442
submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

The homeowner who fatally shot a 20-year-old University of South Carolina student who tried to enter the wrong home on the street he lived on Saturday morning will not face charges because the incident was deemed "a justifiable homicide" under state law, Columbia police announced Wednesday.

Police said the identity of the homeowner who fired the gunshot that killed Nicholas Donofrio shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday will not be released because the police department and the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office determined his actions were justified under the state's controversial "castle doctrine" law, which holds that people can act in self-defense towards "intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you for recognizing. It sounds complicated but it's really not, and I think you do like it, without fully realizing it.

To your point, you can jump to reasonable conclusions without having to be a mind reader.

On finding an alert intruder, you give clear commands. Should be able to be pretty sure of their intent pretty quickly after that.

Sometimes, there's nothing you can do, and you get murdered in your sleep, very rare though. One thought there is to outsource the job of issuing commands and waking you up to a burglary alarm. If you wake up to a stranger who is not warded off by a blaring alarm, that tells you a lot about what they're doing.

[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

If I roll out of bed to the sounds of someone banging on my door, trying my doorknob, then breaking a window to get in - I'm probably going to believe that shots will start flying through the door in my direction if I confront them at that point, and/or that they intend to harm me or my family, not that they will politely go away if I ask them to, especially in the fog of having just awakened.

I'm not a gun owner, but if I had one, I doubt I'd consider a warning in that case. Without the escalation to smashing my window I'm likely to handle it differently.

Same thing happens in the middle of the day while I'm wide awake, maybe I interpret it differently. Maybe.

I agree that deadly force isn't appropriate to protect property. I don't agree that protecting property is what was likely going through this person's head.

this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
442 points (95.5% liked)

News

23310 readers
3450 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS