[MasterGunner01]

Sounds like a bad remake of “Deliverance”.

[faucetman]

I can’t know what to think about this unless I know the Race of all involved. (sarc)

[Blood of Tyrants]

Sounds like a mess.

[Responsibility2nd]

I know several property owners along the Guadalupe River outside New Braunfels. They see thousands of tubers and others floating down the river on a weekly basis. And they have to deal with loud obnoxious behavior, trash, trespassing and yes - public urination - on a daily basis.

They’re not the type to shoot someone over it, but.....

[sportutegrl]

Get off my lawn.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

He doesn't have to worry about his private property rights anymore.

[faucetman]

A picture is worth a thousand words. Crocker (shooter) wins Darwin award.

[listenhillary]

The property owner didn’t own the gravel bar. I understand his frustration, but shooting the person was a poor way to p*ss away his freedom.

[TexasCajun]

“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.”

[listenhillary]

“A lawyer from Ozark, Mo., Harry Styron, has researched extensively the topic of property rights along streams and rivers.

“These cases are really very confusing. They are difficult to interpret,” Styron said. “You are on private property, but you have a right to be there if it’s a navigable stream and as long as you are on a gravel bar that is submerged during parts of the year, because it’s part of the stream bed.”

The property issues can be hard to sort out, he said. But either way, he said, “it obviously doesn’t have anything to do with people shooting people. We don’t have a stand-your-gravel-bar law yet.”

[ansel12]

The guy sounds like the kind of guy who shouldn’t own a gun, now someone is dead because of him.

The claim is that he went down there waving his gun around, shot into the air, and shot into the ground, and then admits shooting a guy who wasn’t threatening him.

Besides, legalities aside, if you end up killing someone while yelling at rafters who stop on your river bank, then you are not exactly a picture of a rational man.

[nathanbedford]

Loretta Dart said they stopped at the gravel bar before 2 p.m. but weren’t there long before Crocker confronted them with a gun, starting with her cousin who went to urinate. The man said they were on private property and to get out. He waved his gun around and fired it in the air and into the ground near Paul Dart and her cousin, Loretta Dart said. (Emphasis supplied)

Crocker told a detective that men were yelling at him “stating that they weren’t going to leave and that the gravel bar was public property,” court records say. At one point, Crocker told Kling, “I have the power here. I have the power,” Kling said. Kling said, “Put that gun down and we’ll see who has the power,” according to Loretta Dart. Kling, 24, of Robertsville, said he and his stepfather were trying to reason with the man. 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. (Emphasis supplied)

“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.” (Emphasis supplied)

Not an easy case.

It seems to me that the right to self-defense was forfeited as at the time Crocker began shooting. He certainly committed a crime at that point and an assault as well. It is hard to understand how he could avail himself of the right of self-defense when he commenced a chain of events that caused the deceased's party to arm themselves with rocks. It is hard understand how he would have the right to self-defense under the circumstances.

But we have heard really only one side of the story.

[SoFloFreeper]

But either way, he said, “it obviously doesn’t have anything to do with people shooting people. We don’t have a stand-your-gravel-bar law yet.”

Oh brother.

Look at the suspected shooter in the picture. Looks like a real winner.

[NEMDF]

This appears to be not very far from where my 25 year-old nephew went missing on a rafting trip on the Meramec on 5/31/13. He has not yet been found.

[faucetman]

Crocker (shooter) might have a chance if he shot the guy with the rock. Crocker is toast, even if he can prove property rights. Weird laws, owning the river, roads?

People will be people. If you live at the end of a dead end street, you can’t get mad if people turn around in your driveway. When the 10th person of the day is turning around in your driveway, to them they are the first person who has turned around in your driveway. They have no knowledge of what it’s like to own the last place to turn around on a dead end road. Did you not anticipate this when you bought the place? Don’t shoot the next violator, put up a gate.

Mine, Mine, Mine!

Mathew 6:
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

[HonorInPa]

Waterways, even through private land, are held in the public trust. That includes the bank up to the high water line.

[who knows what evil?]

This is getting to be a real problem in Red Hampshire...New York invaders use everyone’s property like it is their own, and if you call them on it; vandalism follows shortly thereafter. Kids cutting across lawns; fireworks detonated in hayfields; bonfires on posted property; people picking bunches of lilacs off of bushes maintained by owners...people are getting angry, and I don’t blame them one bit. Who knows what kind of crap this guy was putting up before he lost it.

[FlJoePa]

Why didn’t they just pee in the river?

[piytar]

He isn’t going to beat these charges. He initiated use of deadly force by firing first. Also, just pointing the gun is assault with a deadly weapon.

I think this guy is not going to have to worry about where his property ends for a very long time.

[buffaloguy]

2nd degree murder. Open and shut case. This guy needs to be off the street permanently.