Posted on 08/25/2006 7:41:16 AM PDT by Teflonic
WORTHINGTON, Ohio Aug 24, 2006 (AP)— Someone shot at a carload of teenage girls, critically wounding one of them, after some of them had stepped near a house that had been rumored by fellow students to be haunted, police said.
A man who lives in the house, Allen S. Davis, was arrested Wednesday in the shooting of 17-year-old Rachel Barezinsky the night before. He told reporters Wednesday from jail that he was trying to drive off trespassers and didn't intend to hurt the girls.
Barezinsky remained in critical condition Thursday at Ohio State University Medical Center, a nursing supervisor said.
Barezinsky's aunt, Tina Wedebrook, told reporters Wednesday that the girl had surgery to relieve swelling in her brain and had been able to squeeze visitors' hands, but was having trouble moving the left side of her body.
Davis' home, across from a cemetery and overgrown with trees and weeds, had a reputation among local teens for being haunted. Students at Thomas Worthington High School in suburban Columbus had been daring each other to knock on the door or go in the yard, police Lt. Doug Francis said.
Barezinsky and two of her friends got out of their car parked near the home about 10 p.m. and took a few steps onto the property, Francis said. They jumped back in when a girl still in the car sounded the horn, and they heard what they thought were firecrackers as they drove away, he said.
The girls drove around the block, and Barezinsky was struck in the head and shoulder while sitting in the car as they passed the house again, Francis said. The other girls were not injured.
Hundreds gathered on the high school football field Wednesday night for a vigil for Barezinsky, a cheerleader at the school of about 1,700 students.
Police said Davis a self-employed nonfiction writer who lives with his 64-year-old mother, he told investigators he was aiming for the car's tires.
Davis, 40, appeared before a judge Thursday on five counts of felonious assault. His bond was set at $500,000.
Davis told reporters Wednesday he had prepared the rifle after numerous instances of trespassing.
Initially, there was nothing mentioned about firing at the tires. He said he regretted it but why were the girls acting in a delinquent manner.
They have played many clips of his jailhouse interviews on local radio. He has stated that he did not feel threatened in one of those clips. Big no-no in using deadly force.
From a legal standpoint, this guy needed an attorney from the get-go and he needed to say nothing! These interviews are going to get him hung. I really do believe he was a picked on guy who finally snapped. His statements will prejudice potential jury members against his case badly.
This is tantamount to shooting kids cutting across your lawn. Plus this guy sniped cheerleader out in the street from his window. This guy needs to be taken down.
Excellent point, the girls might have received an extra thrill from the temporary fright caused by seeing that crackpot Davis running down the walkway towards them! 
He needed to find methods other than shooting at the girls to resolve this matter. Forget about the official courtroom, Davis is going to get positively creamed in the court of public opinion.
~ Blue Jays ~
What would you do if you lived in a house across the road from a country cemetery that is "haunted"? We lose a lot of sleep listening to noisy teens across the road in the old country cemetery. We call 911 often but the police almost never arrive in time to catch anyone. Even when they have, they have only succeeded in getting the kids to stop driving through the cemetery. Now they park on the road which is probably worse since they make more noise closer to our bedroom window than if they went back in off the road.
In our experience, kids who do this type of thing are that stoopid, for real. No way did they deserve to be shot at, though. Responding with lethal force for setting foot on the guy's yard and making noise was in no pay appropriate. He claims to never have called 911, either. The guy was just plain wrong, no matter what he's been through.
We have lost hundreds of hours of sleep due to similar conditions, we live across from a "famous" haunted cemetery. I have all kinds of fantasies about what to do when it gets noisy over there, but would never consider shooting anything off even to scare them away.
So what do you propose to do about the noisy teenagers in the cemetery?
~ Blue Jays ~
Why are you asking?
If they are not on your property, yes.
That isn't legal anywhere!
I would have to think 911 is for emergencies such as a life and death situation. I did notice it's almost impossible to find the local police stations number in the phone book. The last book I had listed 911 for all emergency agencies like Fire, Police, Rescue, Poison Control and Ambulances. I had to call 411 to get the number for the police when it a routine call.
I think what you just wrote is you are terrified of cheerleaders and need a gun to protect yourself. Is that right?
I feel sorry for this guy, up to the point where he got the gun out. I am not defending him, but I understand his frustration.
Oh I don't know. About the same time as we got the right to shoot unarmed cheerleader for doing nothing but driving by a house!
'nuther article on the subject - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1689472/posts
What you need is a nice, bright spotlight. Cures "making out" in all but the most stubborn of cases.
This was one of our first ideas. The problem is, there is more than one place to put a light unless we got a portable one that we could walk over there with. Also, some of the activity over there is drug deals. It's not my job to go shine bright lights at people who are trying to buy dime bags or whatever they call them now.
Mostly, though it's kids running around with cameras and flashlights, looking for ghosts to take pictures of or whatever it is they do in cemeteries at night while screaming and yelling at each other and slamming car doors. Sometimes they smash the little photograph things that people have put in some headstones, or try to tip the taller old markers over. There have been thousands of dollars of damage done.
One night there were big flashes over there but no noise. It turned out to be a police officer from a nearby town who as a hobby went around taking pictures of ghosts in cemeteries at night with his mother to help him. No kidding. He made a point of telling us that it was OK because he had permission from our police department (but a church owns the cemetery) and besides, he had his mother with him.
Hey, all this guy has to do is claim he's a Muslim and they were harrassing him because of his religion.
Yes. Actions have consequences. It was night when it happened (if the story is correct). The man probably didn't have night vision goggles to identify who was on his property. In the world we live in today, there are very unscrupulous and violent people capable of kicking in your front door and doing you major bodily harm. With home invasions so popular in the news today, anyone with just a touch of paranoia might go off the deep end if they feared such a thing happening to them. The story seems to say that the kids had run onto his property in order to harrass him with their idea of fun. Kids today for the most part have been raised as Mommy & Daddy's little darlings with little or no empathy or respect for anyone other than themselves. We don't know, the man may have called the police numerous times in the past in order to try to get the harrassment stopped. Parents need to teach their kids to respect others. That said - grabbing a gun isn't an optimal plan. It's just sad all the way around and hope the girl recovers okay.
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