Oops, Wrong House: Hours earlier, someone had broken into John Pontolillo's house and taken two laptops and a video-game console. Now it was past midnight, and he heard noises coming from the garage out back. The Johns Hopkins University undergraduate didn't run. He didn't call the police. He grabbed his samurai sword. With the 3- to 5-foot-long, razor-sharp weapon in hand, police say, Pontolillo crept toward the noise. He noticed a side door in the garage had been pried open. When a man inside lunged at him, police say, the confrontation was fatal. "He was backed up against a corner and either out of fear or out of panic, he just struck the sword with force," said Baltimore Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. "It was probably with fear for his life." Pontolillo, who rents the house in the 300 block of E. University Parkway in the Oakenshawe neighborhood, struck the intruder no more than twice, police say, nearly severing his left hand and inflicting what police termed a "spear laceration." The intruder, Donald D. Rice of Baltimore, a 49-year-old repeat offender who had been released from jail only Saturday, died at the bloody scene…
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0,114199.story
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/16/samurai-sword-slays-suspected-burglar/
---
Oops, Wrong Campsite: A camper who shot and killed a 25-year-old Olympia man last month during a bizarre late-night encounter along a remote bank on Wynooche Lake will not face charges. The Grays Harbor Prosecutor's Office announced Tuesday it will not seek charges against the shooter, Gary Bowers, 38, of Port Orchard, in the death of Westin Wolff during the tragic Aug. 29 camping trip. Prosecutor Stew Menefee said all the evidence indicates Bowers fired the fatal shot only after Wolff ignored several warning shots and attacked him with a machete. "We found that the evidence would support it was a justifiable homicide committed in self-defense," Menefee said this morning… (I do not teach warning shots. Among issues to consider is that handguns do not consistently stop people with a single shot and warning shots may waste ammunition that could be needed momentarily. If use of deadly force is not justified, a warning shot is not likely to be justified either.)
http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2009/09/09/local_news/doc4aa7e7fc64c67512107056.txt
http://www.examiner.com/x-18149-SelfDefense-Examiner~y2009m9d16-Armed-father-saves-himself-and-his-family-from-a-machetewielding-attacker
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0,114199.story
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/16/samurai-sword-slays-suspected-burglar/
---
Oops, Wrong Campsite: A camper who shot and killed a 25-year-old Olympia man last month during a bizarre late-night encounter along a remote bank on Wynooche Lake will not face charges. The Grays Harbor Prosecutor's Office announced Tuesday it will not seek charges against the shooter, Gary Bowers, 38, of Port Orchard, in the death of Westin Wolff during the tragic Aug. 29 camping trip. Prosecutor Stew Menefee said all the evidence indicates Bowers fired the fatal shot only after Wolff ignored several warning shots and attacked him with a machete. "We found that the evidence would support it was a justifiable homicide committed in self-defense," Menefee said this morning… (I do not teach warning shots. Among issues to consider is that handguns do not consistently stop people with a single shot and warning shots may waste ammunition that could be needed momentarily. If use of deadly force is not justified, a warning shot is not likely to be justified either.)
http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2009/09/09/local_news/doc4aa7e7fc64c67512107056.txt
http://www.examiner.com/x-18149-SelfDefense-Examiner~y2009m9d16-Armed-father-saves-himself-and-his-family-from-a-machetewielding-attacker
No comments:
Post a Comment