It’s a story that we are hearing too often: homeowners in Florida—and elsewhere– who, resorting to the Stand Your Ground Law, shoot anyone who comes near their property uninvited. In this case, the victim was actually employed by the homeowner.
According to Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, two homeowners called 911 around 9 p.m. on Sunday after spotting a man on their lanai.
The sheriff said the man was hired by the homeowners to clean their pool and had been working for them for around six months to a year.
The victim had been busy with other appointments and showed up at their home later than expected. Deputies said the pool cleaner did not notify the homeowners that he was coming that late at night. He usually stops by on Thursday or Friday afternoon, Gualtieri said.
According to the sheriff’s office, the woman said she was in the family room when she saw a man she did not recognize through the sliding glass doors. She locked the door and told her husband that a random person was on their property.
The homeowner yelled for the person to get out and go away. Then he heard noises. The woman called 911 while the man, a former Lieutenant Colonel from the army, grabbed his AR-15 rifle from their bedroom closet and fired shots at the victim, who was on their pool deck with a flashlight, authorities said.
The sheriff said the flashlight made the homeowner think a burglar was entering his home. The husband fired two rounds through the sliding glass door, and the victim was hit by the glass.
He was unaware the victim had fled the backyard and fired additional rounds. He fired a total of 30 rounds in 90 seconds.
According to the sheriff’s office, the homeowner “acted within the law”, so no crime occurred.
The homeowner– who fired thirty rounds– will not face charges. “It was lawful but awful,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.
With even more tragic consequences, in the space of one week in April, four young, unarmed Americans were shot over simple, everyday mistakes: pulling into the wrong driveway, ringing the wrong doorbell, getting into the wrong car.
In one of these incidents, the woman, identified as Kaylin Gillis, was a passenger in a vehicle when a man, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan, fired two shots from his front porch. Blake Walsh, Gillis’ boyfriend, said he was driving the car the night they drove up the wrong driveway. He told NBC in a phone interview that he, his late girlfriend, and two friends were looking for a party. “We thought we were at the right address,” Walsh told NBC. “We didn’t have any cell service to figure it out. As soon as we figured out that we were at the wrong location, we started to leave, and that’s when everything happened.”
Cases like these have reignited the debate over self-defense and what justifies the use of deadly force in a country where gun violence is out of control.
In 2005 the state of Florida enacted a heightened Stand Your Ground law that not only adopted the standard definition of “ground” as any space, but made it, as they said, “in the law and absolute and irrevocable presumption that an individual who kills or harms another has acted in self-defense and cannot be prosecuted”.
This began the spread of a heightened Stand Your Ground law in many states that has changed the fundamental legal presumption.
If you make a Stand Your Ground claim, all you need to do is say I felt that I/my life was in danger, or that I was going to be grievously harmed. And that standard then places the burden on investigators, police prosecutors to try and make the case that No, you really didn’t face the threat to claim.
Couple this presumption, now enshrined in law, with the brutal reality that “The United States has the highest rate of guns per person, and is the only country with more guns than people” and you have a recipe for disaster. We should not be surprised that pulling into the wrong driveway, or showing up after hours to do the job you were hired to do, may result in death.
A user commenting on the Dunedin incident draws a distinction that should be self-evident:
The homeowner’s actions were completely unreasonable…he chose to open fire, without any justification. This is a clear case of reckless and irresponsible behavior, and the homeowner should be held accountable for his actions. The stand your ground and castle doctrine law is intended to protect people who use deadly force in self-defense. However, the law does not protect people who use deadly force in situations where there is no reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm.
One expert has called the enhanced Stand Your Ground Law “a license to kill,” and some people are eager to take advantage of it.
