The Responsible Gun Owners Thread (Media Stories)

The 'there is black people in the neighborhood'


Man charged with fatal shooting after 'hoodlums' complaint
By JONATHAN DREW and TOM FOREMAN Jr. , Associated Press
Aug. 8, 2016 11:00 PM ET

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A white man who apparently called police to complain about "hoodlums" near his house was charged with murder after he shot and killed a black man outside, authorities said.

The shooting happened early Sunday morning when 39-year-old Chad Cameron Copley fired a shotgun from inside his garage and hit the victim, according to a Raleigh Police Department news release. He was arrested hours later, and jail records show the suspect was being held on a murder charge.
Kouren-Rodney Bernard Thomas, 20, suffered a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at a hospital. Police spokeswoman Laura Hourigan said Thomas was black.
A male relative who answered the phone Monday at a listing for members of the victim's family said they weren't doing well.
"We're broken apart torn apart, not doing well. Trying to get our lives back on track the way it was but it's hard. We lost somebody very special to us," said the man, who hung up before giving his name.
Police released an audio recording of a 911 call that came in shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday in which a male caller tells a dispatcher that he's "locked and loaded" and preparing to go outside. Saying there are people outside with guns, he tells the dispatcher he is on neighborhood watch and asks them to send police.
"We've got a bunch of hoodlums out here racing," he says. "I am locked and loaded. I'm going outside to secure my neighborhood."
The dispatcher then attempts to get a numeric address for the caller, but he declines and hangs up.
About seven minutes later, an upset female caller gives the dispatcher an address that authorities would later identify as Copley's house. The dispatcher asks what happened.
"I don't know. I'm upstairs with our children," the female caller says.
She then gives the phone to what sounds like the same male caller from earlier.
"We have a lot of people outside of our house yelling and shouting profanity. I yelled at them 'please leave the premises.' They were showing firearms so I fired a warning shot," he says. "And, uh, we got somebody that got hit."
After the dispatcher asks if someone was shot, the male caller responds: "I don't know if they're shot or not. I fired my warning shot like I'm supposed to by law. ... They do have firearms and I'm trying to protect myself and my family."
After the dispatcher asks who was outside, the caller says: "There's black males outside my freaking house with firearms."
Hourigan said state law prohibits the police from releasing the identity of emergency callers.
Copley lives in a subdivision in the northeastern stretches of the city where tidy two-story homes sit on tree-shaded lots. The surrounding Census tract is about 60 percent white and almost 30 percent black, with a median household income of about $76,000 — well above the state as a whole, according to 2014 Census estimates.
The news release says Thomas was among people who were outside of Copley's home, but Hourigan declined to elaborate on where he was when he was shot.
Two people who called 911 tell the dispatcher that the shots came from inside the house, with one giving the address for Copley.
"Someone just got shot," one of the callers says. "Someone shot him out of his house."
A dispatcher tells another caller not to move the victim as commotion and profanity can be heard in the background.
"Tell him help's already on the way," the dispatcher says.
Police announced Copley's arrest on a murder charge Sunday afternoon.
Copley appeared before a judge during a short hearing Monday, and he was denied bail. The Capital Defender's Office said it hadn't assigned an attorney to Copley's case as of Monday afternoon.

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2016/A-white-man-has-been-charged-with-murder-in-the-shooting-death-of-a-black-man-after-apparently-calling-911-to-complain-about-hoodlums-outside-his-house/id-e6acddc4df1b42c9b51102c2e3a2aa97

 

‘The stop-smoking pill made me do it': Man found not criminally responsible for shooting wife

The smoking-cessation drug Chantix has now played a crucial role in a second violent crime. On Monday, a Maryland man was found not criminally responsible for shooting his wife in the neck in their home in 2014 because he was found to be suffering from “involuntary intoxication” due to Chantix. His wife survived.
Last year, an Army soldier, who brutally stabbed another soldier to death in 2008, won a new hearing because the judge in his original trial refused to let him put on an involuntary intoxication defense. The soldier claimed that he was so neurologically disturbed by Chantix that he was not aware of what he was doing. A military court then reduced his sentence from life without parole to 45 years.
Involuntary intoxication is not a new defense, but as we discussed on the True Crime blog in May, it is having more success in courts across the country. Last year in St. Paul, Minn., a woman charged with trying to kill and assault her two small children was released when prosecutors decided that the charges could not stand “in light of the defendant’s involuntary intoxication at the time of the charged incident.” A Columbia, Mo., woman who was convicted of causing a fatal wreck while driving the wrong way on Interstate 70 has been granted a new trial because she may have been secretly given a “date rape” drug before taking the wheel.
The defense did not work in Fairfax County, Va., in May, where a man who had invaded another lawyer’s home, took the lawyer and his wife hostage and then stabbed and shot them, later claimed that his prescribed cocktail of pain and psychiatric medications made him involuntarily intoxicated. A jury disagreed, convicted Andrew Schmuhl and sentenced him to two life sentences plus 98 years.
In Carroll County, Md., lawyers for Keith E. Sluder, 44, appear to be the second ones to specifically invoke Chantix for a successful involuntary intoxication defense. In November 2014, according to the Carroll County Times, Sluder awoke his wife and told her they had to go to his mother’s house. When she followed him up the stairs, he shot her once and tried to shoot her again, but the gun malfunctioned. When a sheriff’s deputy arrived and pointed his gun at Sluder, police said he tried to grab the deputy’s gun. The deputy did not shoot him.
Sluder’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenburg, argued at Sluder’s hearing that Chantix caused Sluder to have a chemical imbalance. And prosecutors in New Carroll essentially did not argue with that, which would tend to indicate that their mental health expert examined Sluder and came to the same conclusion. The prosecutors allowed Sluder to enter an Alford plea to assault, and they dropped two counts of attempted murder.
Carroll County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Stansfield found Sluder not criminally responsible for the assault charge and ordered him released from custody Monday, according to the Carroll County Times. The Times reported that the shooting victim and her family pleaded with the judge not to release Sluder, but the judge said he was bound by the definition of not criminally responsible. The family reportedly was not happy with the decision.
Pfizer, the maker of Chantix, has denied that the drug has any neuropsychiatric effects. But McClatchy News Service reported in 2014 that more than 2,000 people had joined in lawsuits against Pfizer for various psychiatric problems, including suicide and suicidal thoughts. Pfizer settled most of them for an estimated total of at least $299 million, McClatchy reported.
These recent developments were greatly troubling to the family of Rick Bulmer, who was an Army recruit at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2008. While Bulmer slept in his bunk one night, Pfc. George D.B. MacDonald suddenly attacked him with a knife, slashed his throat and killed him for no reason. He claimed that the smoking cessation drug had made him delusional. A jury in 2009 convicted him of murder and sentenced him to life without parole.
But in 2014, MacDonald was granted a rehearing because of revelations about Chantix, which he hadn’t been allowed to pursue at trial. McClatchy reported that one week after the judge in MacDonald’s case refused to compel Pfizer to respond to a subpoena, the FDA issued a “black box” warning on Chantix because of its potential for “serious neuropsychiatric” problems. It is the most serious warning a medication can carry and still be sold.
Bulmer’s family was outraged at the case being reopened, McClatchy reported in 2015. “It’s a mindblower, and we don’t understand it,” said Bulmer’s mother, Wendy Smith. “He cold-bloodedly killed my son. He knew what he was doing and … he should take his punishment.”
A plea deal resulted in a guilty plea to a reduced charge of unpremeditated murder. His sentence was reduced to 45 years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/08/09/the-stop-smoking-pill-made-me-do-it-man-found-not-criminally-responsible-for-shooting-wife/

 

The 'solving marital problems'

SINKING SPRING, Pa. (AP) — A couple featured in news stories about their difficulties getting medication for a daughter who had a heart transplant were found shot to death in their home along with their three children in apparent murder-suicide, authorities said.


District Attorney John Adams said a handwritten note that "appeared to be a 'murder-suicide' note" was found in the family's Sinking Spring home Saturday afternoon. Police said they found all five dead of gunshot wounds and a handgun near one of the adults, but they didn't say which one or say who they believe was the shooter.
"This is an apparent tragic domestic incident," Adams said Sunday. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families at this difficult time."
Police went to the home to check on the welfare of the family after receiving a call from a relative concerned that the woman had not shown up for a lunch date. Mark Short Sr., 40; Megan Short, 33; and their children — 8-year-old Lianna, 5-year-old Mark Jr., and 2-year-old Willow — were found dead in the living room, Adams said. A dog also was found dead.
The district attorney's office said the married couple had been having "domestic issues." In an April 13 post on Philly at Heart , Megan Short wrote of her emotional struggles over her child's condition.
When only days old, Willow had a heart transplant for a congenital defect. Her family was featured in articles in The Reading Eagle in 2014 and in The New York Times last year about her condition and the Shorts' difficulties obtaining anti-rejection medication for her.
In the post on the website devoted to families dealing with congenital heart issues, Megan Short said anxiety over her daughter's condition had left her with post-traumatic stress disorder. She said she suffered from "anxiety and nightmares" triggered by smells, hallways or even the beeping sound of a phone. She also said she experienced "survivor's guilt" when children with similar problems from other families passed away.
"I don't think PTSD ever truly goes away but, with therapy, medication, and the right support, I have begun to loosen its grip on me," she said. "As I work on my own mental healing, I wanted to share my experience so that other heart parents know they are not alone."

 

That is only today's news and maybe there will be more.

 

http://www.turnto23.com/news/national/tennessee-girl-gets-off-bus-and-tells-parents-shes-been-shot

11 year old shot by dad after school

 

You are in the wrong thread.

 

Ummm how?

I think maybe i am in the right thread but you didnt read any of the posts and don't realize the title is facetious?

 

The guy in your story was a felon and not supposed to have a gun to begin with. So he was not a "responsible gun owner".

 

Oh, OK.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKE8_FO6utY

 

Would-be robber with an AK-47 was stopped by a pistol wielding CCW permit holder

http://www.personaldefenseworld.com/2016/07/dallas-robber-with-ak-47-shot-by-concealed-carrier/

 

From Paducah, Kentucky...

Jeffrey Conrad, who was charged with the murder of Casey Cox on June 8, 2015, has been sentenced to 7-1/2 years in prison, after the jury returned a guilty verdict on a lesser charge of 2nd degree manslaughter. Conrad says he saw a burglary in progress – of his property - and tried to stop Casey Cox and Brandon York from getting away. Conrad fired his pistol, hitting Cox in the head.

http://www.westkentuckystar.com/News/Local-Regional/McCracken-County/Conrad-Sentenced-to-7-1-2-Years-in-Prison.aspx