16-year-old shot by security guard dies
Posted on 11/04/2002 6:13:26 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
16-year-old shot by security guard dies
Teen theft suspect dies; security guard charged
11/04/2002
A 16-year-old who witnesses said was shoplifting died Saturday night, several hours after being shot in the head by a shopping center security guard.
Leshard Wilson was shot about 2:15 p.m. in a parking lot behind a shopping center as he and two other boys ran from the security guard. Dallas police Sgt. Gary Kirkpatrick said Sunday that the two other boys fled from the shopping center in the 1500 block of South Buckner Boulevard and have not been identified. Leshard died about 8:50 p.m. at Baylor University Medical Center.
WFAA-TV Police take security guard Bernie Pointer Jr., right, into custody. |
The private guard, Bennie Franklin Pointer Jr., 50, of Dallas, was charged Saturday with aggravated assault, but the charge was changed to murder on Sunday after Leshard died. Mr. Pointer remained in custody at Lew Sterrett Justice Center on Sunday, awaiting arraignment on the murder charge.
Mr. Pointer's family declined to comment.
Family members and friends gathered Sunday at Leshard's home, less than a mile from the shopping center. They declined to comment on the incident but said that funeral plans were still pending.
A representative of Mr. Pointer's employer, North American Security Group, said Sunday that the company would make a statement Monday afternoon.
Police said that the three boys were thought to have been shoplifting at the Family Dollar store on Buckner, just north of Lake June Road. Sgt. Kirkpatrick said that there was no evidence behind the store to show that Leshard had stolen anything.
Although state law allows security guards to use deadly force to protect property, Sgt. Kirkpatrick said that Mr. Pointer appeared to have overstepped his authority as he fired the single shot that hit Leshard.
E-mail imccann@dallasnews.com
Are you referring to their son? If so, you are one sick SOB. Much more so than I ever dreamed you were. Please, correct me if I misunderstood you.
It's not a dream, he is profoundly disturbed.
You guess wrong. It's almost always a bad idea to guess.
I admit I wish I could be more "sympathetic" to kids like this. In fact, they are the result of permissiveness in our society that has filtered down to the "family" level. And most such "families" are intensely dysfunctional.
"Liberty" means nothing when you define it as including license and flagrant disregard for righteous behavior--something that the adolescents that populate the ranks of the Libertines have yet to begin to understand.
This man will have to be judged by a jury of his peers, and punished or acquitted as the circumstances warrant. I'm sure he isn't happy at what happened himself. My sympathies are with him far more than with the dead boy, I'm afraid. That's because I tend to be more "compassionate" toward those who tend to deserve it.
How could you possibly know that?
My sympathies are with him far more than with the dead boy, I'm afraid.
Bingo! Your first inclination is always to applaud the authoritarians, you would have been a perfect cheerleader for the King of England, or Tojo for that matter.
Stop with the BS of permissiveness! Start with the wisdom of accountability - NOT for the guard, but for the perps!
Oh, and in your bloodlust, you must have missed this:
Police said that the three boys were thought to have been shoplifting at the Family Dollar store on Buckner, just north of Lake June Road. Sgt. Kirkpatrick said that there was no evidence behind the store to show that Leshard had stolen anything.
Here's hoping that your child is not in the wrong place at the wrong time someday - and if he is, I suppose he would have learned a lesson, eh?
I just hope that this doesn't lead to having some impoverished parents "encouraging" one of their children to shoplift in order to be able to sue for millions of dollars as a result of the child being shot and possibly killed by the store's security people.
The kid was running away when he was shot, therefore he was NOT a threat. I hope this "security" guard goes to jail for the rest of his life.
Is shooting suspected thieves okay with you? I thought we had juries to mete out society's punishment for wrongdoers.
Read the article, Joe; there was no evidence that the kids stole anything.
And you will go to jail, probably for the rest of your life. Is a "used paper towel" worth you spending the rest of your life in prison?
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