One dead in shooting near Fresno State

Source: The Fresno Bee

A California State University, Fresno, student living off campus is being accused of shooting three people late last night, killing one of them, at the University Village Apartments on Barstow Avenue, west of Cedar Avenue.

Currently, Barstow is closed to traffic from Cedar to 10th Street, and 10th is closed from Barstow to Robinson Avenue as the Fresno police SWAT team continues to negotiate with the shooter in an attempt to get him to surrender.

Fresno police have set up three-way cell phone communication with the suspect, identified as Jonquel Brooks, 19, of Hayward, Calif., his mother and police negotiators.



Read more: http://www.fresnobee.com/406/story/46391.html

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More fucking gun violence and right here in California where I thought we had a pretty good start on gun control, it just proves that's not enough we need to rid of most guns and open mental health center all over.

Crazies will find a way to kill people.

If there are no guns they'll plow cars into crowds, throw moltovs or make IEDs.

Guns are just a tool. Kind of like blaming rivets for the bombs.

for "crazies" to kill people.

A bomb is cheap and easy to make. Much cheaper and easier than getting a gun.

Too many legitimate uses for a gun than to take them out of the hands of everybody else.

in the context of regulation is a bit of a circular argument since the proposed laws would define the legitimacy.

- Every sale of a firearm requires a background check, with state and federal paperwork. This includes private sales of used firearms.

- Every gun show sale has a background check (this is redundant with the first bullet item, but why not be redundant at saying the same thing multiple times?).

- Handguns are all registered with the state's Department of Justice.

- One handgun per month.

- Child Access Prevention law.

- No handgun or handgun ammunition transfers to anyone under 21.

- No long gun or long gun ammunition sales to anyone under 18.

- No tracer, incendiary, or explosive ammunition.

- Every firearm must be sold with a trigger lock, unless the buyer can affirm that he or she has a state-approved safe storage device.

- Permanent "assault weapons" ban, stricter than the expired federal one. Existing AWs all have to be registered, and cannot be transferred within the state other than to people who have a rarely issued special permit.

- No ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds.

- No civilian ownership of automatic weapons, short-barrelled rifles, or short-barrelled shotguns without special permission that is rarely issued.

- No civilian ownership of sound suppressors whatsoever.

- State-issued Handgun Safety Certificate required in order to buy a handgun.

- Handgun buyers must demonstrate proficiency in loading and unloading the weapon before they can take delivery of it.

- 10-day waiting period on all firearm purchases.

- Concealed-carry permits issued only at discretion of local law enforcement.

- Multiple proof of residence documents required to take delivery of any firearm.

- Only handguns that pass state-controlled safety tests and standards may be imported or sold.

These are all in addition to the existing federal restrictions on who can buy firearms. If someone wants to seriously propose MORE gun control as a way of preventing some hot-headed yahoo who goes ape shit in a dispute over a video game from shooting someone, I'd like to see it.

allow almost any lunatic to purchase a gun, legally, no questions asked? (i.e., Jennifer SanMarco).

on edit: Where does your delusion of "gun-banning" originate from? Which of the laws you cited involve the "banning" of firearms?

Of a firearm across state lines.

Obviously the state's "assault weapons" and .50 BMG rifle laws (the latter of which I neglected to list earlier) ban firearms. Obviously the "safe handgun" laws ban handguns that haven't been submitted for testing (at great expense BTW; none has ever failed the test once $ubmitted). So does the de facto machinegun ban. A new law that took effect this year bans importation of handguns that don't have certain specific mechanical "safety" features, even though there is scant evidence that will reduce the chance of gun accidents.

There are many in the California legislature who would be content to ban all civilian ownership of firearms. They know they can't possibly get away with that all at once, so they are content to chip away at the right to own guns one item at at time.

Don't try to tell me that because I can still buy a pump shotgun or flintlock musket, guns are not being systematically banned in California.

Section 12072 (a) 3 (A) of the California Penal Code prohibits transfer of a handgun to anyone under 21. I think that is probably a good law, but it appears to have been violated in this case.

Or just those that happen within five miles of a school?

:eyes:

The local news reported it.

Over a fucking video game!

Well, it's a good thing there was a gun around so that one guy could definitively prove who had the superior kung fu. I mean, without a gun, this could have just been a fist fight with one of the combatants calling it quits after getting punched in the nose. This way, we have a clean record of who won the argument.

If there had been no video game to fight over, no one would have been hurt.

"Have you ever played a violent video game?"

"NICS check denied."

California's (and your) mistake is equating gun control with crime control. Socio-economic conditions count for far more in terms of crime than hardware control. Like banning .50-caliber rifles, depite the fact that nobody has ever been killed by one outside of a military engagement.

