Posted on 08/23/2007 5:15:36 AM PDT by IronKros
WORTHINGTON, Ohio — It has come to be known as the Spooky House Incident: A group of teenagers in this quaint older suburb who tried to scare themselves on a "ghost hunt" and a recluse who responded with gunfire, leaving two lives wrecked. A pretty blonde high school cheerleader, Rachel Barezinsky, is crippled for life. Allen S. Davis, roused from an eccentric but otherwise unoffending existence, was sentenced last month to 19 years in prison for what he describes as defending his home.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
So how far into the property do you have to go before it's trespassing?
No doubt it isn't bank robbery if they don't leave the building. It very much seems that a law degree destroys the brain faster and more completely than syphilis.
So were they in a car when they were shot? The report as usual, is not very clear.
Policeman's property or just some civilian's?
Hate to say it, but this guy represented an unacceptable level of danger to parents in the area and should be in prison. If you’re going to shoot people you have to pick targets a bit better than that and have better reasons for it than that.
If this is true, he was wrong to fire a rifle in a residential neighborhood at a target which was not on his property.
I'd say that if you break the threshold of the property, you are trespassing. That still doesn't mean the owner can pull out a rifle and shoot.
No reason for it, really. No reason for any of it. No, that doesn't excuse such violent retribution. But my parents always told me, you go looking for trouble, more likely than not, you'll find it. Better these kids hung out at the local mall or McDonald's, rather than go bothering someone they didn't know and no matter how "weird", probably wanted nothing more than to be left alone.
I agree. If a couple of teenage girls were on my property holding lit-up cellphones, as an adult male my first move would be to verbally challenge them - I would probably wait to see what they did before I leveled or even produced a firearm, and if they left my property I probably would not shoot at their car after it drove off but memorize the license plate and remember the make and model.
This guy does not seem to have the mental capacity or judgment to handle a firearm.
Good analysis. Anger at years of taunting is not justification for shooting someone, and playing games with deranged people is not funny or safe.
This guy does not seem to have the mental capacity or judgment to handle a firearm.
If it is true, as the article asserts, that the shooter lived with his grandmother's corpse for days before reporting her death, then he should not have been allowed to own a firearm in the first place.
But based on the picture in my head, it was either a very lucky shot(s) or the guy took pains to try to kill somebody. Was she shot in the car through a window? Walking back to the house? The story says that the house sits off the road and is hidden by landscaping. How does a shot that sounds like firecrackers hit that far out and through bushes? It sounds like an accident caused by horrible judgment and the guy should pay the price.
I am reminded of a time in my childhood soon after I received my first BB gun. I was told never to shoot at animals of any kind (except the ferule cats). I disobeyed. I KNEW there was no way I could hit the bids sitting way up on that telephone wire but I tried. As luck would have it, I actually did hit a robbin on the first try and killed it. It fell like a rock and I was very surprised. I felt real bad and remember asking myself, “why would I even try?” Being young and crazy, I answered, “Because it was an impossible shot.”
Moral of the story: Poor judgment and bad decisions always lead to ugly consequences, even the unlikely ones.
I’m not saying shooting at a vehicle leaving your property is the right thing to do, it isn’t. The question I wanted to know is when does the law consider it trespassing? Because apparently crossing the threshold of the property line doesn’t count.
Where do you draw the line in terms of self defense and defense of your home and loved ones? Certainly if someone came into my home uninvited I'd take defensive action. If someone were in my home invited or not and was making threatening moves, I'd take action. Someone on my property engaged in threatening activities, I'd take defensive measures. Someone attacking me from off my property (e.g., drive-by shooting)? Probably take cover and call for help, but if the opportunity and means were available to remove the threat, I probably do it, and likely suffer the consequences.
In my town there are homes where the lawn ends at the asphalt of the road, and there is technically an easement that extends from the edge of the asphalt to some point in that lawn for the use of pedestrians. In some places the town has had sidewalks put in, in many places it hasn't.
Some homeowners have fences built around their front yards leaving the 5-6 foot easement easily identifiable, some have no fences and some have nothing but untamed undergrowth in place of lawns.
The easements vary in breadth.
Technically speaking, if I walk on the grass alongside the road for a mile or so, I will likely be entering at least one person's private property where I have no right to be in a strictly legal sense.
However, if some irate non-fencebuilding homeowner sees me walking twelve feet in from the asphalt and calls the cops, I probably will not be charged with trespassing because they did not mark their property and I had no way of knowing whether the ground I was standing on belonged to them or was simply an easement in front of their property.
The years of taunting and abuse combined with this latest incident probably caused him to snap.
WHERE WERE THE PARENTS?
If your kids run around in the middle of the night scaring people YOU should be put in jail for reckless endangerment of your kids AND the neighborhood.
Best regards,
The unclarity comes from Reporters, who've given up on "reporting" and want to change the world.
It is entirely possible that she told her parents she was staying over a friend's house and that she and her friends snuck out of the house.
You cannot watch 17 year olds all the time the way you can watch a 2 year old.
Rather than being the parents' fault, this incident looks like a couple of teenage girls being irresponsible and an adult male loser living in his mommy's house going out of his mind.
Truer words never spoken! I get headaches trying to decipher news "reports".
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