Shelby County Man charged with murder for defending property

[kwf2006]

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I would like all readers to comment on this article please!

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http://www.ketknbc.com/news/local/7407371.html

"Shelby County shooting
By Mike McGee
An East Texas man is arrested for murder after police say he killed a man who was vandalizing his car.

The shooter says he thought he was exercising his rights under the law.

What a difference a day makes, at least under Texas law. Police say around noon on Sunday, Shelby County resident Buster Ford shot and killed a man at his home on Highway 96, just north of Center.

Ford says he did it because Reginald Fountain was hitting and kicking his car's windshield.

Ford says he thought he had a right to shoot Fountain under a Texas law. But what isn't commonly known is that according to section 9.42 of the penal code, deadly force can be used to protect property from criminal mischief only at night.

Lynda K. Russell, Shelby County district attorney, said, “The law presently does not allow a person to defend their property in the daytime with deadly force.�

Russell says if Ford's car been vandalized at night, he would be within his rights.

She said, “But right now the law as written that we have to follow, if somebody is outside destroying your car or, you know, whatever they're destroying in your yard, your property, you have to call the law and stay inside your home.�

Story Created: May 8, 2007 at 7:29 PM CDT

Story Updated: May 8, 2007 at 10:27 PM CDT

[txinvestigator]

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I would like all readers to comment on this article please!

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http://www.ketknbc.com/news/local/7407371.html

"Shelby County shooting
By Mike McGee
An East Texas man is arrested for murder after police say he killed a man who was vandalizing his car.

The shooter says he thought he was exercising his rights under the law.

What a difference a day makes, at least under Texas law. Police say around noon on Sunday, Shelby County resident Buster Ford shot and killed a man at his home on Highway 96, just north of Center.

Ford says he did it because Reginald Fountain was hitting and kicking his car's windshield.

Ford says he thought he had a right to shoot Fountain under a Texas law. But what isn't commonly known is that according to section 9.42 of the penal code, deadly force can be used to protect property from criminal mischief only at night.

Lynda K. Russell, Shelby County district attorney, said, “The law presently does not allow a person to defend their property in the daytime with deadly force.�

Russell says if Ford's car been vandalized at night, he MIGHT would be within his rights.

She said, “But right now the law as written that we have to follow, if somebody is outside destroying your car or, you know, whatever they're destroying in your yard, your property, you have to call AND USE LESS THAN DEADLY FORCE, AS THE PENAL CODE ALLOWS THE USE OF FORCE TO PREVENT UNLAWFUL INTERFERENCE WITH PROPERTY ANYTIME OF DAY OR NIGHT.
Story Created: May 8, 2007 at 7:29 PM CDT

Story Updated: May 8, 2007 at 10:27 PM CDT

Fixed it for the good DA.

[Mike1951]

See this thread:

http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... php?t=7181

[NuBee]

Even since Governor Perry signed the "Castle Doctrine", everything still revolves around one feeling that another person or persons will cause their death immediately.

The castle doctrine is extended to ones vehicle BUT only when ones life is in immediate danger. I do not feel that breaking glass alone falls under that category. Not a judgment but just read the link below and you will see.



http://texasgoodies.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... texas.html

Way to go to the 2007 80th Texas Legislature and Governor Perry for passing and signing the "Castle Doctrine" aka deadly force bill today! The bill, SB 378, gives law abiding residents of Texas the right to use deadly force in their homes, cars and workplaces. The new law will take effect Sept 1, 2007. Until then and previously we were expected to retreat. The best part is the bill provides civil immunity so long as the outlines of the bill are followed exactly. One can't be the aggressor either by taunting or actions, but it's about time a woman's house IS her castle and she doesn't have to flee for her own safety...

[Charles L. Cotton]

. . .
The castle doctrine is extended to ones vehicle BUT only when ones life is in immediate danger. I do not feel that breaking glass alone falls under that category. Not a judgment but just read the link below and you will see.

I’m not sure if I’m interpreting your comment correctly, so I’d like to clarify something. We may be in full agreement, I’m just not sure.

If you mean the "Castle Doctrine" doesn't apply when someone is breaking the windshield of your car when you are not in it, then I agree. However, as of 9/1/07, if you are in your car and someone starts breaking windows, I would view that as an attempt to enter your vehicle unlawfully and with force. This would trigger the "Castle Doctrine" presumption that you reasonably believed deadly force was immediately necessary to prevent the other’s unlawful use of deadly force against you.

Chas.

