Follow-up to Seattle shooting with a mosin-nagant

[AtheistCrusader]

Guilty.

"Filing a second-degree manslaughter charge in September, King County prosecutors alleged that Douglas Cameron Sheets acted with criminal negligence when he shot Jhovany Hernandez outside his Northgate home. According to court filings, police came to believe that Sheets shot Hernandez as the 21-year-old fled.

Sheets was arraigned Oct. 2y, then pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Since he had no other criminal record, he could have faced a sentence of 21 to 27 months."

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/411698_northgate30.html

Original thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x188152

[aikoaiko]

1. I have mixed feelings about using lethal force to protect one's property, but the law is the law.

And Mr. Sheets broke it.

edited title

[Endangered Specie]

3. Should have used a blank... blanks in a mosin nagant

produce a ridiculous muzzle flash and plenty of noise. Would have caused the guy to shit his pants and run... none of this nastiness.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. That still might have killed him - lol. n/t

[Euromutt]

4. The thief was already running

Hence the manslaughter charge.

[OttavaKarhu]

9. You base this on what?

See the comments at the posted link, particularly the summary by StCrisby. It raises all the issues that many of us RKBA folks in Pugetopolis have been pondering.

Please don't use our local tragedy to pump your beliefs. Please think this through with complexity, and reference to the facts.

It is NOT certain that "the thief was running" when Sheets made the decision to pull the trigger. There's a lot that isn't certain.

All we know is that a young man with no record got very bad legal advice when trying to defend his property and, he felt, his life against career criminals perpetuating a cycle of crime in his neighborhood/apartment complex.

All we know is that someone--probably a POS lawyer--advised Sheets not to let it go to a jury, probably based on the fact that he opened his mouth to the cops.

That's the problem with being law abiding. You just don't know how to manipulate the system to get off, like the career criminals do.

[Euromutt]

12. Let's get a few things clear

One: I live in Pugetopolis; Auburn, to be exact. I also happen to have a close friend who lives just across I-5 (and a few blocks north) from the site of this incident (and owns an M1891/30 himself), so this is not completely remote for me.

Two: I am actually a proponent of private ownership of firearms for the purpose of self-defense. I have a CPL, I carry, and I'm one of the few people on this board who will confess to being a paid up member of the NRA. Not that I'm especially proud of that last fact, but it is the 400-pound gorilla of gun rights organizations.

As far as I've been able to make out, the rough sequence of events was that Mr. Sheets surprised the three guys (including the deceased) going through his vehicle, and confronted them from his balcony (placing him one or more floors above them) with the rifle. The three ran, but one--the late Mr. Hernandez, who was carrying Mr. Sheets' 27-pound sub-woofer--allegedly turned and reached for his waistline, apparently to retrieve a weapon, whereupon Mr. Sheets shot him. That, at least, is Mr. Sheets' version of events, but the problem is that there doesn't appear to be much in the way of evidence to corroborate that the late (not particularly lamented) Mr. Hernandez ever posed a threat to Mr. Sheets' life or limb. It doesn't help that Hernandez took the bullet to the back of the head.

So the question, as it should be in any defensive shooting, is: did Mr. Sheets have a reasonable belief that his life or limb was in jeopardy? I'm inclined to say, based on what I've read, that he did indeed have that belief--meaning that the shootings was not murder--but that as far as be ascertained, that belief was not a reasonable one. That makes it manslaughter, and do note that the mitigating factor was factored into the sentence that Hernandez and his companions were the ones to have initiated the confrontation by breaking into Sheets' car.

What we have, unless I'm misinformed, is a situation where the shooter made a bad call, resulting in a person being killed; and I don't think that we RKBA supporters do ourselves any favors by insisting that the shooter should go unpunished. It gives basis to the characterization that we're all reckless, trigger-happy maniacs.

[GreenStormCloud]

11. Never bluff with a gun, it can get you killed.

The thief will think he is being shot at for real and may return fire. If you shoot, send bullets at them, aimed at center-mass. If you can't do that, don't shoot.

[burrfoot]

5. The final word from the police

seems to be that the guy was shot in the back of the head. I don't see any way that the thief turned around and reached into his waistband with his body while his head remained facing in the direction he'd been running...

Should people be able to steal your shit? No. But should you have the right to kill someone for stealing your shit? Not a chance.

I'm not a defender of the criminal in general, but...

If the guy doesn't turn and become a threat, then you don't shoot. End of story.


(just my .02)

[Euromutt]

6. Eh, hard to tell

It only takes a second to look over your shoulder and then look forward again, and if the defendant pulled the trigger in that part of the second the vic was looking over his shoulder, well, you know.

That is to say, I'm no arguing the defendant is wholly innocent, but rather, that he is guilty of bad judgment rather than of malicious intent. He evidently intended only to scare off the three guys who were breaking into his car, but misjudged the intentions of one of the three and fired when he shouldn't have. He does deserve some measure of punishment, but not the measure reserved for murder. And believe me, I'm being nice about this; the item stolen from the defendant's car that the vic was carrying was a 27-pound subwoofer, which I suspect is the kind of car audio equipment that puts out a throbbing bass that can give everyone in the zip code a headache. But I'd also be a lot more sympathetic to the vic if I believed he'd have dumped the subwoofer in Elliott Bay, rather than flogging it some fence.

