Posted on 07/25/2018 9:36:45 AM PDT by libstripper
Markeis McGlockton and Michael Drejka both overreacted during their brief, fatal encounter in the parking lot of a Florida convenience store last week. McGlockton overreacted by pushing Drejka to the ground, and Drejka overreacted by drawing a pistol and shooting McGlockton in the chest.
Although it is hard to see how Drejka's use of lethal force could have been justified, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri declined to arrest him, claiming his hands were tied by Florida's Stand Your Ground law. But that is not true, and Gualtieri's misrepresentation of the law has renewed misguided criticism of Florida's approach to self-defense, which contrary to popular misconception does not give a free pass to armed hotheads who claim to have fired out of fear.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
one thing weighing on my mind..it looked to me that when he pushed the shooter he blindsided him, shooter didn’t see it coming or did he?
makes a difference to me as to state of mind-if I got blindsided instead of confronted face to face I would lean more to defending myself against an aggressor who did not play fairly and may not again..
I have seen a real fight with two bikers, one got knocked down to the cement and the guy who pushed him jumped on his chest blocking the down guys arms and he proceeded to pummel the guy including grabbing the guys hair and slamming his head against the concrete.. it could have been fatal in seconds...you never want someone to be on top of you and especially pin your arms, a gun would do you no good and neither would your fists..example hockey players grabbing opponents shirt and pulling it up over their head, blocking vision and restricting arms..now they have fight straps to stop that.
this big guy could have just walked up and told the shooter to shut up face to face...tragic no matter what..
one thing weighing on my mind..it looked to me that when he pushed the shooter he blindsided him, shooter didn’t see it coming or did he?
makes a difference to me as to state of mind-if I got blindsided instead of confronted face to face I would lean more to defending myself against an aggressor who did not play fairly and may not again..
I have seen a real fight with two bikers, one got knocked down to the cement and the guy who pushed him jumped on his chest blocking the down guys arms and he proceeded to pummel the guy including grabbing the guys hair and slamming his head against the concrete.. it could have been fatal in seconds...you never want someone to be on top of you and especially pin your arms, a gun would do you no good and neither would your fists..example hockey players grabbing opponents shirt and pulling it up over their head, blocking vision and restricting arms..now they have fight straps to stop that.
this big guy could have just walked up and told the shooter to shut up face to face...tragic no matter what..
I really thought the shooter was in the wrong on this. But then I read another story, about a woman in a Walmart Parking lot.
In this second story, the woman comes out of Walmart with one kid in a cart, and an infant in her hands. She sees a man leaving a cart partially blocking her car. She asks the man, “could you move your cart to the storage”?
He says no, and she asks if he could at least move it out from behind her car.
In response, he runs at her and pushes her to the ground.
Note that this is very similar to the above story, where a guy was complaining about parking, and in response a man ran at him and pushed him to the ground.
But in the Walmart case, the wmoan did not have a gun. So the man came at her, started kicking her. He then pulled her hair out, grabbed her cart, and pushed it, with her child, away from her, sending it rolling through the parking lot.
Fortunately, at this point another woman intervened, restraining the man while the mother got off the ground and ran after her child in the cart.
So, the Walmart case shows what MIGHT have happened in the above case, if the man on the ground hadn’t shot the man who pushed him. We can’t know what the dead man’s next move was. He had stepped toward the shooter — was he going to help him up? Was he going to start kicking him and punching him? Was he so mad he might have picked up the much smaller man and slammed him to the ground again, possibly fracturing his skull?
The walmart case turned out OK, because the man who started the fight was stopped by someone else who intervened, but only after threatening the woman’s life — and if a car had been driving through a normal speed at the time, quite possibly her child would have been hit by the car and killed.
If the woman in the walmart case had pulled a gun and shot the guy after the first push — would we have said she was acting out of turn? Knowing what the man eventually did to her, I think most of us would have supported her had she shot him — but of course, if she had shot him after the first push, we’d not have known what his next violent actions were to be.
I refuse to live in a world where everybody ignores lawbreaking because it is the “polite” thing to do.
If you saw someone stealing a coat from a rack at a shop, would you “stay quiet”?
What if you saw someone doing graffiti? Or stealing a car? Or driving the wrong way down a one-way street?
OR are we supposed to judge each law as to it’s “sincerity”, and only act against people who are violating the “real” laws.