[txinvestigator]

Even since Governor Perry signed the "Castle Doctrine", everything still revolves around one feeling that another person or persons will cause their death immediately.

Or serious bodily injury, or atttempted use thereof.

[NuBee]

Yes Sir we are in 100% full agreement. Thats why I said "breaking glass alone".

Examples such as:

1) If you are awakened at 2am because some thug has broken your car window to gain entry to it. But you are inside locked up nice and tight ane he/they do not even see you but you run outside with your gun and do not even call the police. In this example no person was in any immediate lethal danger. IMHO

2) Now if you and your loved ones pull into the drive way and he/they try to get at your family by breaking windows to gain entry then everyone in the car will naturally feel that their life is in immediate lethal danger. IMHO

Now in the first example some may say that you should run outside and hold the thug for the police. Well what if he is not alone?? What if he/they have guns too and as the result of a shoot out one thug or two are killed. Well the thug's crying moms will see you in civil court(goodbye home and savings for the family). Plus you just may be in some very, very hot legal water as well.

My personal opinion is that I am willing to die and go to prison for human life, but NOT AT ALL for glass and I'm sure that 99.99% of us feel the same way.

Thank you

NuBee

[Sludge]

My personal opinion is that I am willing to die and go to prison for human life, but NOT AT ALL for glass and I'm sure that 99.99% of us feel the same way.

Yep Yep.....

[Lodge2004]

Ford says he thought he had a right to shoot Fountain under a Texas law.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe "I killed him because I could" is a good defense to a murder charge.

[rbraughn]

Even though you can use deadly force at nighttime in this type of situation, I personally could never shoot someone over my (unoccupied ) vehicle. That is what insurance is for. I can buy another or fix it...Taking a life over a Stereo or hubcaps/wheels in my opinion is not worth it

[Liberty]

Even though you can use deadly force at nighttime in this type of situation, I personally could never shoot someone over my (unoccupied ) vehicle. That is what insurance is for. I can buy another or fix it...Taking a life over a Stereo or hubcaps/wheels in my opinion is not worth it

I agree that its not worth plain outright shooting someone to protect our hubcaps, but ..

I don't think if I would just stand and watch someone vandalize, steal or destroy my property either. There could be a confrontation, I would be armed. How it plays out really depends on the criminal. I wouldn't see this as shooting someone over a hubcap. Others might.

[rbraughn]

Agreed...I oversimplified my response I guess. If someone was breaking into my vehicle and I confronted them, and then they pulled a gun or knife, or charged me, then fine I can see using deadly force.

But nowhere in that article did it mention any confrontation. It simply said he saw a man kicking and hitting his windshield so he shot and killed him because he though he was legally justified to do so....at least that was my interpretation. You know how the media is though, there is probably more to the story

[stevie_d_64]

Interesting...Something I was inferring to in the other discussion on this incident...

I would find it very hard (anyone for that matter) to stand there and watch while someone (doesn't matter who, what, why or how) was damaging, or attempting to destroy my personal property without at least informing them that they should stop...(over simplification, I know)

But the whole issue is based upon what I am seeing in how anyone else outside of that incident is portraying this as:

"If he (owner) had just left the (alleged assailant) alone, and just call the cops, no one would have gotten killed."

For years I have had this nagging little feeling that there is this general consensus in the general non-carrying public, and maybe within the very slim fringes within our own community that if you "verbally" instruct someone to stop doing something forceful, or potentially injurous or deadly to someone else, you are escalating the situation...Therefore you are creating a situation that forces you to react possibly with the use of deadly force (extreme)...

It is just something that bugs me a little bit about this, and a few other incidents over the years...

[frankie_the_yankee]

"If he (owner) had just left the (alleged assailant) alone, and just call the cops, no one would have gotten killed."

For years I have had this nagging little feeling that there is this general consensus in the general non-carrying public, and maybe within the very slim fringes within our own community that if you "verbally" instruct someone to stop doing something forceful, or potentially injurous or deadly to someone else, you are escalating the situation...Therefore you are creating a situation that forces you to react possibly with the use of deadly force (extreme)...

It is just something that bugs me a little bit about this, and a few other incidents over the years...

Oh it's more than a nagging feeling to me. I'd consider it pretty much the lay of the land in much of the country, including the so-called (self-annointed) "elites".

I could rant for page after droning page on this, but the short treatment is that the "non-confrontational" philosophy is in essence an elaborate effort for people to rationalize their own cowardice.

