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Self Defense

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Davidoc

Sep 2, 2000
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Northern VA and JMU
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#1
Invalid Link Removed

A close friend dated the victim.

He stepped into the path of the 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee, Crawford said, and, "fearing for his safety," shot at the sport-utility vehicle.
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All I have to say is this: If I stepped into the path of a moving vehicle, I'd fear for my safety too. I'm just not sure what good firing into the cabin would do to help the situation.

I've met the kid before, and we got along well. Nothing but good things to say.
 
#2
You got to be kidding me? For some crazy reason i dont feel sorry for the kid or his friends... I do feel bad for the cop as he did the right thing and now he is going to go through hell for it.\

Plus the kid was drunk, who knows how many lives he saved by not letting this idiot drive.


If someone got in the way of my car i would try to stop... not try to run him over.
 
#3
If I was in the cops position, I might have done the same thing. The kids were wrong in what they did, but that doesn't justify killing them. This is gonna be a controversial thread, I can feel it. It's just one of those things that can be taken so many different way and WILL spawn endless arguments.
Nevertheless, it sucks and I'm sorry to hear it happened.
BTW--The article doesn't say WHY they were trying to run down the cop. It says he was off-duty, and I would assume that means he's out of uniform, so why the hell would they try to run him over?
 
#4
MikeyFingers said:
It says he was off-duty, and I would assume that means he's out of uniform, so why the hell would they try to run him over?
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They didn't try to run him over, he tried to stop them by stepping in front of the vehicle, and they didn't stop in time. The driver was not charged with attempted murder or anything similar, which would have happened if they were trying to hit him.
 
#5
MikeyFingers said:
BTW--The article doesn't say WHY they were trying to run down the cop. It says he was off-duty, and I would assume that means he's out of uniform, so why the hell would they try to run him over?
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It says he was a security guard at the place... many police officers due to lack of money work 2 jobs, one being a police officer other being on the side security guards. He was most likely in security uniform.


Davidoc said:
They didn't try to run him over, he tried to stop them by stepping in front of the vehicle, and they didn't stop in time. Note that the driver was not charged with attempted murder or anything similar, which would have happened if this was the case.
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Are you sure... the feeling i got from the article was that he stepped infront of a moving car and they just refused to break thinking he will get out the way... Reason being it takes some time to pull out a gun and aim, if a cop had time to do that they sure as hell had time to stop... Where they going 50mph on a parking lot?
 
#6
Davidoc said:
Invalid Link Removed

A close friend dated the victim for over a year.



All I have to say is this: If I stepped into the path of a moving vehicle, I'd fear for my safety too. I'm just not sure what good firing into the cabin would do to help the situation.

I've met the kid before, and we got along well. Nothing but good things to say.
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I think if the cop had no way to get to safety he did the right thing.

But...dang...

If he could have, was it worth killing somebody over a resaraunt tab?

I wasn't there so I guess I can't really say.

But my condolences to the kids family.

:hmm:

Joe.
 
#7
We had something like this a year or two ago that went the other way.

A few people tried to skip on their tab from a Bennigans. he waitress ran out into the parking lot to write down their license plate number...so they ran over her and killed her.
 
#8
Davidoc said:
They didn't try to run him over, he tried to stop them by stepping in front of the vehicle, and they didn't stop in time. The driver was not charged with attempted murder or anything similar, which would have happened if they were trying to hit him.
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This is a direct quote from the article that you posted, copy and pasted:
"An 18-year-old was killed by police early yesterday after he and a group of friends left an Alexandria restaurant without paying, got into an SUV and then tried to hit an off-duty police officer, who fired at the vehicle, striking a passenger, police said".
 
#9
I used to live 1.5 miles from that IHOP. I've eaten there several times. It's a pretty small parking lot... would be difficult to build up much speed without being REALLY reckless.

That said, I don't feel the least bit sorry for any of these kids. When you break the law, you're inviting all sorts of bad things upon yourself. Obviously skipping out on a restaurant bill doesn't warrant being killed, but sometimes a smaller infraction unintentionally brings on bigger consequences.
 
#10
kserg said:
The feeling i got from the article was that he stepped infront of a moving car and they just refused to break thinking he will get out the way... Reason being it takes some time to pull out a gun and aim, if a cop had time to do that they sure as hell had time to stop.
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If he had time to pull out the sidearm and aim, then he probably also had time to get out of the way. Opening fire wouldn't have helped secure his safety. He didn't even hit the driver.
 
#11
HollowMan227 said:
Obviously skipping out on a restaurant bill doesn't warrant being killed,
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Very true but Drunk wreckless driving is another story IMO

Davidoc said:
If he had time to pull out the sidearm and aim, then he probably also had time to get out of the way. Opening fire wouldn't have helped secure his safety. He didn't even hit the driver.
Click to expand...

Well yeah... we dont have enough info on what happened... but article did say "then tried to hit an off-duty police officer".
 
#12
From the description in the article,if it would have happened in Illinois the driver would be charged with murder or involuntary manslaughter(depends on what the results of a full investigation rest upon)for causing the death of the passenger during what the article described as an attempt at bodily harm upon a police officer during the commission of a crime.
 
#13
All I'm going to say on this is, just because only minor charges have been filed on the driver so far, it doesn't mean more charges WON'T be filed. As far as the rest, I'm going to stay out of it.
 
#15
Also I would like to point out this quote from the article.

"the officer, who was in uniform, was told by a restaurant employee that the teenagers had walked out on their bill."

It's an unfortunate thing to have happened, it could have been prevented, but we hire and train police to make those judgement calls, we can't make them ourselves.

Kids will be stupid, most people on this site have "dined and dashed" at one point in their life, and/or got drunk or high. When those kids didn't accept the fact that they were caught, and kept driving, the stakes went a lot higher then hi-jinx. If they had have stopped and said sorry and paid, left a nice tip, I bet they would have gotten away a few dollars less, but one friend richer than they did.

Also, if you owned this restaurant and kids skipped out on the bill, and a cop sitting there in uniform said "sorry I'm off duty" and stuffed his face instead of trying to help, you would have been sour at him. He went out of his way.
 
#17
WOW! I'm not really sure what to think right now. A lot of emotions are going through my head. To avoid embarassing myself, or saying something rude, I'll have to wait until I think this out before I throw out my opinion.

-Mike
 
#19
MJ5150 said:
WOW! I'm not really sure what to think right now. A lot of emotions are going through my head. To avoid embarassing myself, or saying something rude, I'll have to wait until I think this out before I throw out my opinion.

-Mike
Click to expand...
Hint, hint, everybody else...

Anyway, David, you're a poly-sci guy, right? Shouldn't you know that modern day newspaper articles are basically just cleverly disguised opinion pieces?

I wouldn't make any judgements on newspaper 'articles' and wait til the affidavits are released.
 
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