Posted on 07/23/2013 10:58:05 AM PDT by rwa265
It was just supposed to be a pit stop.
A group of family and friends on an annual float trip stopped at a gravel bar in the Meramec on Saturday afternoon to refresh drinks and answer the call of nature, according to Loretta Dart, who was on the trip. Her cousin went into the woods to urinate.
In doing so, he apparently ignited the ire of a property owner along the river fed up with people traipsing on his property. James Robert Crocker, 59, confronted the group with a 9 mm handgun, and in an altercation over property rights that rapidly escalated to gunfire, fatally shot Dart’s husband in the head from a few feet away, authorities say.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Good fences make good neighbors. The guy should have put up a fence along the edge of his property.
I dunno. I hear that cellmates can get pretty territorial over their space on the shelf.
Interesting ...
Drunken assholes rule the world, and everybody else just has to live with it. And you're OK with that.
The supporters of the late, unlamented Trayvon "Purple Drank" Martin make a similar argument.
Drunken idiots constantly crapping on private property? Reminds me of illegal aliens along the southern border, constantly crapping on, leaving trash all over, and vandalizing private property.
And some supposed conservatives seem to be OK with that.
You can't maintain a fence on a gravel bar. Spring flooding will tear it down every year.
And I’m having serious doubts about rocks in hand. I try not to underestimate the stupidity of people, but nobody picks up rocks and starts throwing them at somebody with a gun.
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There were rocks. FTA:
“Then, Loretta Dart said, her cousin picked up a rock. (Crocker told police the man had a rock in each hand.) Her husband stood between her cousin and the gunman.”
Even worse than confronting a man with a gun when you’re armed with a rock? Putting your hands on that man.
Also FTA: “My husband tried to calm the guy down,” Loretta Dart said. “He went to the guy’s arm to try to stop him, but the guy jerked back and popped him in the face.”
Man! Grabbing a man with a gun who has already fired that gun?
Darwin Award stupid right there
I still think the shooting happened in the river on a gravel bar. You can’t put a fence on a gravel bar. You can, but it will wash away.
The floaters have a right to be in the river and any gravel bar in the river.
I still think putting game cameras or live web cams and telling the floaters about them, would scare many floaters away that might think about using “the facilities” on that gravel bar.
Looks like a Crazy Ass Crocker to me.
Concertina wire is good deterrent to errant urination.
“...as is killing someone for trespassing on your property as he is soon to discover.”
Depends upon the laws there. If there’s Castle Doctrine and/or Stand Your Ground he might get off. If the pre-dead guy laid a hand on him on his property it’s even more like self defense.
The shootee grabbing his arm to “try to calm him down”, connected to the ones with handful of rocks, just got the guy off on self defense. It would be perfectly reasonable to assume grabbing his arm was an aggressive act to whit they all pummeled him.
The guy who got shot should have grabbed the arms of those armed with rocks if his intent was to defuse the situation.
Lesson, never get within reach if you are the one with the gun!
Kart. I agree,,, sounds as though the trespasser attacked the property owner when he grabbed his arm.
Simple trespass does not create a self-defense scenario for Crocker. An unarmed man, making incidental contact just trying to make peace, is not an aggressor. A man picking up rocks in the presence of a man brandishing a deadly weapon is already in defensive mode against superior force, and cannot be the aggressor.
As I said in the Zimmerman case, the simplified rule of thumb in these self-defense cases is to ask who raised the threat of unambiguous lethal force first. That burden is on Crocker (as it was on Martin). He cannot resort to self-defense until and unless he breaks off the aggression. After that point, he would regain the ability to defend himself against lethal aggression, such as big enough rocks being thrown at him. How big? Jury call.
See, here’s the fundamental problem. An important element of self-defense is the reasonable belief that if you don’t act, you will be seriously hurt or killed. But that belief has to be reasonable, i.e., is measured objectively, by what a jury of your peers believes would constitute a real threat under the specific facts of the case. If you’re carrying a firearm, and your opponent is throwing pebbles, just to harass you, it’s not reasonable to believe your life is under any real threat. Whereas with Zimmerman, the jury had no trouble seeing the head bashing on the concrete as a reasonable threat of death or serious injury, especially given Martin’s advantage of position and physical strength.
Bottom line, of course, I agree. Avoid the fight when possible. They even teach you in martial arts instruction to swallow your pride and walk away from a fight when you can, even if you have the greater power. Peace is a good and worthy thing to seek. Unfortunately, Mr. Dart intervened in a very dangerous situation. But these things never go like they do on TV. In real life, the good guys can get hurt. I don’t remember the reference, but there is a Scripture that says, when the wise see trouble coming, they go another way. Good rule to follow, whenever possible.
But Crocker is toast. He’s got nothing.
I understand what you're saying but for some people the natural instinct would have been to grab his arm to protect the others. It's counter intuitive because the smart play is to grab the guy with the rocks, but I guarantee you that when that adrenaline hits, people would pick the arm 100% of the time. Think about it, the guy with the rocks is the dead man's proxinial tribesman. Oh, I just made up the word proxinial. Stupidity doesn't do justice to the notion of picking up rock to throw or strike a man with a gun.
Why deliberately antagonize a lunatic?
True, although Wisconsin holds "public access" rights extend 3' above the high water line for all lakes and streams. If you own all the land surrounding a small lake you can legally post the approaches against trespassing and keep people out. If your "landlocked" lake has a stream either entering or exiting your lake, and the stream flows under a public road, a person can legally start at the road and walk the bank all the way back to your lake and all the way around it.
I have never found out if such "public waterways" were deducted from the acreage specified on your deed for real estate taxes. I have a 24' easement along a 380' edge of my lot for a county road and I wonder about that also. The lot description on the tax bill matches the deed's "meets and bounds" description exactly, including the easement but doesn't make it clear if that is included in the area calculated for tax purposes.
Regards,
GtG
Doesn't work that way. Man comes down with gun drawn --- automatic murder charge.
Remember how we feel about no knock warrants served in the middle of night by Police not dressed like Police? You can't have it both ways.
I doubt natural instinct had anything to do wtih Dart making a grab for Crocker’s arm.
I’d say a 12-pack had more - much more - to do with his ill-advised actions that day.
I have rafted these rivers, the Meramec, Jack's Fork, the Current, Cuivre River, etc. many times over the years. I'd hate to get shot because I wanted to take a leak. With women in the canoes, you have to go up into the vegetation. I understand the guys frustration with his private property, but from what I read, the public has an easement on his property to a certain, difficult to ascertain, point. He has to live with it if he wants to live on the river, and, like another poster said, come up with creative ways to discourage bad behavior. Photos of offenders, take pictures of them and post them online or give them to the cops for a public nudity prosecution; prosecute the ones who enter the part of your land that is not subject to the easement, etc. These canoes all have serial numbers and you can trace the people who rent them.
-——you have to go up into the vegetation——
That would be in the bushes for those of us in Rio Linde
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