Posted on 11/13/2018 10:59:09 AM PST by yesthatjallen
A white retired firefighter in Michigan found guilty of firing a shotgun from his porch at a black teenager who knocked on his front door because he was lost was sentenced Tuesday to four to 10 years in prison.
Jeffrey Zeigler, dressed in a grey jumpsuit with his hands shackled in front of him, appeared in an Oakland County courtroom where a judge sentenced him to two to 10 years for one count of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and two years for one count of felony firearm. He was convicted on Oct. 12.
The sentences will be consecutive, meaning Zeigler will serve at least two years for the assault count and another two years for the firearm count, the judge said.
Zeigler, 53, was seen on home surveillance video around 8:20 a.m. ET on April 12 shooting at Brennan Walker as the teen fled down the street. Walker told police that he had missed his school bus that morning and got lost as he was walking through Rochester Hills.
Walker, 14, said he went to Zeigler's home to ask for directions to Rochester High School, where he is a freshman.
"I knocked on the door, stepped back, knocked, stepped back, and then a lady came downstairs yelling at me," he told NBC-affiliate WDIV in April.
Walker said Zeigler's wife picked up the phone to call police, reporting that “a black male was trying to break into her house.”
Ziegler, a retired Detroit firefighter, grabbed his shotgun and chased after Walker, firing one round as the teen fled.
"I was running away ... I was trying to run away faster and I heard a gunshot," Walker said.
Exactly.
He’s the type of gun owner that makes the responsible ones look bad. He knew he screwed up, lied out his butt to the police... and wound up having his lie proven as such by his own video camera.
He knowingly and willfully fired at someone who posed no threat to him, he’s going to jail as a result, as he should.
Don't give a crap. Lying to the police is a big nothing if you haven't actually hurt anyone.
Someone else in the thread said it looked like he did accidentally fire the gun. As I said before, I have a bigger objection to someone accidentally firing a gun than someone deliberately doing so.
Accidental means careless. Deliberate miss means someone maintained control.
I can see some time in the county jail, but not 4 to 10 in prison and convicting him of a felony.
Bullsh*t. It is a miscarriage of justice.
Yes, yes, continue the idiotic hyperbole.
Have you watched the raw video? If you have and think this is a salem witch trial equivalent, then there is little hope for you.
Do something STUPID with a gun, guess what, you get punished for it.. this guy did a LOT of stupid things with a gun, and is going to jail for it.
If you fire a gun at someone, who is not posing an immediate threat to you or someone else... guess what, you are BREAKING THE LAW, in nearly every state. I know you don’t give a crap about the law, because your entire argument is based on foolishness.
This fool didn’t deliberately miss, he didn’t aim in the air, he aimed right at the kid, fortunately the kid was far enough away, or the fool only had birdshot in the gun, but either way, you fire a gun at someone who is posing no immediate threat to you, that’s a crime in the state this man lives in.
What you care about really doesn’t matter, what the law says does, and this guy violated ALL sorts of laws, and got his day in court, got convicted, properly for it, and will serve his punishment for it.
Your lack of general understanding of the legal use of firearms not withstanding.
"...another wannabe Democrat..."
What rights are you claiming he had violated?
The right to vote. The right to bear arms.
He was given due process and convicted in a court of law.
Kangaroo court. No reasonable court would have done this. Probably a grievance court of people witch hunting for "racists" to make examples of.
...when he decided he was going to shoot at another human being who posed no threat to him?
The fact that no one was hit demonstrates your theory to be incorrect. When people are shot at with shotguns, they are hit.
Your argument is beyond foolish. The guy knows he broke the law, which is why he LIED to the police, and said, oh mr officer, I fell and the gun went off... Not the truth that he took aim and fired...
I don't know what he told the police. I only know what the news people claim he told the police, and I have no way of knowing if they got that right at all.
I don't care that he may have lied. (Or maybe he didn't. It depends on exactly what he said.)
What I care about is the fact he didn't actually hurt anyone. I also note the prominence of the word "black" in the story, and cannot help but feel if this had happened to a white kid, the reaction would have been totally different.
I believe that if this had been a white kid, charges would not have even been filed. I suspect this is a deliberate witch hunt for "racists" and an effort to punish a man upon whom people are projecting "racism."
I don't think this is about guns or shooting at all. I think this is about making a scape goat to assuage people's desire to punish perceived "racism". This guy is just a convenient patsy.
Based on the video, when the gun fired it was pointed high and a bit wide of the direction of the fleeing teen, especially since the gun was unmounted and not moving in the direction of the target's path.
And here we go again with the REPETITION of a false claim. Again, here is proof that he did not fire the gun at someone.