Ironically enough, the purveyors of avoiding confronation, of choosing a strategy of abject surrender ("give them what they want and they won't hurt you"), and of "letting the police do their jobs" (when they do not really know what those jobs actually are), tend to be the same people who make a big deal of the importance of having high "self esteem".

So how much self esteem is exhibited by immediately surrendering to the demands of a criminal attacker?

I think that most of us on this forum actually do have high self esteem. We hold ourselves in such high regard that we are not willing to "outsource" the protection of our very lives, and the lives of those important to us, to "hired help".

Read "A Nation of Cowards" by Jeffrey Snyder for a full treatment of this idea.

[KBCraig]

"If he (owner) had just left the (alleged assailant) alone, and just call the cops, no one would have gotten killed."

For years I have had this nagging little feeling that there is this general consensus in the general non-carrying public, and maybe within the very slim fringes within our own community that if you "verbally" instruct someone to stop doing something forceful, or potentially injurous or deadly to someone else, you are escalating the situation...Therefore you are creating a situation that forces you to react possibly with the use of deadly force (extreme)...

It is just something that bugs me a little bit about this, and a few other incidents over the years...

Oh it's more than a nagging feeling to me. I'd consider it pretty much the lay of the land in much of the country, including the so-called (self-annointed) "elites".

I could rant for page after droning page on this, but the short treatment is that the "non-confrontational" philosophy is in essence an elaborate effort for people to rationalize their own cowardice.

The cowardice is now actively taught and socially ingrained. Here's an excellent piece I read right before visiting the forum:

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_5875002

We've forgotten how to fight back
By Billie Louden
Colorado Voices
Article Last Updated: 05/12/2007 12:15:09 AM MDT

I realize hindsight is 20/20, and I hate Monday morning quarterbacks, but sometimes an event is so horrific in nature that analysis of why it unfolded and ended the way it did should be explored from every possible angle. If you can suffer another article about Virginia Tech, please allow me to offer my take on the latest bloody massacre that has sent America reeling.

Every group with an agenda is still using the aftermath of this tragedy to tout their causes. While the pro-gun folks and the no-guns bunch hurl blame at each other, forums are held and committees are formed as everyone wrings their hands and tries to come up with a solution to assure it never happens again.

I am not a psychic nor a doomsayer; I am a realist. From Charles Whitman blasting away in a Texas tower, to Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech and every senseless slaughter in between, America has fervently prayed it was the last time. But I am here to tell you it never has been and sadly never will be the last time.

No matter how many red flags we notice, there is simply no way to determine who will one day slip over the edge into madness and open fire on innocents. If police investigated every person who acted strangely, ranted and raved against society, or even made veiled threats, there would be no time for anything else.

When a twisted soul decides to carry out a heinous act, there is precious little we can do to stop it. Where there is a will, there is always a way. All we can do, if caught in their crosshairs, is try to survive.

Upon hearing the number of victims in Virginia, I assumed the shooter had used an automatic rifle capable of firing many rounds per second. When I later learned he was armed with only two handguns, disbelief washed over me. It was later revealed he fired 190 rounds in about seven minutes. Being in law enforcement as well as having been in the military, I know for a fact the shooter had to have spent a great deal of time reloading and exchanging magazines. I can only wonder what was going on during these necessary pauses.

I don't blame the victims for their own demise. I blame the non-confrontational attitude in America that may have stopped someone from fighting back. The basic human instinct of survival has been tamped down by the reemergence of the "Make love, not war" peacenik movement of the '60s, especially on our college campuses.

Our kids are being taught to avoid conflict and try to reason with the unreasonable. A non-aggression mentality has been ingrained in them since gradeschool, where childhood games like dodge ball are deemed to harsh. In Littleton, some protested a statue of a heroic American soldier because he carried a gun. The thinking must be that if we deny to our children that guns exist, then guns will never hurt them.

I found it ironic that the one person who did try to block the Virginia Tech gunman's way was a professor who had survived the Holocaust, a man who, I am quite sure, had looked insanity in the eye before and survived. He understood that inaction meant death. This is also what must have finally occurred to the passengers on United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, when they chose to fight back. Even though they died, they died fighting and on their terms.

We have got to stop sticking our heads and our children's heads in the sand, pretending evil does not exist. Unless we recover the fight-back spirit buried inside ourselves and pass it own to our kids, we are doomed. No one can predict or stop the next horrendous act that will surely come to be. What we can do is assure that our survival instincts will lower the number of victims.

What other choice do we have?

Billie Louden (loudenview@aol.com) is a deputy sheriff in Denver and an Army veteran.