Retired cop guns down man for texting at Florida movie

He's not condoning the shooting but he is justifying it. I can agree the guy was a jerk but being a jerk isn't a capital offense. Crashs whole argument comes down to saying the victim was the one primarily to blame. Ie blaming the victim. Maybe you find that understandable but I find that very disturbing.

Also sinc the golden rule has been brought up the golden rule though does include proportionality. Throwing popcorn in someone's face isn't nice but shooting someone because of it isn't exactly do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.

Finally I am just going to add that we don't know all the facts of this case so I will reserve judgement until more is known.

 

You can't be serious...... I know people take exception to non-parents telling parents how to raise their kids... but, here we have an example of a non-parent telling parents to give up on their personal lives... Yeah, that'll make for a healthy marriage... which, as we know, can have an effect on the children spawned from the union....

 

That's exactly my point- we've all been rude to someone, somewhere, without provocation. Anyone that says no is probably lying. So, the moral is, if you're rude, you deserve to die? If the man struck the old man, I could have understood. But the witness was literally 2 seats away from them, and even he said both were arguing. This wasn't some old man asking politely for the guy- he said BOTH were arguing.

And to be honest, I don't care if the young guy called the old man every name in the book- excuse yourself, insist that the manager come in (very suspicious about whether he even called the manager- when I went to see American Hustle at the Woodlands Theatre 2 weeks ago, there were 4 teenage girls sitting in the aisle so they could see better- which prevents a fire hazard- as I was going to get my Milk Duds- b/c you gotta have MDs and Mr. Pibb, right, people? - I told the person to tell the manager there were people sitting in the stairway. Manager got there before I did), I mean, geez, if the young guy is verbally harassing you, friggin go into the lobby and call the cops, for Christ's sake- it is very shocking how much some of us accept being shot for rudeness.

 

I can't believe the things people are posting in this thread.

The thing I read is that the man texting was in the FRONT ROW, and the old man was in the BACK ROW. IT WAS DURING THE PREVIEWS. WHO THE EFF CARES?!?! The old guy endangered how many other people to prove his deadly point?(The rows may not be accurate, per a poorly worded article)

If it's during the movie, and management won't remove the texter, I think it's time to ask for your money back, not start a confrontation with someone in the theater. Much less, why would you bring a gun into a theater?

It's sad and unfortunate. The old man will probably plead dementia. Anti-gun people will make a big deal out of this. Pro-gun people will plead that the guy that got killed should have armed himself. America will continue to operate on the verge of idiocy...

 

Any person that resorts to use of deadly force over having something thrown at them that poses no threat to their well-being, is really an overall incapable coward with deep psychological issues... that likely fester in his overall incapable cowardice...

Anyone that condones this... is likely not too far removed from that description...

Unfortunately, considering recent events... No matter what information may be revealed to the public later on... Nothing will surface that will contribute to any justification for this horrible act...

 

Oh, this isn't the worst- in the comments below the quotes I got from that Yahoo! article, it was about 3/4 cheering the guy and 1/4 horrified at their responses. Just goes to show how utterly insecure we are and that we can't distinguish justifiable from unjustifiable actions.

 

From the reports it said the situation happened very fast. I am guessing that the off duty officer in the theater would've intervened if there had been time.

 

One would hope that we don't live in a society where we have to constantly live in fear that someone might shoot us if we offended them in some way.

 

I couldn't have happened that fast. As an off duty officer as soon as people stand up and start yelling at each other they should flash the badge and tell them to sit down.

 

Exactly. I've been rude in this thread to that Crash poster. So, I deserve to be verbally abused, or disciplined, or banned- or, maybe a smack across the chops- I'd accept that. But I'm praying hard right now that one of the moderators doesn't hunt me down and shoot me.

 

Uhh, no. Have you watched the news lately? They rapin' errbody out here.

And besides, sounds like the victim did more than offend the shooter, he picked a fight with him.

Did he deserve to die? No.

Was this a situation largely of his own making that could have been avoided if he'd just done the polite, reasonable, and rule-mandated thing and left the theater to text someone? Yes.

 

That doesn't make any sense. A more comparable situation would be to honk and flick somebody off for driving too slow. When you act like that you put yourself at risk because you don't know who you just did that to. I guess I'm more about self accountability on what I can do to keep me out of those situations.

 

Absolutely. Any other scenario and I would've said, "That guy deserved to be (punched, banned, etc.). Any other scenario. Except death. Personally, I just blow s**t off. I can tell you that, several times in the 80s and 90s, I was in a situation where I could've escalated a situation physically, mainly in bars like Numbers, Red Square, and Wild West. Mainly b/c I had a hotheaded (former) friend who would start crap with people. You just learn to buy both parties a drink, get the **** away, or call a manager if the person continues to be a ****. Or leave- I left Midnight Rodeo once b/c some douche was being that way to me. I mean, he was drunk and the ****er knocked into me- yet he was being a horse's ass. You just gotta leave in those situations.

Again, any other scenario and this is all about the obnoxious texter. Death is like the royal flush in these situations, trumps everything.

 

I was wondering about the same thing. People with kids rarely go to a theater to watch a movie without the kid.

But what does this have to do anything?

 

Since we are onto jerk laws. Don't call movie theater manager or any kind of manager, the poor guy seemed to lose it over that.

 

So when he got hit with popcorn did he think 'stand my ground'...?

He WAS a cop.

 

Well, we do live in a society that clearly holds the victim's course of action more accountable in situations like this than the actual perpetrator of the crime...

 

Will you take sympathy on the shooter if he gets the death penalty?

 

No it wasn't, because the response was completely out of proportion and that was unforeseeable. Maybe a bit less so in the USA than in most other parts of the civilized world, but still. The argument was something both contributed to, but as soon as the situation involved a gun, no, that was not at all of his own making, that was 100 % of the crazy old murderer's making.

All the people, including B-Bob, who say "he could have avoided it if he hadn't acted like a jerk" totally overlook that.

And to say "he didn't say he deserved to die"...but just by focusing on the guy's texting rather than on the completely irrational, crazy, violent, out of proportion response, people are showing that their values are out of whack.

I can't even believe that people would focus on the guy's behavior, rather than on the guy who murdered him. It's insane.

Good post. When I kept reading that stuff about the golden rule, I was just shaking my head. First of all, that applies to both people as far as the argument is concerned and I am sure the golden rule applies a whole lot more to DON'T SHOOT OTHERS DEAD OVER A PETTY ARGUMENT IF YOU DON'T WANT THE SAME DONE TO YOU.

 

Did the cop get his money back at least?