Posted on 08/08/2008 6:01:54 AM PDT by marktwain
POMONA - In a span of two days, Brett Nichols went from being accused of attempted murder to becoming the victim in the same incident. The 48-year-old Phillips Ranch resident was arrested Monday morning on suspicion of attempted murder. Police said he had shot a man and dumped the body in the hills near his home.
But Nichols was released from jail Wednesday afternoon after police determined he was acting in self-defense when he shot David Rotela, a 22-year-old Rosemead resident who survived the ordeal, authorities said.
"It was a dumb move for me to do that, to dump his body, but I didn't know what to do," said Nichols outside his Edgebrook Drive home.
Sgt. Robert Baker said "The (Los Angeles County district attorney) declined to prosecute for that incident."
"Nichols is no longer a suspect," Baker said.
According to Nichols, the shooting evolved from a home invasion robbery about 1:30 a.m. Monday.
Five people live in the house owned by Nichols, who said he was waiting for his girlfriend to come home when he heard a commotion in a bedroom.
He armed himself with a gun, "just in case something got out of hand," and went to find the source of the noise, Nichols said.
Nichols said he discovered a man holding a shotgun and wearing a ski mask who ordered him and three other residents to lie under a mattress.
Rotela and a second man took cell phones, cameras and car keys from the residents, authorities said.
As the men left the room, Nichols followed them. When Rotela got to the front door, he swung around and pointed his shotgun at Nichols.
Nichols fired at Rotela who then fell back onto the front walkway while the second man escaped with the stolen goods, authorities said.
Nichols, with a felony drug conviction from the 1990s and no license for the gun, said, "I thought, `A felon with a gun, this isn't good."'
He said he took Rotela and drove him to the hills adjacent to his home and left him there.
"He was paralyzed - he knew it. He said he didn't want to live like that, so I took him out and laid him under the stars like he wanted," Nichols said.
Afterward, Nichols said, he went to 7-Eleven to get a drink and cleaned his truck and the walkway of his house. He also cut out the blood stains from the carpet, leaving square holes, he said.
Police came to the house six hours later to talk to Nichols about a report of shots fired, and he led them to Rotela, who was still alive. Rotela was flown to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. He was listed in critical condition.
Baker said the the investigation is still ongoing, but Rotela could face charges.
Nichols said he had never had contact with Rotela before and did not intend to shoot him.
"I was protecting my home," he said. "If he hadn't turned on me, I probably wouldn't have shot him."
SSS
Unless the law has been recently changed, anyone with a felony conviction on his record is barred by federal law from possessing any firearm unless his full civil rights have been restored by a state judge or governor. If charged and convicted the homeowner will receive a mandatory 10 year sentence with no possibility of parole in what is euphemistically called a federal correction facility, aka a federal pen.
A long time ago, that was the advice given and today it’s wrong. Today, a person defending his or someone else’s life shoots only to stop the threat. Nothing beyond that.
Thus one generations mercy is changed into another's injustice. In the bad old days, felonies meant death, mutilation, or banishment. In mercy it was decided that one could serve some time in jail and lose some rights. Now that is thought of as too harsh.
Mind you, I am coming to agree that the war on drugs is creating more problems than it seems to be solving. There's some question about the fairness of some drug felony laws. But the notion that in felonies generally more is at stake than time in jail is not a priori a bad one.
The problem is that all crimes seem to be felonies except for government people. Lying to a police officer or Judge can be a felony, but it is perfectly legal for them to lie to you. If you try to bribe a witness it is a felony, but it is standard operating procedure for prosecutors. If you take a bribe it is a felony, but if your Congress Critter takes a bribe it is a campaign contribution. If you take someone against their will it is kidnapping, but when was the last time you ever saw a police officer arrested for kidnapping (when they put the wrong person in custody)?
Sentencing is a joke too. I can't prove it, but I would bet a lot, that how much money you have to spend on lawyers is a pretty good inverse indicator of how much time you will be spending in prison.
Who can argue with this?
The system is broken. Lawyers did a lot of the damage, but the REAL damage, IMHO, was a line of thought that minimized responsibility and maximized the diversion of public funds from the real duties of government to the subsidizing of indolence, drug abuse, and bastardy.
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