Posted on 07/25/2014 5:32:20 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Long Beach homeowner Tom Greer, 80, told a TV station he began firing after his collarbone was broken during an assault by the woman and a man that Greer discovered in his home.
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Greer said he fired at the burglars inside and outside his home, even though the female burglar told him not to shoot because she was pregnant.
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An autopsy has confirmed Miller wasn’t pregnant, Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman Ed Winter said Friday.
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Under California law, homeowners have a right to protect themselves with deadly force inside their homes and in the immediate vicinity — such as a patio — if they feel they are in imminent danger of great bodily injury or death, said Lawrence Rosenthal, a former federal prosecutor and who teaches law at Chapman University.
But this case enters a gray area because Greer, by his own account, chased the burglars and fired at them outside his home as they were fleeing, Rosenthal said.
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Prosecutors will have to decide if the evidence shows the immediate threat had subsided by the time Greer fired again, or if he still could reasonably fear for his life.
“As a technical matter, this would be a homicide, possibly second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, but that doesn’t mean that you should charge everything that’s technically an offense,” Rosenthal said.
(Excerpt) Read more at losangeles.cbslocal.com ...
Anybody that breaks into a house and beats up a feeble old person ought to be shot! Good riddance to trash.
This woman was a liar, a thief and a criminal. There's no doubt about that.
But what you said makes you no better. That comment was pure evil.
He puts the gun down, and she pulls out a razor and slices him like a sausage (at least that may have been what she was thinking). Did they find any knives on her?
Well then if we were both on the jury I guess it would result in a mistrial.
If it had been a couple of kids stealing his hubcaps in his driveway and he chased them down I would agree with you. And if they hadn’t beat the crap out of him first I would agree too. But she initiated a violent unprovoked confrontation with this guy after breaking into his home and it ended very badly for her.
I just hope I am never put into a situation like that.
Meanwhile, cops in California shot up an occupied vehicle just because they thought Dorner might have been in it, even though it didn’t match the description, and they aren’t charged. I think the same rules should apply to citizens as to police in matters of deadly force: Either cops have to be in grave and imminent fear for their lives, or citizens can shoot fleeing criminals in the back. I detest caste systems in which there are two sets of laws that apply differently to two classes of people.
Spot on. Cops are shooting and killing way too many "suspects" who have done nothing wrong but perceived by the cops as being a threat. Not too long ago a young boy carrying a toy gun blasted repeatedly and killed by a trigger-happy cop. The Oscar Grant situation, guy handcuffed and face down surrounded by cops is shot by the BART cop in the back and killed; there was no imminent danger to the cops. So apply the same rules to citizens and cops; or dismantle the justice system because it's broken.
She robbed him before, robbed him again and broke his collar bone, she might have come back a third time, armed and with a vendetta....but now she won't be bothering him again.
California has good self defense laws. But shooting someone who is down and was running away isn't likely to fly anywhere.
Say you've been robbed a couple of times and got the guy on camera. Later you are walking down the street and you bump into him. Do you get to shoot him, because he might come back again?
For valid self defense the threat has to be imminent, not hypothetical or in the future.
Do you actually know anything about self defense laws in California or are you just assuming?
Used to live there. Had plenty of training there about them. When I discovered it was not only legal for you to be sued by the burglar you shot but the chances were that he would win, I decided to leave for those and many other reasons.
Texas law says that a criminal or his estate is not allowed to sue for damages due to injuries suffered in the commission of or as the direct result of their crime. CA law does not. That’s a flat out insane lack.
All of the people who believed this POS criminal now look like fools.
NEVER TRUST CRIMINALS. PERIOD.
Agree 100%. There should be no charges for this 80 yo man. He suffered enough because of these two thugs.
He had control of the situation? He was an 80 yo man who was jumped in his own home by these two and suffered a broken collarbone? How exactly is that having control?
Someone who gets it. Reading these threads lately is like reading DU.
If you are wishing for this 80 yo man to be prosecuted then I hope that someday you find yourself in his situation.
It is far too easy to criticize when it is not your life on the line.
Your scenario is off a bit......add in that he just broke your collarbone.
Why do so many people go out of their way to defend the actions of criminals?
Not many places, no. And certainly not in California. Unfortunately I think he's toast, and his own comments will go a long way towards convicting him.
All that said, I wouldn’t have gone after those two even though under my state’s law I would have been perfectly justified in chasing them even after they had fled my home and land.
***No, I’m not second guessing the guy on the ground - he was there, I wasn’t. I am only saying that while his course of action would have likely been fully legal in my state I would have done things differently. It is highly probable that he had not thought out or planned out a scenario like this while I have. I think he did damned well for what resources he had to hand.***
I am, however, going to treat this as a scenario for discussion and education.
Let’s look at the scenario (which, as we have the leisure of time to ponder, we can whereas the victim was assailed and didn’t have time to think everything completely through). You are an older or infirm person living alone. You find two much younger, much fitter miscreants in your home. They immediately attack you and begin beating you. You are seriously injured beyond whatever normal handicaps you may have; your collarbone is broken, you feel excruciating pain when you attempt to move your arms. You miraculously manage to get to your pistol despite the beating and the assailants flee.
Again, the guy on the ground made the decision he believed to be right at the time and I’m not going to second guess him there. However, the rest of us can plan ahead so we don’t have to make snap decisions.
I think I would choose not to pursue. Already injured, not in the best of shape, probably bleeding profusely. Sight and hearing probably degraded, injuries seriously degrading the ability to defend myself, already know there’s two assailants out there in much better condition, don’t know how many more are out there or even whether they brought friends or not. I would fall back to the most defensible room in the house, preferably one with only one entrance or exit, light up the door so anyone entering is blinded by the light but unable to see me, sit there with my weapon trained on the door and call 911.
But that’s just me. I wasn’t there.
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