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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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I feel like every person in this thread that cannot fathom how he feared for his life has never had personal experience dealing with someone with severe mental illness, in their family or in public or something. Direct experience, though, of interacting with a large, loud, mentally ill person.
If you think you can just assume a stranger you encounter who shoves a phone in your face is mentally healthy, you're missing some facts of life.
The youtuber is 6 foot 5. Someone that tall is going to be intimidating if they get in your face and will not fuck off when asked regardless of what your prior experiences are. This guy knows he scares people. Thats the point of his channel. I mean the dude calls himself the goon squad. He knows hes being an asshole. He gets into peoples' faces, scares the shit out of them and films the reaction.
Being intimidated is not enough of an excuse to kill someone.
You dont need to have dealt with mental illness to have that feeling.. you just have to had trauma in the past. I have been jumped 2 times in the past by gang members, and you bet your fucking ass I get absolutely anxious if some stranger gets up to my face... good times
Man, you really moved the goalposts to another time zone in just 2 paragraphs.
I work with people with mental deficiencies and emotional issues. Some of them are significantly bigger than I am.
Can you then not empathize with how this delivery driver was afraid for his life? Not necessarily taking his time and thinking through his options, but reasonably in an actual state of irrational fear?
No. I can't.
I can empathize but that doesn't mean I think he was justified in shooting someone.
That's fine. But it does mean there was no malice, as the jury eventually decided as well. He could have reasonably been afraid for his life, as he had no way to know if this 6'5" individual was sane or very much not.
I mentioned this in another thread but I keep thinking about Trayvon Martin and how upset I was that Zimmerman was released and got his gun back. I feel like our country is increasingly more acceptable of gun violence as a fact of life. How could precedents like this be applied to future cases? I'm not claiming to have all the answers I'm just not convinced that this is the best decision. I could be wrong though. It wouldn't be the first time.
The issue in that case if memory serves is that nobody actually knew and could testify as to what happened during the confrontation.
The privilege of self defense can be gained and lost in the course of an altercation. If an initial aggressor says "sorry, I'm outta here" and starts walking away, the initial victim's privilege ends. If you shoot them in the back while they leave, it's a crime. I didn't believe a word that Zimmerman fuck said but the burden of proof was on the state. All Zimmerman had to do in the criminal case was say nothing, which is what he did. In the Martin family's wrongful death suit against the homeowners association, I believe the association's insurer settled for seven figures or more. Guess they thought Zimmerman wouldn't make a very credible witness when he'd be required to testify in civil court. They knew why was he was hastling Martin in the first place, knew Zimmerman's story had gaping holes in it.
The right to remain silent and the reasonable doubt standard rightly freed Zimmerman, in my view.
In the story above, there were numerous witnesses and video. I didn't follow the trial, though.
So theoretically if someone shot someone else and there weren't any witnesses or video and the shooter said exactly what happened in this case happened in this hypothetical situation do you think it would be equally justified?
Good question, I think.
It's not a great fit because of two factors the food court patron knew there were others around and saw the YouTuber's posse standing there with cell phone cameras. If I were on the jury, that would make it less reasonable for the patron to claim he was in fear for his life. He had no reason to assume the YouTuber was armed, and with that evidence of so people around and it being so open and public, and again, no weapon, patron was at best about to catch a beating, which I think even is a stretch because there was no verbal threats or display of intent to do violence.
Anyway, to your question, assuming the jury is going to disregard the public location and cameras everywhere, if the patron gave the exact same story, I think it would remain unjustified. The shooter claimed that, given the circumstances, he drew the inference that his life was in danger, a danger of serious bodily injury. That's the standard.
I think there the facts support only an inference of a threat to bodily injury. The shooter could have safely waited before escalating to shooting. Shooting a YouTuber in the chest was disproportionate to the facts, in my view. The proportion has to be objectively reasonable, such proportion as society is willing to accept. I think, if everyone shot in this sort of situation, nobody would like it, and there would be many, many more deaths by gun violence.
... I think you're right, we are becoming a little more accustomed to gun violence, of the large-scale type especially. While I think we've always had a lot of gun violence in general, especially if you include gang/organized crime activity, the 24/7 unending stream of news makes exposure to stories of it a lot more consistent and even.
Regarding how the precedent could influence things into the future, I'm not sure.
Thankfully in this case no one died. I think we can all agree on that.
Can we?
apparently not
Sure he did. He could have pulled out the gun so the aggressor saw it. Could have said "stop or I'll fucking kill you." All while continuing to walk backwards and creating space.
If the person keeps coming after you've said that, that's what you can hang your hat on at trial: you knew your life was in danger because the assailant had no fear of death. You could at least say you feared the guy wanted to take your gun and kill you with it. Evidence was that the guy in the article shot immediately upon drawing and didn't give any sort of warning. He apparently took a few steps backwards, said stop three times, and then drew and instantly fired.
I think the fact that the police arrested the guy, the prosecutors put the case on, the judge didn't dismiss the it after close of evidence, and the jury was nearly deadlocked, show, that the charges were reasonable in this case. Certainly the jury is in the best position to decide the facts and apply the law.
The thing that may have saved him is that he fired only one shot and the aggressor lived. You'll notice he was not charged with attempted murder but rather wounding in the commission of a felony, or something like that.
I wonder if the aggressor will pursue a civil lawsuit for assault. Sort of how OJ was acquitted in criminal court but then found civil liable; the criminal standard is one of reasonable doubt, the civil one of preponderance of evidence. Certainly both parties could be found liable under negligence, if the parties sue each other.
