Posted on 08/18/2009 6:30:34 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
A clerk at a Ben White Boulevard convenience store has been charged with murder after police say he shot and killed a man who was stealing a 12-pack of Budweiser early Sunday morning.
Jorge Luis Vielma, 22, and another man were on a "beer run," according to police, and attempted to flee after taking the beer. Police say Juan Romero, 23, a clerk at the Shell gasoline station at Ben White and South First Street, fired about a dozen shots at Vielma outside the store as he ran for a friend's waiting Mitsubishi Eclipse.
Vielma later died inside the car; his body was found early Sunday in the 1000 block of Mansell Avenue in East Austin.
Romero was charged Sunday with first-degree murder and was being held Monday at the Travis County Jail. His bail has been set at $250,000. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison.
According to an arrest affidavit, Vielma and a friend, David Campos, 30, were looking for a store to take beer from and settled on the Shell station. Campos told police that he parked the car while Vielma went inside for the beer. Campos said he then saw Vielma emerge running from the store and a short man with a limp in pursuit firing at him.
After Vielma made it back to the car, Campos said that he went "into shock" and drove mindlessly to Mansell Avenue, abandoned the car and fled. He later called 911 to anonymously report the shooting, according to the affidavit.
Police found the car, which was registered to Campos, shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday. When police arrived at Campos' apartment on East Oltorf Street, he was in the process of reporting his car as stolen, according to the arrest affidavit, but police said he soon admitted his role in the incident. Police didn't say whether Campos would be charged.
Police said they later interviewed Romero, who said he fired a pistol about 12 times at Vielma, picked up the shell casings and put them in his vehicle.
He also told police that he picked up the beer dropped by Vielma and threw it into a trash bin, and he deleted images of the incident from the store's video surveillance system.
Sgt. Joseph Chacon said that although Texas law allows residents to take reasonable measures to defend their property, officials determined that, "at least on the face of it," the shooting was not reasonable.
He said it did not appear that Vielma was armed at the time of the theft.
Chacon said police are still trying to determine who owned the gun used in the shooting. The store's owner, José Carranza, told police that he had not authorized Romero to use deadly force to protect the store's property.
Carranza said Monday that he did not know where Romero got the gun and that firearms are not kept in the store.
Theft, however, has been a constant problem for Carranza and his clerks, he said.
A sign taped to the door of the store addresses beer theft: "Due to the high number of dishonest people grabbing and running away (and) stealing our beer, we must require prepayment for beer."
Carranza said that people have stolen from the store at least 10 times this year and that store clerks were robbed at gunpoint four times in the past two years.
Each time, Carranza said, he was unable to get the attention of police, even though his workers were being threatened.
"I'm frustrated with police," Carranza said. "They told us that's not our priority. Now it's a priority because somebody got hurt."
Statistics from police on incident reports at that address were not immediately available.
Consulting police records, Cpl. Scott Perry said there have been several thefts, but only one report of a robbery at the store in the past two years — in November — and that the suspect in that case was not armed. A robbery is defined as threatening or causing injury in the course of committing a theft.
This kind of grab and run theft is considered a game by this crowd. The police have made it clear they won’t respond, so the guy that owns the store ends up losing money because underage kids see it as a game. Once doesn’t make that much of a difference. When it becomes a regular thing, people snap. Man, I’d hate to die getting shot stealing a 12 pack.
I used to work at the fire station just up the street from this.
“The accomplice should be facing felony murder charges, too, IMO...”
My thought too - if he was going to run off and leave the guy why didn’t he leave him at an ER? How do we know the guy was even dead when he fled?
If this is true, I'll have to re-think my high opinion of Texas and its laws. The repo man is entitled to come onto your property in the middle of the night and he is entitled to take your truck if you've missed the payments. If the law condones that man's murder, it is a tragic--and stupid--law.
If this goes to trial, that point will be a cornerstone of the clerk’s defense...
“The person who broke in was seventeen, surrendered; and the guy had him call his mother and tell her why he was about to die, then shot him.”
That’s cold.
If the repo man is entitled to come on your property in the middle of the night and take stuff I’d strongly recommend that he do it in a vehicle sporting a large well lit “Repossession Service” sign glaring from the vehicle. Otherwise, how is a person to know it isn’t just somebody stealing a car???
I AM NOT Saying what you describe at all.
A Justified lethal force response must be the result of the threat's ability, opportunity and imminent application of lethal force to you; remove one component and under most/all state laws, you cannot respond in kind.
Hacklehead;
Review my post and post 152, you’ll see clearly that my comments (in italics in 152) stated what you miscontrued....
Best
Probably the several letters that you received that said "PAST DUE" and then the threats of repossession if you don't pay, combined with the fact that a guy shows up with a tow truck (I don't think most car thieves tow away cars), I'd say that's a pretty good indication.
I’d strongly recommend that he do it in a vehicle sporting a large well lit “Repossession Service” sign glaring from the vehicle.
The reason why lots of repossessions occur at night is to lessen the likelihood of a confrontation. This serves two purposes: first, there is less chance that someone (repo man or "owner") will get hurt; second, most state laws prohibit repossession if there is a threatened breach of the peace, so if the owner comes outside and starts screaming, the repo man can't take the car. If you put big lights on the two truck, it defeats both of these purposes.
Repo is dangerous work, no doubt. But that guy is a straight cold blooded killer. As pointed out in the article you cited, he killed the guy with a rifle with a telescopic sight; I get that you don't want to get yourself in harm's way but confronting a "thief," but that certainly indicates that he didn't make the least effort to find out whether it was, in fact, a thief. And he probably didn't do that because he knew it was the repo man, because he had to have known that he wasn't paying his bills, and he had to have known that his car was going to be repossessed.
The repo man was just doing his job and he was murdered. There is a widow and four kids without a dad because some jackass thought he didn't have to make the payments on his car. Weak. He should have been imprisoned, and for a long time.
Risking your life over a 12 pack of Bud would have been grounds for insanity defense had the perp lived.
“I AM NOT Saying what you describe at all.”
I didn’t mean to imply that YOU were justifying the shoot based on the fact that the clerk couldnt be certain if the perp was armed. I was trying to show how ridiculous that position was. All we know are the facts presented in the story. There was no mention of the perp being armed, making threats or anything other than grabbing the beer and running. Other folks are bending over backwards to justify the shoot by putting in extenuating circumstances. IMO, if this story is as written, the clerk was not justified. In any case he will likely stand trial and the costs in time, money, and mental anguish will make him wish he never fired a shot, even if found not guilty.
The clerk spent his morning getting ready for work, the thief woke up thinking how he could help destroy society
If the defense lawyer is as succinct and cogent as that post, the prosecution will have a very hard time convincing all 12 to convict on a first degree murder charge. If the DA doesn't throw in some lesser charges as well, the shooter walks, imho.
The shooter was protecting store property. I have no problem with this.
Admittedly, I would have let him go. After all, if a 12-pack of Budweiser leaves my store, it could only be an improvement. :-)
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