I will note that the murderous student is reported to be 19, and pulled out a handgun for the shooting. Since you have to be 21 to buy a handgun, he almost certainly aquired and/or possessed the handgun illegally.

a murderer wouldn't dare break a gun law-- after all, it's an extra-special law because it's a GUN law!

:crazy: Du needs to start a new forum for all the murders and gun death in America.

Let's make the penalties for murder DEATH!!! That'll stop all those murders!

What? Most DUers are against the death penalty? They argue that is is unfairly applied, often results in innocent people being executed, and doesn't reduce crime?!?!?!?

:argh:

From this morning's San Diego Union-Tribune:

One of the wounded men, returning home with a bloody bandage on his left shoulder, said the dispute started Monday night when he and the other victims accused Brooks of stealing a Sony PlayStation console and game.

“The guy who shot us – he had stolen from our apartment. We went to confront him with the evidence, and it just turned ugly from there. He pulled a gun out on us,” said Drew Pfeiff, 22, of Raleigh, N.C. “People don't deserve to die for stupid stuff like this.”

The gunman fired five or six times, grazing Pfeiff....

...Police said the shooting occurred in Brooks' apartment but spilled into a hallway. Police said everyone involved lived in the same complex.... (Underlining added by slackmaster for emphasis.)

Full story at http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070509/news_1n9shoot.html

This is obviously somewhat speculative on my part, but IF Pfeiff and others burst into Brooks' apartment without being let in by Brooks, say they kicked in his door to confront him, California law would place a heavy burden on the prosecution to prove that Brooks did not act out of a reasonable fear of death or bodily injury. The Penal Code is clear on this - Anyone who enters your dwelling unlawfully and forcefully is PRESUMED to present a threat:

198.5. Any person using force intended or likely to cause death or
great bodily injury within his or her residence shall be presumed to
have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great
bodily injury to self, family, or a member of the household when that
force is used against another person, not a member of the family or
household, who unlawfully and forcibly enters or has unlawfully and
forcibly entered the residence and the person using the force knew or
had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry occurred.

As used in this section, great bodily injury means a significant
or substantial physical injury.

199. The homicide appearing to be justifiable or excusable, the
person indicted must, upon his trial, be fully acquitted and
discharged.

It's our implementation of the Castle Doctrine. See http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=187-199 for the whole chapter on Homicide.

Whether or not Brooks had actually stolen something from the shooting victim is irrelevant. You do not have the right to enforce the law by invading someone's home and confronting him or her. That is the job of the police. But it would not surprise me to hear that men of that age had decided to take the law into their own hands over a suspected petty theft.

Brooks' defense attorney is likely to take this tack, and is quoted in the referenced article as saying there may be an issue of self-defense. If the people who were shot entered Brooks' dwelling unlawfully and forcibly, Brooks may indeed have acted lawfully when he shot them.

None of the reporting that I've seen has suggested forced entry and given the way the news media likes to hype home invasions that would be a stark omission if any witness or LE had implied it.

That the defense attorney has suggested "self defense" sounds like good lawyer posturing to me.

Here's the local newspaper description based on the shooter's roommate:
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/46544.html

Male college undergraduates living in an apartment, 11 PM, dispute over something minor turns ugly. Go figure.

That the defense attorney has suggested "self defense" sounds like good lawyer posturing to me.

Every criminal defendant in this country is entitled to a vigorous defense. The fact that people often give wildly different stories is exactly why we have an adversarial court system. If it goes to trial, it's very likely that a jury will be able to determine what really did happen. The system works pretty well most of the time.

regardless of whether there is any evidence to support the posture because it begins to cast doubt on the shooter's guilt -- generally considered more effective than waiting until the court of public opinion has judged him guilty.

The reason that I made that comment was that not too much can be read into a lawyer's suggestion outside of court on how the defense may be built. The lawyer could say they may mount a temporary insanity plea, accidental shooting, anything the least bit plausible. None of it matters until they're in court.

And yes, intoxication is often part of the story with late night, end of semester events among college students so there is also the possibility of that factoring into the story but as with forced entry, there is no mention of it and it's pure speculation.

The lawyer's remarks are just an aside, and I wouldn't expect a CDA to say anthing other than that if he says anything at all. The shooting victim who was interviewed admitted (to the media, not under oath) that there was a confrontation, and the police said the shooting occurred in the shooter's apartment.

Maybe they knocked on his door, then he let them in and an ensuing argument escalated; in which case the presumption of reasonable use of deadly force would not apply. But the article doesn't say that either.

Brooks is 19. The shooting may have been legitimate, but the weapon used probably was not.