Not a very good idea when you're already inside grappling range. A handgun becomes useless if a much stronger person seizes the hand that you are using to hold the gun. Additionally, if your first few shots fail to stop him, perhaps he's on powerful drugs and you have a bad angle, then he can kinda just rip your face off anyway, since he's already there. Or he could attack with a hidden knife, that'd be unpleasant.
This tells me you have no actual personal firearms training, no one with any training (and sense I suppose) would advocate for threatening an unknown assailant with a point blank gun.
The question becomes, could it reasonably have been perceived as an assailant. And that is a subjective question, a matter of opinion. Answering these questions is the job of juries, and they did so.
Also, I have at no point argued the charges were unreasonable. The charges were reasonable, this was not a clear-cut case. The verdict was also understandable and reasonable, that's all.
Oh, and if you "fuck around", you might "find out". This is an important life lesson in general, that almost everyone learns at some point in their teens to 20s. If they make it that long, without getting shot by a doordash driver for a dumb prank.
Ps. Self defense has elementals of both subjective and objective reasonableness.
The Defendant's good faith mistake doesn't matter when regardless the force was objectively excessive or premature.
You're changing the hypothetical and added mere possibilities. Anything is possible. That's why self defense is considered an imperfect legal remedy, and it's one reason why it is said "the law abhors self help."
When the qualified privilege to use reasonable force in defense of yourself or others proves insufficient, the perfect remedy is in a civil action for wrongful death.
What matters in evaluating the use of force, the privilege only exists where these hypotheticals are reasonably probable.
What fact would you hang your hat on here, to tell the judge and jury that you probably had absolutely no choice but to try and kill, especially when, as here, you are proved to have been mistakes, and were not in physical danger and the putative aggressor was unarmed?
That an assumption that any putative aggressor actually is unarmed is flawed. That is not determinable in a short span of time, and an inappropriate assumption for a person to make.
And yes, there will probably be a civil suit.
It's flawed because it's possible it's wrong.
You don't get to kill based on mere possibility. And you would not like living in a world where you could.
The patron had plenty of room to retreat. Plenty of time to give a better warning, such as "stop or I'll fucking kill you." If a person keeps coming after that sort of warning, that's a fact from which the inference a threat to life is more reasonable; a person with no fear of death.
This dude had a phone in his hands. Didn't take a swing at the guy. Didn't persist with no apparent fear of death. The patron pulled out the gun and fired instantly after merely saying "stop" three times.
I accept the jury was in the best position to decide the facts and apply the law. The dude was charged, stood trial, and was only partially aquitted. I rest my case.
Possibility is irrelevant. Their instruction is to find beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond all conceivable doubt. These would be two different things.
Possibility is irrelevant, correct.
Okay, but you can't just shoot someone because you're not sure if they're sane. You get that, right?
the fact that you think mentally ill means it's okay to shoot him means you have lived a bit too long in the dystopiam shithole that's the USA.
You're putting words in their mouth.
did I? or did I just make the logical conclusion feom thwir words, he just said lthat you can't assume someone is mentally healthy when he approaches you and puts a phone in your face, he said many people don't understand the trauma of dealing with mentally ill people and feeling threatened thus justifying the actions of the person who shot the youtuber.
You know you did.
I really did not, what else is there to interpret from his words?
as long as you feel threatened and you have past trauma with mentally ill people, you can shoot them in a public place and call it self-defense, it's just how the US works.
Obviously, that being on the receiving end of a someone's mental health crisis is often frightening and upsetting.
Your interpretation, that they meant that "it's OK to shoot the mentally ill", is absolutely ridiculous.
How is that a ridiculous when OP was defending a guy who shot someone by saying "every person in this thread that cannot fathom how he feared for his life has never had personal experience dealing with someone with severe mental illness" and "If you think you can just assume a stranger you encounter who shoves a phone in your face is mentally healthy, you’re missing some facts of life".
What in the world else do you think that could have meant other than that it's okay to fear for your life and defend yourself with deadly force because someone is acting mentally ill?
The entire comment. The topic is fearing for one's life and defending oneself with a gun, and this guy basically says that it's right to fear for your life because someone might be mentally ill. Comment again so you don't have to scroll up:
Directly quote the part that makes the claim that at any level the point in which you fear for your life is correlated with the idea that they "might be mentally ill". That was never said, nor would it matter if it was, because fearing grave injury or death is the determining factor, not any other.
Yep, the Glaswegians invented the headbutt just for this scenario
You're going to headbutt someone half a foot taller than you? Do you wings? Spring boots?
What are you going to do next?
Gut/nut punch to get them to double over, THEN headbutt. Or even just pull them into you by their shirt. It's not overly difficult once you know what you're doing, but don't celebrate your ignorance of hand to hand combat like it's actual knowledge.
Lmao ... he says to a combat veteran...
This shit ain't Hollywood. You aren't doubling someone over unless you've trained pretty hard. And even then it's not guaranteed. Your mugging will not be choreographed.
Lol. "Combat veteran".
Also. Lol "mugging".
You wouldn't last 2 minutes outside a Glasgow pub.
Funny. I'm not saying I'm any kind of in shape these days, just that I once was. But I was in some glasgow pubs earlier this year. Maybe you had a specific one in mind? All the ones I saw were really welcoming to a couple Americans.
🤦
... than a box of rocks.