[burrfoot]

7. You're right about

the timing of the turn-around-reach-into-pants, I guess- we'll never really know what it looked like to the guy who was trying to protect his stuff.
I'd take this a step further, though, and say that he didn't have any business even aiming the gun at them. Where was the threat to his life? If he'd stayed inside his house, ready to protect himself should they have caused a threat, he wouldn't be facing a sentence and the vic wouldn't be dead. Even without getting into the morality of protecting one's belongings with lethal force, I think it's pretty clear that it isn't legal to do so.

I agree that this was bad judgement and not malicious intent, but I think that it's part and parcel of owning and using a firearm. You shoot someone you shouldn't have, you spend time in jail.

If they'd been kicking his door in and he shot I'd be more understanding, but they were just going through his car and leaving.

And yes, if the vic had been going to destroy that f*^#ing subwoofer I'd have given him a ride to the nearest incinerator :)

[OttavaKarhu]

8. You're outside of the context

"They were just going through his car and leaving"???

You base this on what?

This is completely at odds with the earlier reports of the event.

Are you not aware that Mr. Sheets took a plea bargain to avoid a jury trial after spilling his guts to the cops in a way that our local gangbangers are well trained not to?

Read the current P-I SoundOff on the topic, particularly with reference to the commenter StCrisby, who details all of that rationally and with reference to the facts.

That part of Seattle is a free for all zone for gang activity and both property and violent crime. The apartment complex Sheets lived in was, and still is, a target of serial and constant attacks. And if you think that property attacks aren't a gateway to more violent forms (casing/testing neighborhoods to see who resists and who doesn't), you are stuck in the Boomer Sixties or live in Chapel Hill or something. Do you think these criminals just randomly attack?

The message has been sent clearly to the residents of Northgate: "You do not matter, you are prey, and don't fight back. If you try to fight back, we, the powerful, will make it so expensive for you, you'll be sorry. And we can always count on millions of people to line up in battle just as yall have been trained to, rather than considering all the facts."

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Hahahah 'northgate is a free for all gang war zone'

please

Some of us live here. Keep the horseshit to a dull roar, ok?


Bottom line, if you see some shithead running away with your stuff, and you shoot him in the back of the head, in the State of Washington, you are going to jail.

If you want to do that kind of shit, move to Texas, or some other state where you can kill people who are running AWAY with your property. It is not legal HERE.

[Euromutt]

14. It doesn't help that Sheets' story was more than a little inconsistent

According to this report in the P-I http://www.seattlepi.com/local/383729_shooting17.html Sheets "told police he tried to aim for <Hernandez'> legs when he thought the man reached for a gun," and didn't intend to hit Hernandez in the head. Fine, in the original thread, some fairly plausible explanations were offered why you might shoot high with a Mosin-Nagant at comparatively short range at night.

But the problem is this: if you thought the guy was going for a gun with the intent of shooting at you, thereby presenting a threat to your life and limb, why would you aim for the legs? Myself, I'd be going for Center of Mass in an effort to incapacitate the target and prevent him from being able to use any handgun he might have. Shooting for the legs is something you'd do in a misguided attempt to stop the guy making off with your expensive sub-woofer without killing the guy.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. Yeah, he had no credible case for self defense.

Actual point of entry of the bullet, and 'I was aiming for his legs' are pretty clear indicators. I do believe him that he didn't INTEND to kill the alleged thief, but he did employ deadly force, and it worked, when he was not legally justified in doing so.

[burrfoot]

16. Well,

I'm basing it on the statement from the cop. To wit, "Three other men, Cooper said, were breaking into the vehicle."
I've already stated that I'm aware we'll never know the details for sure, but as has been pointed out there are some glaring inconsistencies.

On a re-read, I see that the shooter is claiming that the vic turned and faced him when told to freeze, held the sub-woofer up with one hand, **and then** reached to his waistband. This sets up a timeline, and largely dismisses the argument that the guy turned to face, then the shot was taken, then he turned away. I don't think it likely that the vic, facing the shooter and holding up a subwoofer, reached into his waistband while simultaneously turning his head around 180 degrees in order to catch the bullet from behind. Is it possible that in the very instant that the shooter pulled the trigger, he also spun around to run? Sure. But phenomenally unlikely.

I take your point about casting/testing, but I stand by my assertion that you can NOT shoot people for taking your stuff, at least in most of the country. Again, no need to get into the morality of it- it's illegal. You take life and death in your hands and F*^$ it up in the way this guy did, you go to jail. When those guys decide to invade your home, then you can shoot (if necessary) to defend life/limb/family. Not when they steal shit from your car, outside of your home in a parking lot.

[GreenStormCloud]

10. In Texas, that would have been legal.

However, I would not shoot a fleeing thief. I am just too old school for that.