Posted on 03/11/2017 9:33:51 AM PST by BenLurkin
The case dates to January 2014 when Reeves, then 71, confronted a man in a suburban Tampa movie theater about texting during the previews before a showing of "Lone Survivor." The two argued, and then Reeves walked out of the theater to complain to an employee. When Reeves returned, he and the man, Chad Oulson, began arguing again.
Oulson threw a bag of popcorn at Reeves, according to a criminal complaint, and Reeves then took out his handgun and fired at Oulson, killing him.
Defense attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the murder charge under the "stand your ground" law that allows residents to use deadly force when they fear death or great bodily harm.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
[[SYG only removes the requirement to use all reasonably proper means to retreat. It does not justify the core shooting.]]
Right- it doesn’t justify it- ever- but it does remove the unconstitutional requirement that a person must try to retreat and then Must prove they tried to retreat- which is a big help to the defendants who feel they had to use SYG-
It sounds like his team either didn’t present enough justification, or that the jury didn’t understand SYG, or perhaps did and ignored it because they think all shootings are automatically icky and unjustified as most liberals do-
Reeves will be going to the pokey. This was not a righteous shoot.
Get your emotions under control.
Seems as if the old fellow was a blowup just waiting to happen:
http://fox2now.com/2014/01/15/prosecutors-this-wasnt-the-first-blow-up-for-florida-theater-shooter-curtis-reeve
“A few weeks before a texting dispute turned deadly inside a Florida theater, suspect Curtis Reeves had another run-in with a moviegoer, prosecutors said.
During Reeves’ first court appearance on Tuesday, prosecutors said they had heard from another theater patron who said the 71-year-old former Tampa cop saw her texting and “glared at her the entire time throughout the movie” during a screening about three weeks ago.
When the woman got up to use the restroom, Reeves followed her and “made her very uncomfortable,” prosecutors said.”
What you said.
I don’t either.
If that were the case I’d agree...but then I have zero trust in anything CNN reports, so there may be much more to the story.
The narrative here is “gun nut murders and then tries to hide behind stupid law”.
One of the key points of self defense is not engaging or continuing to engage in the situation. Not being a willing participant. Going back again shows he could have just left. I know it seems stupid,for the person armed to leave but the point is we hope to hell we dont have to use it. For killing, and for dealing with the aftermath.
[[“As soon as I pulled the trigger I said, ‘Oh shoot, that was stupid.’ If I had to do it over again, it would have never happened,” he said.]]
That’s what i mean about us not being in the courtroom- there’s lots of info that we don’t know about which could have justifiably been reason to throw out the SYG pre-trial argument- But I’m wondering if his lawyer will argue he was ‘coerced into saying that’ under duress of interrogation or soem such argument
**********************
We can't have that. Everyone has the right to feel comfortable, all the time. I'm fairly sure that it's in the Constitution.
If the story is true as reported, Ouslon clearly was not covered by any “stand your ground” law. Getting popcorn thrown at you is not a reason to believe your life or well-being are in danger and does not justify shooting the popcorn thrower. Getting up to confront someone about texting in a movie theater in the first place is an indication that this was some hot-head looking for trouble - texting makes no noise and should bother no one else.
The problem is that the video does not show the claimed cell phone throw, and the underlying shoot was never justified.
It was a bad shoot from moment one. There was no fault of the Defense team, it’s just that there is very little, if any defense.
Or he picked a fight and SYG doesn’t apply. We discussed this a lot 3 years ago when it happened. The facts are pretty straight forward, he started, he escalated it, he had a previous history of this kind of behavior. This wasn’t self defense, it was murder by a confrontation junky.
Good, Reeves is a cranky old trigger happy ex cop who was trained in confrontation resolution...
He should have known better than to pull the trigger...
Yeah, this fall under “when idiots collide” - rude movie goer meets old guy whose spring was wound up too tight.
[[The narrative here is “gun nut murders and then tries to hide behind stupid law”.]]
and that is precisely why this case is important and careful investigation needs to happen- SYG is under assault- has been for a long time- I’m not saying this case justified SYG- but the SYG law itself needs to be defended as much as possible in all cases where it is claimed- The danger ouf course will be in cases where it wasn’t justified, and then the left coming out and saying ‘ordinary people can’t be trusted to interpret the SYG law by themselves, so we need to do away with the SYG law”
Which is precisely what CNN is trying to say and set up here- They are trying to insinuate that people/gun owners as too unstable to make such an important decision, and use it as their ‘justification’ to have the law removed-
It’s very likely the cop will go to prison- If so- we’re going to be left to defend SYG as it gets tried in the court of public opinion and the news media
Or even just relocated somewhere else in the theater. He actually caused a bigger distraction then the distraction he was complaining about.
I hear you. I prefer to watch movies at home.
The judge is correct in not allowing the SYG defense. This situation, even if there is more to the story, does not come close to being a self defense action. The shooter had the opportunity to remove himself from the situation and chose to continue the confrontation. He chose wrong!
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