http://www.usatoday.com/...nge-student-shot/8445731/

Read the article first to get more background.

I think that main points important to the case in this article are:

1. Markus Hendrick Kaarma told a hairdresser that he was just waiting to kill a kid. In this incident he was belligerent and the police were called.

2. The prosecutors are accusing Kaarma of setting up a trap for a thief by leaving the garage door noticeably open and leaving a purse with personal items in plain view.

3. Kaarma walked out the front door to stand in the driveway in front of the Garage.

4. The article indicates that Diren Dede was saying, "hey" or "wait"


It is important that we acknowledge a person's right to defend themselves and their property through the use of reasonable force up to and including deadly force.

As presented in the article and assuming that the prosecution can prove its case, there are two problems with Mr. Kaarma's assertion that I can see as a layman when it comes to the relevant laws.

#1. I see this as the big problem. This private citizen is baiting people to commit a crime and then trying to use that as an excuse to kill someone. If crime has gotten so bad that you'd like to take an active part in finding and stopping criminals, then you should approach your local law enforcement to see how you can help them. Maybe you have a building that the police can bait and then arrest criminals. Mr. Kaarma was not cooperating with the police in a sting, he was running his own personal sting operation. When someone fell for the trap, Mr. Kaarma did not call the cops out to his sting operation so that they could arrest Mr. Dede. Instead, Mr. Kaarma chose to confront the intruder.

#2. Mr. Kaarma did not confront Mr. Dede from inside his home (his castle). He did not confront Mr. Dede from a door from the home to the garage. He confronted Mr. Dede in such a way as to prevent Mr. Dede's escape. In the confrontation there is an indication that Mr. Dede was trying to disengage from his activity without the need for the use of force.


The prosecutor must prove their case. However, if the full scope of evidence is consistent with the information in the article, then this is not the castle doctrine. If the full scope of evidence is consistent with the information in the article, then this is murder.

If the kid wasn't stealing fluff in the first place, this wouldn't have even been an issue.

There is no such thing as "baiting" somebody to steal...
That is where you lost me.

The kid is a punk, did he deserve death? Probably not, but he was not forced to go to that garage and steal was he? If he wasn't doing what he wasn't supposed to do, none of this would have happened.


If someone walks into my garage at night and is rummaging through my stuff, you better believe I will come out with a gun. Especially if there had been a string of thefts happening recently.


Before I cast judgement on the accused "murderer" I want to hear the other side of the story that the media is not telling us. I am actually impressed that they reported it being a shotgun and not falsely reporting it being an AR-15 like the love to do.

How did they know this man came out with no warning and started shooting if the victim is dead? Did he admit to it or is that just what sounds better to them? Were there witnesses that have come forward? There are a lot of missing details in this article that are important to see what actually happened.

It's funny that you say that their is no such thing as baiting someone to steal...have you heard of the bait cars that police departments use to catch car thieves? The police cast their bait and wait to see who takes it, then they shut the car off and arrest the suspects.

Still, no one forces them to steal those bait cars. They make the decision of theft on their own, it just happens to be a bad one because it is a police car instead of some civilians.

i agree with everything mdevol said, apart from one point


The guy deserved to get shot.

Yes you steal from someone else you deserve death.

Sure there is. That's not saying you "caused" them to steal, e.g., that they wouldn't have stolen if you hadn't deliberately set out "bait" -- although that IS possible. The "bait" might be the trigger for an impulsive act of burglary as opposed to a premeditated act. None of that makes it "OK" for this kid or any other to be in someone's garage stealing their property, but it seems clear their intent was to "bait" a thief into that garage.




You can strike "probably" IMO. An unarmed person does not deserve death for petty theft. Ever. We're talking about a human life.


If there was a string of thefts happening, I would hope you wouldn't deliberately set up conditions that make your "castle" ripe for theft. This was a reckless reaction (or, judging by his comments at the hairdresser, very NOT reckless, premeditated) that led to a worst possible outcome.



From the article, he and his wife:

"Kaarma told police that he heard a noise from the darkened garage that sounded like metal on metal and that he was afraid the intruder would leave the garage and harm him. He said he could not see into the garage and did not warn anybody that he would shoot.

Pflager turned on the exterior lights, making it even more difficult to see inside, Kaarma said.

Pflager told police that when Kaarma reached the open garage door she heard him say "Hey, hey" and chamber a shell into his shotgun, according to the probable cause affidavit. Pflager then heard the man inside the garage say "hey" or "wait" and then Kaarma fired four shots in quick succession into the dark garage.

Kaarma said the entire incident occurred in 7 to 8 seconds, and that it took him only about 2 seconds to fire all four rounds."


I understand your distrust of the media and do tend to approach media with skepticism, but unless they are GROSSLY misrepresenting or omitting facts here, every indication points to a premeditated act by someone who decided that he had the right to take someone else's life because they or someone else had taken his stuff.

As Angel1 said, and I could not agree more: "The prosecutor must prove their case. However, if the full scope of evidence is consistent with the information in the article, then this is not the castle doctrine. If the full scope of evidence is consistent with the information in the article, then this is murder. "

BILL

PLEASE BE TROLLING. AND/OR PLEASE MOVE TO SAUDI ARABIA, KENYA, OR ZAMBIA, WHERE YOUR VIEW MIGHT AT LEAST HAVE A CHANCE OF BEING A BIT MORE MAINSTREAM.

HA!
BILL

GIVE ME MY VELCRO GLOVES BACK !!! :P

Call me old fashioned but I am of the feelingvthat if you are caught stealing from someone, you lose your hand, at the least.

There is no excuse for that garbage.

Stealing is about as low as it gets.

nope not trolling, and i dont mean that the penalty should be death, I mean if you catch people trying to steal your fluff you should have the right to do what ever you want, how dare they try to take my fluff I have worked hard for, the world is getting too soft, if this was the law there would be a lot less theft.

I stopped taking this thread seriously when the first post started talking about approaching the police to see how they could be helped. Good luck. Let me know how that turns out for you.

Ever heard of neighborhood watches? Private citizens that help the police. Seems to work pretty well for a lot of people.

Seems the neighborhood watch failed that neighborhood....

Multiple thefts are what propted this whole situation...

My take on this whole thing hinges on one intent of the "castle doctrine" which is that you have the right to defend yourself against a violent intruder into your HOME. Unless he was living in his garage, it was not his home. There is no cited evidence that the kid offered any violence to anyone on the property, thus, it is murder in my interpretation of the "castle doctrine".

The setting of the "sting" or more aptly, the trap is more akin to putting salt licks out for deer, then getting into a blind and awaiting their arrival, which is against the law in almost every state in the union.

There may have been a string of thefts, but even then, simple theft is not a reason to shoot someone. Nothing that can be stolen is worth a life unless it is a nuclear weapon. Then, even I would kill the sumfluff.

If the kid was armed even with a kitchen knife, and threatening violence, then the homeowner has the right to defend himself with force up to and including deadly force. Otherwise, he does not.

This was murder plain and simple. The guy baited a trap, set up a monitoring system and bragged aforehand that he was going to shoot somebody and wasn't too discriminatory about who, it could have been anyone.