Outrage after popular students are found murdered in man's basement after 'they robbed his home on

Invalid. Invalid. Invalid.

Learn from the mistakes that others have made, or repeat history.

Im loving these righteous people in here, these stop cold decision makers, these adrenalineless people.

Here sounds, get gun to investigate.

"wow, hey there non dangerous popular teens breaking into my house, how can I help you"

Originally posted by chishuppu
Im loving these righteous people in here, these stop cold decision makers, these adrenalineless people.

Here sounds, get gun to investigate.

"wow, hey there non dangerous popular teens breaking into my house, how can I help you"

So two people break into my house.... is it two or 5....are they armed....are they dangerous enough to ensure no one finds out.....how capable am I to defend myself not shooting.... are they 17 year old students or 37 year old harden criminals.

Monday morning quarterbacking is so much easier…

I'm going to shoot first with the assumption they are armed too.

The amount of incidents where a death could have been avoided are much too high.
As previous poster stated, a shot to the center of mass should only occur as a LAST resort.
A spoken warning, followed by a warning shot, followed by a shot to the foot/leg would be much more appropriate, and i'm surprised with how this almost never happens.

reply to post by Chong


While your post screams of logic and empathy and all that is right in a difficult situation - as a former Police officer you are trained to aim for centre of mass. While it would be less lethal to shoot someone in the foot or thigh so they are incapacitated - that is not how professionals are trained.

Just sharing information.

Much Peace...

Originally posted by Chong
The amount of incidents where a death could have been avoided are much too high.
As previous poster stated, a shot to the center of mass should only occur as a LAST resort.
A spoken warning, followed by a warning shot, followed by a shot to the foot/leg would be much more appropriate, and i'm surprised with how this almost never happens.

Lol funny....

Spoken warning...warning shot... they shoot you first

Aim for a foot or leg....really? I guess you don't shoot, this is not the movies where it is easy to pick your spots...if you pull the trigger it better be pointed in the biggest part of the body and even with that you have a good chance of missing.

So you give a spoken warning and point the gun up to do a warning shot and the two guys charge you...what do you do?

Originally posted by Xtrozero

Originally posted by nenothtu

Originally posted by milkyway12
reply to post by buni11687

 

It can't be argued what he did was not excessive. However, the teens were still posing a threat to his life and property by robbing and breaking and entering. Personally, depending on the situation, I'd execute you if I thought there were multiple threats so I don't remotely have to worry about the neutralized threat.

I don't think this guy should be charged criminally, but should be forced to under go a psyche evaluation.

edit on 28-11-2012 by milkyway12 because: (no reason given)

Indeed! It seems a poor survival strategy to leave a live one behind you!

Not knowing the details it seems he might have been excessive, but it is hard to say. I can also see two well liked students getting caught and making sure no one knew they were there in a situation where if he caught them and he had no protection.

If I'm an older gentleman and I'm faced with two young adults in my own house my only advantage to ensure something really bad does not happen to me is to shoot first. To say what is too much is hard to say…1 bullet or 30 is about the same results.

edit on 28-11-2012 by Xtrozero because: (no reason given)

I have no doubt at all that he was being excessive, given the story as told. Not overly bright, either. The fact remains that, when faced with multiple adversaries, I'm personally going to do my best not to leave a live one behind me. I think that, as the poster I was responding to specifies, it's going to be situation-dependent. I generally keep my back to a corner anyhow, so I can see what's coming along either wall leading to that corner, and that's one way to keep a live one from getting behind you.

Pretty sure I'm not going to drag bodies around, either, unless I'm going to have to hid behind one as a bullet-block. I'll bet a lot of money that I wouldn't deliver a coup de gras in the same manner he did. That's gonna leave a mark that there ain't no mistaking, not to mention the powder burns and contact wounds. If you're that close, you're not scared enough to justify shooting again.

