican Committee Chairman and volunteer. Knock on doors and make calls.
This is our last shot and you know it.
One common reason for knocking on doors is in the hope that there will be no answer so you can safely burglarize the home. A second common reason is in the hope that there will be an answer so you can rob the surprised homeowner. I have almost never heard of kids of that age knocking on strangers’ doors to innocently ask for directions.
That said, one common legal reason for shooting a criminal is because you have a reasonable fear of death or of serious bodily harm [details vary by state]. Even if the homeowner suspected criminal motives, the homeowner may not have met this standard - if the prosecution is honestly motivated. The 911 call suggests that the belief was sincere, but it also has to meet the “reasonable man” standard. That could become unpleasant for this man in court.
If robbery was the concern, he could have ignored the knocking (pounding?) on his door. If burglary was the concern, he could have shouted to go away through the door. If he wanted to shoot, he could have waited to see if the kid physically broke in and then fired as soon as the legal standard was met. He may even have met the standard due to something that will not show on the video (or something a leftist prosecutor will ignore just for the joy of persecuting a gun owner, even if he expects to lose in court).
I’ve been there, but I didn’t shoot so I didn’t face charges. Instead, I called 911 . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . and . . . 20 minutes later . . . when the police arrived, they caught the guys (teens, plural) at a nearby home. The baby thugs had chosen not to break into my home for reasons that I do not comment on. The biggest difference between my situation and this homeowner’s is that I carefully studied the laws of my state. I would accept at least a little personal risk rather than shoot when that shooting didn’t meet the legal standards for my state. I shoot well, so the risk even from multiple intruders is manageable. The risk from liberal prosecutors can be deadly.
Homeowner fired a gun, he shot no one. Warning shot? Accidental discharge? Pretty high bar to prove intent, here. I don’t know the laws of Michigan or Detroit but it appears that he’s guilty of brandishing and of discharging a firearm in an occupied dwelling, if he’s guilty of anything and if that’s even illegal there. If they want to ratchet this up to some sort of hate crime, what was the crime? Something nebulous like racial intimidation?
https://baronedefensefirm.com/michigan-gun-lawyer/laws-on-warning-shots/
Michigan gun laws on warning shots are not clear. The term warning shot does not appear in the Michigan Penal Code and is not otherwise contained in the Self-Defense Act. Without clear guidance from statutory law, courts are left to determine if the action of firing a warning shot is to be considered under either the use of force standard or the use of deadly force standard.
Although the firing of a warning shot is not per se legally forbidden, one should be aware that if they fire a warning shot, it is highly likely that their conduct will be judged under the legal standard that they have used deadly force and not just mere force.
This means that a person may only be allowed the legal argument of justification if a warning shot is fired in situations in which deadly force is justified under the Michigan Self-Defense Act.
I have no desire to face a Maryland jury, and I suspect a Detroit jury would be even worse. We’ll have to find out what the video shows, but a warning shot will land him in front of a jury. Negligent? Quite possible, but that might be just as dangerous a claim.
The homeowner was just taking the home security advice given by Joe Biden.
Best reply yet...
There are a whole lot of things about this story that we just don’t know.
Based on how one fills in the blanks, one can justify anything from throwing the homeowner in jail for 20 years to calling in a napalm strike on the front yard.
This is a paint-by-number story. How a person reacts is based on that person’s bias and assumptions.
Since I don’t have a clue about any of the unknowns, and there is a zero percent possibility that anybody is going to play this straight, and nobody here is dead, I don’t think this is an important story on which to give an opinion.
“I have no desire to face a Maryland jury, and I suspect a Detroit jury would be even worse. “
Where did this kid even find a white person ? Who will the jury of peers consist of ?
So, in front of a jury charged with what crime? What crime was committed, here? Is the appearance of racial bias a crime? If the young man knocking on his door had not been black would we even be hearing anything about this? I don’t think we would be.
Does the kid have a cell phone....
Google maps on my phone works for me in tiny villages in Europe. I can’t believe a 14 year old in Detroit wouldn’t be smart enough to pull out his phone and use that app.
Obviously, he was looking for someplace unoccupied or an open door to quickly grab something and run.
If i had a security system with a camera, I would want to have the ability to erase any video that I did not want to have around. A system that backs up to the cloud that does not give the system owner the right to permanently delete all copies is problematic.
Once there is a court order, that’s another kettle of fish. But unless there is a court order, the system owner should be able to delete anything he damn well pleases.
So...today was the first day of school? No...couldn't be.
The boy had never been to his school before? That I can believe.
Saw him interviewed this morning, he’s about 6’ tall and very well spoken. Rochester Hills is a safe, upscale community way north of Detroit with a very low crime rate. I have no reason not to believe the kid and the home owners were way out of line in the action they took.......If you answer my knock on your door with a shotgun, I’m likely to start running away too but I wouldn’t expect you to shoot at me.
The story does not make sense, it wouldn’t make sense regardless of the races of the parties involved or the roles they played.
How many 14 year olds do you know who don’t have a cell phone with GPS, mapping and directions from your current location? How many teenage boys would attempt to walk to school if they’d missed the bus? Where was his mother or his father, do they both work? Why didn’t he call them, regardless? He’s been going to this school since August of last year, but doesn’t know how to get there?
Sorry, I smell BS and race shaming doesn’t make it smell any better, “knock knock burglaries” are a thing in large cities now, I posted a link to a Google search showing just how many hits that term gets.
Grand Torino?
Additionally, assuming your description of the suburb is accurate, then the likelihood of a 14 year old boy having a cell phone there is extremely high. The likelihood of professional parents, many of whom drive their children to school anyway, being able to make themselves available to do so is very high as well. What doesn’t jibe with the description of a prosperous, upscale and safe suburb is a homeowner with an elaborate video security system, being on a hair trigger about robbery. That behavior to me says that there have been robberies in that neighborhood.
‘Unfortunately the one-way mirror is not exclusive to Liberals...’
The problem here is there is absolutely no reason to identify the race of either party especially in the headline. Liberal journalist objective is to race bait, look at the comments here and at the article - objective achieved. If both parties were of the same race, no story. I am positive the way this went down was - mother calls media, media ask what color was shooter, white on black, fits desired goal, run story.
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