No one was hit. Therefore no gun was fired at anyone. Capiche?
This fool didn’t deliberately miss, he didn’t aim in the air, he aimed right at the kid
Cause you can tell from the video? Bullsh*t. Why wasn't the kid hit then?
...fire a gun at someone...
Argumentum ad nauseum. Repeat repeat repeat repeat. It is a false claim that he fired at someone when that person was not hit.
...got convicted, properly for it, and will serve his punishment for it.
You need to go to prison for some frivolous charge. You need a dose of the same miscarriage of justice you are so willing to visit on others.
I don't think you will learn not to abuse our system of law until you yourself suffer from the abuse of it.
I dare say the way things are going, you may eventually find yourself in the dock for something equally harmless. The crazies are running the system now, and crazies like you are enabling them.
You can assume all you want.......I don't want to admonish you for your possible racist crap but Rochester Hills begins at least 15 miles north of Detroit and resides in Oakland Country, NOT Wayne.
And for the record, Oakland County is the most affluent county in the state of Michigan.........
While I will admit that the sentence was excessive, it doesn't discount the fact that the home owner was never threatened as evidenced by the video and his firing of his shotgun at a fleeing youth in a heavily populated neighborhood was clearly an ignorant violation of law........
Thousands of people shot every year in Chicago, LA, and Detroit, Crazies in California and Florida and Nevada who have gone through the system killing people en masse, and you think some guy firing a warning shot is the threat to our right to bear arms?
Just look at the suburban neighborhood where he is shooting for no reason. It is reckless.
People who have recklessly killed people have gotten less time.
I haven't been able to see the video, so thank you for that description. It actually fits quite well with the salient fact that no one was hit. It argues strongly that the man wasn't actually aiming at the kid.
Don't have to assume anything, that's the result of the police investigation........
Were you there? Or are you just another internet sleuth with no access to the facts and trying to make a case on something you know absolutely nothing about?..........Sheesh!
Well that puts another spin on it, but just as bad. Liberal area wants to punish gun usage with excessive penalties. Still a witch hunt, just a different kind of witch.
While I will admit that the sentence was excessive, it doesn't discount the fact that the home owner was never threatened as evidenced by the video and his firing of his shotgun at a fleeing youth in a heavily populated neighborhood was clearly an ignorant violation of law........
It is clear that the homeowner is reacting to his wife, and the fact that he'd already been burgled five times before. Discharging a gun in a residential neighborhood is indeed punishable by law if it is done for a frivolous reason, but I don't believe this is a frivolous reason.
The man may have believed at the time this was someone who tried to get into his house, and therefore that makes this a defensive gun use.
Now you can argue that the fleeing suspect obviated the need to fire the gun defensively, and then you have a valid claim of violating the ordinance against discharging a firearm in the city limits for no good reason, but none of this rises to "assault", and none of it rises to felony, and it certainly doesn't rise to four to ten in prison and forfeiture of both voting and gun rights.
It's still a miscarriage of justice if it is done because liberals hate guns and gunowners.
I also think that if this were a white kid involved, no charges or no serious charges would have been filed.
What it looked like to me is that he came out of his house, raised, shouldered and aimed the shotgun, then dropped it down off his shoulder about 6-8’s inches. At that point it fired, and to me it looked “unintentional” (but no less negligent) in the sense of bad trigger control.
IMO what he did was stupid, showing a lack of judgement, temperment, and gross negligence with a firearm. Then he compounded it by trying to lie his way out of the situation.
How about illegally discharging a firearm in a highly populated neighborhood where such firings are illegal?
Did you see the teen was black and the home owner was white?
Yes, I very much don't like that. Firing accidentally is very objectionable, and that's why I say 30 days in the county is not unreasonable. If he had actually hit someone with a reckless discharge, then the four to ten becomes reasonable.
IMO what he did was stupid, showing a lack of judgement, temperment, and gross negligence with a firearm. Then he compounded it by trying to lie his way out of the situation.
I don't know exactly what he said, and he may have mispoke himself rather than lied. If he came down wrong on his foot as a sort of stumble, it might fit what he was saying, at least in his own mind.
Your description of what happened indicates that he may have indeed made an unintentional discharge. He may have exaggerated his misstep as a fall, but that's pretty stupid if your own video camera is going to be used against you.
Didn't say he was innocent. Have said 30 days in the county sounds more reasonable to me.
Said four to ten and felony suspension of civil rights is way over the top. Going too far is a miscarriage of justice.
If done for frivolous or reckless reasons, some punishment is appropriate. What is the normal punishment for discharging a firearm in a neighborhood?
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