Vendor fights back against attackers

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A vendor says three teens approached him and attacked while he was working. That's when he says he pulled out a gun and fired, killing one of the suspects.

The confrontation started about 11pm on MLK near Reed Road. Authorities tell us the vendor was parked at a gas station as he was delivering snack products to the store. Police say he was inside the store and when he walked back out, he was approached by three teenage boys who demanded the snack products.

When the vendor refused, authorities say the teens, all three of them, began to assault the vendor by punching, kicking and hitting him. During the assault, the vendor was able to defend himself.

"The individual is a concealed handgun license carrier, was armed at the time, retrieved a weapon and subsequently shot and killed an individual here on the scene," said Officer Brian Evans with the Houston Police Department.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6941778


Ok now here is a "real" righteous shoot.

David

I don't believe any shots are righteous unless it is in practice and you shot a whole round all hitting on target...

right now.

Justifiable homicide, clear and simple, if that article is the truth.

But some choices you can't take back. They shouldn't have attacked a man on the street.

They blew their last chance.

a 14 year old kid was killed over $20 worth of junk food. A human life, particularly of someone so young, should be worth more than that.

Justifiable that is.

Three teens, not one, chose to attack this working stiff.

It could have been for $20 or for $200,000.

That really doesn't matter when your life is in danger and you're outnumbered.

presumably he could have stopped the attack by simply handing over a couple bags of chips for each kid. Or a handful of Slim Jims or Twinkies. He chose to kill somebody instead.

Too bad he wasn't carrying a taser.

Even when the assailants are unarmed, a numerical advantage of three against one is considered to be a sufficiently large disparity of force as to be considered lethal, and therefore to justify response with lethal force (e.g. a firearm).

Why is it that people like you have such issues with someone using a firearm to defend himself, but are willing to excuse the fact that these three punks were willing to put a guy in the ER over something as trivial as some "snack products"? Please explain to me why that isn't an indication that your moral compass is utterly fucked up?

We don't know what they said, did they threaten for example to slit his throat?

You give them what they want, maybe they kill you anyway.

Maybe they come back in a week.

Maybe they keep doing this to other vendors until somebody gets hurt or killed.

They were the ones doing the choosing, they chose to set this off.

you have one shot and you better make it good...if there are 3 people attacking you the other 2 are going to be free to fix the problem of the taser.

And handing over chips and slim jims would do exactly the same thing that handing over lunch money to the bullies does, it gets you beaten every day for your lunch money.

...the vendor's life is worth less because he is older than the attacking teens?

See, the late 14 year-old in question thought he and his pals were entitled to inflict grievous bodily harm on the vendor over said "$20 worth of junk food." In point of fact, the decedent was not "killed over $20 worth of junk food"; the decedent was killed because he was engaged in the process of inflicting unlawful violence with a risk of putting the shooter in a wheelchair for life, or possibly the morgue "over $20 worth of junk food."

What I'm suggesting here is that if the little fucker had valued the physical integrity of a fellow human being over "$20 worth of junk food," he'd still be alive. That he is not is the result of nobody's moral failing but his own.

Self Righteous

you would know that the victim shot the attacker because he was being beaten by three attackers.

If you wouldn't then you value money more than people.


PS - How exactly does a person draw a firearm WHILE being beaten by three different people and not risk loosing their firearm??

There are a number of situations in which even unarmed assailants are considered to be potentially lethal due to disparity of force (thereby justifying a response with lethal force): an adult vs. a child, an able-bodied person vs. an invalid or senior citizen, a man vs. a woman, and three or more assailants vs. one victim.

As for the idea that "you value money more than people," tell that to the three punks who started beating up that guy over some "snack products." The guy didn't shoot because they were trying to steal some Twinkies; he shot because they were trying to inflict grievous bodily harm on him. For said fucking Twinkies!


I couldn't tell you, not having been in that situation myself. But evidently, it can be done. Or are you trying to suggest that the shooter lured the three to start beating him up so that he would have an excuse to shoot one?

never own a firearm for self defense.

If you pay me $500 a week I will make sure that you will not have to shoot me. Deal???

Oneshooter
Livin in Texas

He should have let himself be robbed and beaten

What an asshole. :sarcasm:

...how do you ascribe the "self-righteous" label (and to whom)? I've read the article and I just don't see it. Can you help me here?

there was no guarantee the attack would have stopped. This way - it did.

edited to replace one word

and if that didn't work, then shoot. There is not one inanimate thing that I own or have control over that is worth killing another human being over.

Is there one inanimate thing anybody else owns that, in your book, is worth inflicting physical injury upon the possessor so that you can acquire it? I presume not. So why doesn't it affront your sensibilities that the three punks in question started beating up the shooter over some "snack products"?

Why didn't the vendor pull his gun out from the outset?

I suspect that is what he did. He shot first and according to Fire Medic Dave... no questions are worth asking later.

It would have been illegal for him to brandish a firearm in response to a request for free chips. It's really not very hard.


David

That's right, the guy went off half-cocked before any of the three teens had so much as laid a finger on him, killing one. Then he told police they'd started beating him up, and the police believed him at his word, in spite of the complete lack of bruising or any other evidence of his having been assaulted.

Well yeah, that sounds much plausible to me. After all, there's no way a gas station might have outside security cameras that might corroborate the guy's story, is there? Nah, why let that sort of thinking get in the way of perfectly good truthiness?

He did what he had to do.

I find it astonishing how many people on this board disagree with that and are trying to paint him as a murderer. Would so many people really passively allow themselves to be beaten and robbed without fighting back?

If there are no charges filed, or if he is found "not guilty" then the families of the deceased can not file a wrongful death suit. This is because the level of evidence needed for a criminal trial is much higher than for a civil trial.

Oneshooter
Livin in Texas

They are cowards, OR because they value their attackers life, more than they do their own.

And immediately has his gun taken away by the attackers and used on him.

Or that's how I've been assured these things always go down.

Southeast Houston has a very high crime rate, and a strong gang problem.

Roaming gang members will often demand something they happen to want at the moment as tribute to the gang. (The video shows a Little Debbie's truck in the background. Little Debbie's are the preferred snack of druggies. They are cheap and high in sugar.) If someone refuses to pay the instant tribute to the gang, then they have shown disrespect to the gang and must be punished, immediately. In other words, the beating was about maintaining gang dominance.

Such beatings are generally brutal, sometimes fatal. The gang members compete with each other for status which is attained by demonstrations of how tough and mean the member is. Among them, mercy is for wimps. Once started, there was nothing that would have made the gang members voluntarily stop beating the vendor until they got tired and it wasn't fun anymore. Even if the vendor had offered them the keys to the truck, it would have done no good. He had to be punished for "disrespecting" the gang, as an example to any others. His life was in serious danger.

But he was able to defend himself.

I do not rejoice in the death of such a youth, but I do recognize the vendor's right to self-defense.

Just ignorant of the circumstances, and unwilling to give the benefit of the doubt to the victim in the situation. Then again, I find it just as hard to have sympathy for the corpse in the situation. Guess both sides are being a little unreasonable.

There seems to be a hell of a lot of violence being committed over perceived "disrespect," and what' worse, it's spreading outside the U.S. You've got black kids in the U.K. killing people for a slight that you or I would just shrug off, like accidentally getting your toes stepped on or a drink spilled on you. According to the London Times, within the London Metropolitan Police's jurisdiction, 75% of shooting victims (fatal and non-fatal) and 79% of suspects in shootings are of African/Caribbean ethnicity. Though I hasten to add it's not some racial thing, because in mainland Europe you're seeing similar tendencies among North African (i.e. Arab) youths. No, this is a cultural thing, with its roots in socio-economic circumstances.

If I may engage in pop anthropology for a minute, I've been given to understand that "respect" gained massive importance among African-Americans because they were, for the longest time, the most down-trodden demographic in American society, and when damn near all you own is your pride, that becomes very important. It makes sense that that same process would occur among groups elsewhere who happen to be at or near the bottom of the socio-economic heap. But where did it get to the point that this idea of "respect" got so perverted that your own image becomes more important than another person's life?

Somewhere, I get the idea that "respect" control would do a damn sight more to curb violent crime, both here and abroad, than any gun control law ever will.

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A vendor says three teens approached him and attacked while he was working. That's when he says he pulled out a gun and fired, killing one of the suspects.

The confrontation started about 11pm on MLK near Reed Road. Authorities tell us the vendor was parked at a gas station as he was delivering snack products to the store. Police say he was inside the store and when he walked back out, he was approached by three teenage boys who demanded the snack products.

When the vendor refused, authorities say the teens, all three of them, began to assault the vendor by punching, kicking and hitting him. During the assault, the vendor was able to defend himself.

"The individual is a concealed handgun license carrier, was armed at the time, retrieved a weapon and subsequently shot and killed an individual here on the scene," said Officer Brian Evans with the Houston Police Department.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6941778

i don't like em.

i don't like em.

...don't own one then.

I don't like criminals, but as long as they exist, I'll continue to own and carry um...criminal repellent.

Aren't you compassionate.

I think they can be very useful, for purposes sited in the OP among other things. I like them.

I'm glad he survived.

I'm assured by many around here that that is quite easy, and carries no risk of physical harm.

Also it's impossible to get really badly hurt with just punches and kicks, so he was in no danger. More of a free style massage than anything else.

Sad that this bright, upstanding honor roll student (probably) on his way to visit his sick grandmother (most likely) after stopping off to volunteer at the local orphanage (seems plausible) had to be killed by this sick gun fetishist with a lust for blood and automatic assault weapon.

When will we learn?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x249145

Started by Fire Medic Dave two minutes prior to this one. What gives, has this been shunted over from another subforum or something?