I’ve seen a lot of stupid people confronting people over stupid things. A few weeks ago I watched some guy scream at another guy for “cutting” in line to get popcorn at a theater. And the cutter then got in a pretty loud argument with him, and there was name-calling, and I was glad in the end I didn’t have to physically intervene.
But I see nothing wrong with a person who has a mother who needs a handicap space walking up to someone illegally parked, and telling them that they are breaking the law and shouldn’t be taking up the handicap parking spaces.
That story is more interesting for what you don’t know.
The trucker clearly parked illegally.
Drejka researched the situation, and then asked the man why he parked in the handicapped space.
Then the NEXT thing we are told is “at some point”. What happened before that? I presume the trucker did not react well to being told where to park, and probably got rather beligerant. Maybe the trucker said he was going to pound the guy, and THAT is why Grejko “threatened to shoot him”.
I doubt Grejko said “if you don’t move your truck, I’m going to shoot you”. Because if he had, THAT’s what the trucker would have told you.
So all we really have in this case is a story from one side about how a guy with a gun warned him that some action on his part might lead to getting shot.
It seems like a lot of people here are arguing that Grejko should have, in fact, told the dead guy that if he didn’t stop, he’d get shot.
at least 3 and up to 5, one of which (at least) was a felony
That’s one way of looking at it, one would suppose.
Urmm...Nope.
When a bigger, stronger, younger guy has just blindsided you and thrown you to the pavement, and then moves up to you in a combat position...
It is quite rational and instinctive to believe that he is going to use deadly force against you. It does not matter if he was "unarmed".
what the hell is subjective fear? the law says you must be in fear of losing your life; that’s YOUR call, not the perpetrator or some poster on FR
Yeah, he could have been packing heat. A feral yute.
I’m thinking that’s exactly what was up and that’s why the sheriff was so quick to announce he wouldn’t arrest him.
“Moral of the story is: Keep your hands to yourself.”
Yep.
Plenty of stupid to go around in this case.
L
In some cultures being knocked on your @$$ is the prelude to being stomped to death. Fear for your life...
Regardless who shot whom, it’s still more evidence that the The Surgeon General was spot-on with his pronouncement that it improves your children’s chances of not dying a violent death before the age of 30 by 87% if you don’t name them from a handful of Scrabble tiles thrown onto the kitchen table.
WADR, my copy of the second amendment does not contain an exclusion for crazies. If you can't be trusted to be armed you should not be running around loose!
Anyone carrying concealed has an obligation to maintain control of their weapon. Being knocked unconscious precludes that. I haven’t seen the video of this event, but it sounds like the shooter should held his tongue regarding the parking infraction. Leave it to someone handicapped to shame these folks. We had a guy in town insert himself in a domestic dispute that got a little bit physical in a restaurant. The husband bounced his head off a curb and killed him. Just because bad behavior escapes the trailer park doesn’t mean you have to get involved personally. A wife beater is not someone to try reasoning with.
Certainly an argument can be made that he was justified in his use of force. Without assuming a lot of “facts” based on speculation, gossip, and testimony of a biased witness, the only evidence that we have, video from one angle without sound, does not clearly demonstrate that he broke the law. Which is why (and only why) he was not immediately charged.
We don’t know what was said between the woman illegally parked and the shooter. We don’t know what prompted the individual to leave his child in the store and run out to attack someone that was clearly not being violent. We don’t know what was said after the initial attack. What we do know, is that after all facts that could be ascertained by direct investigation is that the shooter was not charged.
I have little doubt that he will be charged, regardless of what the law says. It will be a circus, and they will do whatever they need to do to demonize him ala Zimmerman mostly to get the “stand your ground” laws overturned. Media has already started with the narrative and for some reason, people that should know better to believe a single word enemedia says, writes, or infers, have uncritically accepted the characterization of Drejka.
You should watch the full video and read about the shooters history
Many freepers think it’s ok to kill someone for pushing you down or if they hit you or if you are fearful of them
I don’t think everyone should have ccw
If I murdered everyone who punched me or pushed me down or sucker punched me or I felt fearful of
I’d need a lot of graveyard plots to plant them all
I grew up you only killed when you had to or for grievous avenging
Not for non life threatening physical crap which given I’m a redneck was fairly common
No I just think many freepers here must be soft to kill people who hit them
Sorry
I don’t kill folks who push me down.
People here sell a lot of wolf tickets so who knows if all you are so quick with your guns when you feel threatened
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.