No, this gent did plenty wrong, and he'll be investigated and interrogated out the wazoo for it, and is likely going to spend some time over it. The fact remains, however, that if the kids had never entered the house, he couldn't have practiced his excesses on them.

If he were a decent shot, and not panic-prone, he could have dropped them from a distance and had the same results, without the legal hassle. Personally, I think he had a bit of torture in mind. Seriously - who takes out a leg or gut-shoots an adversary when waiting a few more seconds will give you a decent center of mass shot to work with? Some sadistic SOB, that's who... unless he is panic-prone. Panic can make you do strange things, but if he was panic prone, he sure as shootin' went into the wrong line of work!

The basic premise - dropping intruders in their tracks - is sound. In this case, as in most, the devil is in the details, and his aren't meeting spec.

One other thing - it seems to me, and I may have read it wrong, that the multiple shots came from a .22 pistol. Now, having some knowledge in this area, I can tell you that once upon a time, .22 pistols were used as assassin's weapons because they made less noise and were easier to suppress. The drawback was that you had to dump several rounds into the target to insure a kill... just like this cat did. Food for thought. A normal sized, noisy, fighting gun usually calls for double-taps, center of mass. If that fails to get their attention, you do it again until they notice you are killing them.

I dunno, man. there is something fishy about this story, but the idea that we should go to the other extreme, get all touchy-feely and in touch with our inner criminal and let the miscreants skate doesn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy, either. "Warning shots", which are what led me to respond in this thread in the first place, just plain infuriate me, the callous indifference they display to casual bystanders up to a kilometer or so away.

I'm of the opinion that one should shoot intruders like he means it, not play with them and toy with them as BOTH of these extremes seem to be doing. It's just not business-like.

If the movie action of winging some guy in the arm or leg and him staying down and giving up is valid then so is the guy shot dead who gets up and grabs a weapon to attack again.

This type of logic can usually be worked toward either side.

For those who may have missed it being posted several pages ago.....here is his own statement to what happened.

Statement of Events

Now I figure I have a hard time finding much in common with anyone who can read what he actually said he did himself and how he described doing it yet still fail to see him as anything but a murderer. Defense is one thing and it's our right. Murder however, is well defined and he's being charged with it for very good reasons by reading his own words.

The very best he could be described as is blood thirsty...and that's going pretty far in trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Naww... He doresn't deserve it. Last paragraph on page 2 seals him as what he is, as far as I'm concerned. You can't possibly describe this any worse than he did, himself. The worst part is, he seemed to see no problem with any of it by how casually he's describing the execution of two people.

reply to post by nenothtu


Yet a slight man such as I, using nothing more than words...

has found effective remedy with no bloodshed.

So.

You are full of #.

*edit* and there was no trail or news story... you will never find record of it in the courts either way, ergo... I was 1000x more effective.

This man is going to have a hard time defending himself in court. Excessive force? Certainly....then again if the defense can prove that he was in an altered mental state when this was whole thing was happening, there's a chance that he could get the charge reduced. If I were on the jury for this case, I would take everything into consideration.

Being that I am a proud gun owner and I support the right to shoot anybody that breaks into my home (good thing I live in a state with de facto Castle Doctrine), this would weigh heavily in this case. One bullet per suspect would have been enough, especially because it seems that neither one of them were armed.

Hiding the bullet-riddled bodies in his basement? Bad move. Then again, he could have been in a state of shock and that could have attributed to it.


When it comes right down to it, the moral of the story is this: Don't break into people's homes. You're asking to get shot. If it had been me, it would have been one bullet a piece somewhere in the chest. I don't screw around, and being that the torso is the largest surface area in which to score a hit, you bet your butt that I'll be aiming there.

Did these kids deserve to die? Probably not. Did they deserve to get shot for breaking into a private citizen's home? Yes. They took their own lives' in their hands by breaking into that man's house. You never know who is going to be armed and who isn't.

Stupid kids making stupid decisions, and they paid for it with their lives'. Tragic? Yes. Do I feel bad for them? No.

I had my house broken into about eight years ago. Had I been awake four minutes earlier (as I saw the dude running into the woods when I got up to use the restroom), he would have had a very bad day.


Anyway, just my $.02 on the matter.



-TS

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


The guys seems to be his own witness for the prosecution. I agree that he might not realize the big picture of his actions. He's seen too many movies?

just some more info on the teens.
seems like they might have been on a spree.

Preliminary findings suggest that Nick Brady, 17, and Haile Kifer, 18, were involved in another break-in Wednesday night, 6 miles south of the home where Byron Smith claims he shot them in self-defense, said Morrison County Sheriff Michel Wetzel. Smith, 64, a retired U.S. State Department worker, is charged with second-degree murder in the double shooting, which Wetzel has characterized as "cold-blooded" executions carried out after the teens were disabled by initial shots.

above is from
Home Local Slain teenage cousins linked to an earlier Little Falls break-in?

this and the statement made in a earlier article by the dead male teens sister

Schaeffel’s sister, Crystal Schaeffel, said that Kifer had stolen prescription drugs from her home before. Little Falls police records show Crystal Schaeffel reported a theft Aug. 28, but the department said the report was not public because that investigation was continuing and because it named juveniles.

above is from here
Man Charged In 2 Little Falls Teen Deaths

how can some of you go defending the two teens.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


After reading his police statement....wow. Given the history of break-ins into his residence, I can understand his anger at being broken into yet again. But now that I read this, he sounds more like a Hannibal Lecter type of person, with the way that he executed these kids. Maybe this break-in was the straw that broke the camel's back? If I were his defense I'd go for a plea of insanity given the history of break-ins and the man's mental state at having been broken into again.

People be cray, yo.




-TS

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I think he is mentally ill. She was laughing after being shot and falling down the stairs because the gun jammed? She comes down the stairs after hearing at least two-shots from the Mini 14 rather than running away? If he is hearing the window break she is hearing the shot.

His story sounds incredible.

The OP should fix his Intro before misleading more people.

"The break in and enter" is the murderer's words, the guy who executed them and stashed the bodies.

Half the people coming in with the notion this was a proven break in/enter.


This man was doing something else. Hope they check the teens for any bodily injury or his DNA on them.

Just remember people - we don't know whether the girl laughed at him - the two young people are not here to tell us what they said or didn't say.

There is only one person who knows what went on and his words may be true or they may be embellished - given that he didn't report what he did straight away. He had time to think about his story.

The girl laughing - I cannot take that at face value because we were not there and we don't know whether he is fabricating a story.

Much Peace...

reply to post by milominderbinder


Multiple times in this thread you have stated we don't know if they broke in or not. Well here's a new article from today's headlines:

Slain teenage cousins linked to an earlier Little Falls break in

Seems there is a pattern developing here.

To the OP, I have to agree with many here. Those "kids" as some keep calling them were old enough to know what they were doing was not only wrong but also illegal. They decided to do it anyway and now they paid the ultimate price for stupidity. All actions have consequences, when you drink and drive you know the risks, if you play with fireworks you know the risks, and if you decide to break into someone's home you had better hope they are not armed or at home.

That said, I also agree that he crossed the line from self defense to murder when he executed them, hid the bodies, and didn't call police. I don't know if it was some premeditated plan or a spur of the moment thing on his part, but the trial and jury will decide that one.

reply to post by Amanda5


A fair trial? Wot is that? Guilty until proven Guilty is what most of the public says... which can give the future a very clear idea about what the world, and ATS, has become. And I've never been a member of ATS before it got all screwey oh no. And I don't say that because it has always been screwy, whyever would you think that?

reply to post by thov420


yes i also posted that along with a statement made by the male teen's sister.
four posts above your.

she claims the female teen, broke into her house, back in august.