Posted on 03/21/2006 1:38:11 AM PST by beaversmom
BATAVIA, Ohio -- A man who neighbours say was devoted to his meticulously kept lawn is charged with murder in the shooting of a 15-year-old boy who apparently walked across his yard.
Charles Martin, 66, of Union Township, near this city about 30 kilometres east of Cincinnati, shot next-door neighbour Larry Mugrage in the chest with a shotgun about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, police said. The youth was pronounced dead at hospital.
Martin was being held without bond yesterday in Clermont County Jail. Police said he told them he had several disputes about neighbours walking on his lawn. But Union Township police Lieut. Scott Gaviglia said Martin had no criminal history and last called police in 2003.
Martin called 911 on Sunday, saying in a calm voice: "I just killed a kid."
He also tells the dispatcher: "It's been going on for five years ... I've been harassed by him and his parents for five years. Today just blew it up."
STUNS NEIGHBOURHOOD
The deadly shooting stunned those in the neighbourhood and students at Glen Este High School, where Martin was a freshman, and grief counsellors were on hand yesterday.
"I think there's a great deal of shock, for two reasons: because of the age of the victim and just how this occurred, killed over some grass," Gaviglia said.
Neighbours said Martin lived alone quietly, often sitting out in front of his one-storey home with its neat lawn, well-trimmed shrubbery and flag pole with U.S. and navy flags flying.
In his fenced backyard, he had several birdhouses and a shed painted like a small red barn with white trim.
It is about harassment but that does not make the little people reading the paper hate the shooter now does it.
Oh great. Now how's he's got blood in his lawn.
Thanks for the replies and may God Bless you, your family, and loved ones.
You are correct that I don't know all of the facts or even many of the facts. However, I was once a teenager and I know how teenagers behave. Good teens brought up in a Christian environment are taught respect, if they don't already have it.
There was once a cranky neighbor on the street where I grew up and he did not like anyone to get near his property. As I was taught by my parents to stay out of the street and use the sidewalk (our 'sidewalks' were unpaved - public property, however), he complained & cussed bitterly anytime someone would use the street walkway in front of his property. At no time did any of the neighborhood kids taunt this neighbor. And none of us were "saints."
See post #71 (911 call), and posts #63, 140, 175 (his lawn).
Execute him! What this guy did is barbaric.
We had some of the same kind of mindless damage to lawns and bushes on our corner lot (all costing us money, of course), by recklessly driving teens. Every year we struggle to keep the lawn and property looking kempt, but it's an endless job. Seeing your expensive efforts at gardening torn up by spinning and skidding tires not once, but several times, can wear down the patience of a Job, but a shotgun is not the way to handle it. Find a way to ID the perps, then call on their parents with a lawyer and a cop. Works like a charm. They never returned and told their friends that our lot is off limits.
Property rights are not absolute. You do not have the right to engage in illegal activity just because the activity is done on your private property.
Don't believe me? Talk to a lawyer.
Yes. So you take the perceptions of a maniacal murderer and assume they are truthful.
Never sit on a jury.
Interesting how you think it FAR more likely that the MURDERER is saved than the murdered child.
Would your statements apply to people putting up posts across the front of their yard, or small boulders, or a very sturdy fence - could they also be culpable if someone was hurt?
I have been considering constructing a ferrocrete mailbox structure simply for the low maintenance aspects. I have no disire to harm, injure, or even ding a car. I have no desire for anything to ever hit it, I just do not want to have to rebuild it again like I have had to replace both metal and wood posts for my mailbox over the years due to rust and rot. (And the one time the neighbor kid took a crutch and mashed my metal mailbox rather effectively, but his mom bought us a new one.)
Is it more a matter of disguise, or simply a matter of immoveability? Is there a minimum distance that massive lawn ornaments have to be clear of the road, or do lawn-redecorating drivers have the legally allowable expectation to be able to nearly sideswipe the front porch without hitting anything in the yard that would be a danger to them, possibly besides obvious large trees?
In this context the word "right" is ambiguous. I would indeed be arrested and imprisoned for doing some things on my property that don't infringe anyone else's rights.
But then again, my town council can seize my property, kick me out and give it to a guy to open a strip club. When I speak of "rights," I'm never particularly interested in whatever the government claims is or isn't my "right". By that standard, I don't have the "right" to install a toilet with a three-gallon tank.
Rather, my perspective is this: the only law that is defensible on philosophical grounds is the law that protects someone's right to their person or property. Thus, punishing assaulters, rapists, murderers and burglars is ethically defensible. Conversely, if I am not infringing anyone else's personal or property rights, then interfering with me is an infringement of my rights, and hence not defensible.
