Posted on 03/22/2007 8:54:16 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
PORT ST. JOHN, Fla. -- A machete-wielding man chased off three young men from a wooded lot near his house Thursday, trapping one of them up a tree before sheriff’s deputies arrived.
Luke Weinstein said he stepped outside his house on Kings Highway to have his first cigarette of the day when he spotted the men lurking in the shrubs of a vacant lot across the street. He yelled at them and started after them, then ran back into his garage to grab his machete.
Wearing nothing but a pair of black shorts, a barefooted Weinstein chased the trio into a wooded lot two doors down from his own house.
Two got away, but one young man climbed into a pine tree, where Weinstein trapped him until a deputy arrived.
The deputy showed up at the wrong house, Weinstein said. While he tried to get the deputy’s attention, the youth climbed out of the tree and ran off.
The sheriff’s office is reporting it as a suspicious incident.
Luke Weinstein said he stepped outside his house on Kings Highway to have his first cigarette of the day when he spotted the men lurking in the shrubs of a vacant lot across the street. He yelled at them and started after them, then ran back into his garage to grab his machete. Florida Today image.
Good for Luke.If that guy came at me with a machette,you bet i'd run!Hope he scared the living s@@t out of those punks.
Bums and thieves everywhere. Welcome to America.
Shouldn't machetes be on the assault weapons list?
Let me understand this: Some guy sees 3 other guys on some body else's property across the street ..and he chases them with a weapon??
What if they were thinking about buying the lot or there to clean it up or they met there to go somewhere else?
If they had been on his property, he could run them off, but not attack them with a machete...........
People should have freedom to just be somewhere without being attacked...
I've been confronted several times in my life by these kinds of idiots..even when I was on public streets.....twice I have had car trouble and stopped on the side of the road and had guys come out of their houses from across the road with guns wanting to know why I was there....
It was none of their business..I was not on their side of the road or on their property....I always call the cops and make a complaint when this happens..
I can park in a subdivision to look at a map and people come out wanting to know why I'm stopping......If I was doing something to their property that would be one thing, but parked on a public street is not a cause for concern..
I can remember as a child when my family went to visit a friend of my father..the guy was not home and a neighbor came out with a shotgun pointing it at us...(3 kids, my mother and father).
Some people are just stupid....
'Good for Luke.If that guy came at me with a machette,you bet i'd run!Hope he scared the living s@@t out of those punks."
Don't think the article said they were punks..just 3 males......and they were not on his property.....they could have been waiting on someone from another house...
You just know there's never a dull moment when Luke's around. Lurkers beware!
Are you with the ACLU?sarc
Either that or your an attorney?The ambulance chasing kind:)
Hmmmm. Then someone should have said, "Luke. What we have here is a failure to communicate".
My favorite chair in my home is right next to the front picture window.
Anytime someone walks past, or stops on the street, I see it and pay attention.
While I don't go after them with a weapon, I have plenty of them available and close to hand should I need to go after them with a weapon.
Most people can tell the difference between skulking in the undergrowth and cleaning a lot. Even the difference between standing on the sidewalk talking amongst themselves and casing a house for a burglary is, a lot of times, pretty obvious.
"I understand your point but remember, this isn't the world of the 1950s or 1960s.
My favorite chair in my home is right next to the front picture window.
Anytime someone walks past, or stops on the street, I see it and pay attention.
While I don't go after them with a weapon, I have plenty of them available and close to hand should I need to go after them with a weapon.
Most people can tell the difference between skulking in the undergrowth and cleaning a lot. Even the difference between standing on the sidewalk talking amongst themselves and casing a house for a burglary is, a lot of times, pretty obvious."
He could have yelled at them and asked them what they were doing..but to run after them with a weapon is over the top.....sure, watch what's going on around you, but confronting someone on someone else's property or on the public streets is what gang members do....
And remember: "lurking in the bushes" is Luke's description..to someone else it could be "looking for a basketball" that went over the fence the night before when it was dark....
But go ahead, when I'm not on your property or when I'm not doing anything illegal, come after me with a weapon (say goodbye to your family first)..
Luke doesn't appear to be the kind of guy who always makes the wisest decisions all the time.....what if these guys were looking for a basketball they had lost when it went over the fence the night before...
Just like you may think I'm a liberal lawyer......You would be in error.....I'm just for people being able to go thru life minding their own business without having to deal with some idiot across the street chasing you with a knife...
And as for the guys calling the cops: lots of people don't like to get the cops involved because they don't trust the cops.....people get sick and don't even go to the doctor..
The boy that got treed must have been scared out of his wits.
I agree . Even if it WAS his property, his life was not in danger , therefore he had no right to go after the three guys for any reason whatsoever .
This moron is lucky he didn't get shot by those guys, as they would have been within their rights to do so as Luke came at them with a machete .
"People get sick and don't even go to the doctor......"Huh?
From the article, "He yelled at them and started after them, then ran back into his garage to grab his machete."
Would you confront three "youths" that you considered "lurking in the shrubs of a vacant lot across the street" without a weapon?
If so, you might consider saying goodbye to your family first.
Well, he didn't have to "confront" the guys at all...if he had just yelled at them, they would have left if they were up to no good....
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