Most people disagree, because they like to see their preferences enforced on others. I'd like to see homosexual fornication punished with death--along with murder, rape, kidnapping and any blasphemy against my religion. Luckily, I don't believe I have the right to enforce that preference on others. Unluckily, few people feel as I do. Most are happy to ban smoking, or three-gallon toilet tanks, or pets, or poker-playing, or drinking, or disposing of plastics and other trash in the same receptacle, etc., ad infinitum.
These are very specific questions that should be address to your town council or zoning committee and a competent property lawyer.
Intent is always important, but more often than not, the state is concerned with what a reasonable person could foresee.
I too would be a libertarian except I understand that "victim-less" crimes can indeed have victims, even if not readily apparent.
Letting a polar bear run loose on your property, or placing a minefield on your front lawn, or brewing meth or cooking crack damages me by destroying my property values.
Liberty is not absolute freedom. Absolute freedom is instead anarchy. Liberty, however, is freedom protected by the rule of law. Are there abuses of liberty untaken by our government? Of course, but the answer is not landmines and polar bears.
The murderer, Mr. Martin will be in prison for a long time. I believe he will reflect on his crime and he will begin to feel sorry. If he truly is sorry, he may ask God to forgive him. This is known as repentance. This is the start of one's salvation. He still has to believe in Jesus, though.
No one can be saved after they die. I do hope and pray that the kid through God's grace is saved. I don't wish anyone ill will. (And my biblical knowledge is limited --I am no expert).
The difference between me and you-- I take what crazy people say with a grain of salt. You don't.
That's his statement. Must be true, because he said it. Right?
Lets see how well you protect your turf in your NEW home.
Gee, maybe they'll put him on crabgrass detail in prison.
Are you kidding? The kid has been called a brat and a bully, all on the testimony of the shooter. The implication in many posts is that he got what was coming to him. "Play with a cobra, gonna get bit."
There are cases in which "destroying your property value" can be correctly understood to be an invasion of your property rights. For example, sending smoke onto your property, or loud noises, or bright lights late at night. But it would also lower your property value if your neighbor sold his house to a black family--yet this is not in any way an invasion of your rights, and you have no grounds to complain.
In the case of the minefield on my front lawn, you would have a legitimate complaint if it caused debris to land in your yard, or loud noises, or body parts. But I could address each of these issues, using only whisper-quiet land mines that blow everything downward, so that your lawn doesn't even rustle when my mines are triggered. In that case, you would have no basis for complaint.
I would also need to properly fence and post my yard, because I would be liable, for example, for folks entering my property without realizing it any being blown to smithereens. But assuming I took those steps to ensure that everyone's property rights were properly respected, you would have no complaint.
The case of the meth lab is similar. You have a basis for complaint when there are odors emanating from the house, and the noise of crack whores being beaten, and occasional shootings, and so on. If none of those things took place, you would have no grounds for complaint. In fact, your neighbor might at this very moment be manufacturing drugs or alcohol for his own use, and you'd probably never know it.
Liberty is not absolute freedom.
You're trying to reverse the burden of proof, and force me to prove that it's legitimate for me to do this or that. In reality, the burden of proof is on the person who wants to intervene forcibly in my life: what is your justification for bullying me?
When you recognize the question as properly posed, you'll realize that you are perfectly justified in acting against me if I'm somehow violating your property rights or using force against you. That includes third parties, because you can of course hire a guard to beat me up on your behalf when I violate your rights. But if I'm hurting nobody, you have no legitimate basis for initiating force against me.
People do, of course. And they get away with it, because nobody will interfere in your aggression against me if they share your dislike for me or what I'm doing. That includes much more than government. It's why people just don't care when one drug dealer kills another, for example. It's why, in some towns, a gay man can be beaten to death, and nobody will intervene.
By contrast, I'm emotionally indifferent to whether gay men live or die. When messiah comes, they'll get the death penalty. But I do not consider myself empowered to assault gay men, or anyone else, and I would testify against the assaulters. I extend the same courtesy to smokers, non-recyclers, people who burn fossil fuels, people who operate businesses from houses zoned residential, and so on.
Of course, but the answer is not landmines and polar bears.
"Of course"? Beware of anything you consider self-evident.
Suppose, for example, that I'm even more famous and even more hated than Bill Gates. I would probably employ a private army in my own defense, and they'll use a combination of high-tech weapons including robot sentries armed with machine guns. On my private island, which is vulnerable to attack, I'll not only maintain air and submarine patrols, but will heavily mine the deserted side of the island to prevent would-be assassins from bivouacing there.
As for polar bears, are you claiming that private citizens have no right to operate a zoo? Naturally, I'd be responsible for any damage my animals might do to life or property--but you seem to believe that my humongous ranch may not be used as a zoo unless someone else tells me I can.
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