Haunted House Shooting
 

This is an interesting article from Columbus, OH area. Any thoughts about the legality of this?

Man Indicted in 'Spooky House' Shooting
Aug 31st - 10:25pm



COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A grand jury indicted a man Thursday on charges of felonious assault in the shooting of a teen who along with her friends was sneaking around outside his house on a ghost hunt.

Each count returned by the Franklin County grand jury against Allen Davis, 40, carries a sentence of three to eight years in prison. He is accused of firing a rifle from the house at a carload of girls after hearing them outside the night of Aug. 22. They considered the house spooky.

One of the girls, Rachel Barezinsky, 17, was shot in the head and critically injured but had improved to fair condition Thursday night at Ohio State University Medical Center, a nursing supervisor said.

Davis remained at the Franklin County Jail on $500,000 bond Thursday night. His arraignment was set for Friday morning.

In jailhouse interviews, he has admitted firing the rifle but said he didn't mean to hurt them. He said they were juvenile delinquents and shouldn't have been trespassing at the 66-year-old house, which sits across from a cemetery.

The girls and other high school students have gone out to cemeteries to hunt for ghosts before, the girl's father, Greg Barezinsky, has said.

...Legality of what? Shooting the girl in the head?

yeah. The guy was on his property and arguably 'defending' his home but he comes out shooting? It's kind of a sticky wickett. Maybe he thought he was being robbed? I don't know. Just kind of interesting. I've done similar things when I was young--trespass on 'haunted' property, it seems like the kind of thing a lot of kids do...no one ever got SHOT though.

And I wonder if this will make the house even MORE haunted and irresistable?

Oh, right, it was his property... I guess technically he could say he was defending it, but he KNEW it was just some annoying but harmless kids...

I thought some of the gun enthusiasts here would have an opinion about this. Guess they're all out shooting their guns!

Did he fire at them while they were in the car? The description of the actual incident isn't clear. A "carload" of girls, "after" he heard them "outside"

According to an earlier article, he said he "aimed at the tires." The girl who was shot was shot while she was IN the car---she had been on his property but got spooked and jumped back into the car. I guess you really can't call that 'defending your property' can you?

Well if she wasnt on his property, then... he's A.) a fuckhead and B.) in deeeeep shit.

So, if he shot "the tires" out, they wouldn't be able to leave, and then what ???

Well, if Teen Scream movies have taught us anything, it's that he would drag the victims back into his house for a night of terror that may involve a chainsaw.

Free him. Everyone knows teenaged girls are the ultimate evil.:shotgun:

If they were already off his property when the girl was hit then he's screwed, no two ways around it. But if they were on his property then he was within his rights to do what he did, we now know that it was teenage girls engaging in random acts of stupidity and illegality (tresspassing) but he could argue that it wasn't apparent at the time. Perhaps he's had problems with vandels and assumed it was more of the same, who knows. Property rights are property rights though, stay off the turf! :meanface:

i don't think you're allowed to shoot someone for trespassing. not in america, anyway. that's kind of frowned upon. I'm pretty sure they have to be inside your home and threatening you or your family for self defense to hold up. this guy? 'eees foooked.

I don't think they have to be inside, threatening you in your yard should be sufficient. :confused:

Depends on the state. Most states require that for use of deadly force you to be in fear of your life. Some states require that you retreat before shooting, showing that it was a "last resort."

There are states that allow for the assumption of danger from any intruder onto your property.

Ohio's Castle Doctrine law is still in committee.

A lot depends on what the girls were actually doing before the homeowner started shooting. If they were merely being annoying and were in a vehicle on the street, dude was guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. However, I do not know if the news story is accurate in describing the circumstances.

Well, this should add an interesting item to it's discussion.

What happens to someone breaking into a house is one thing. Shooting towards the street is public endangerment no matter what you are shooting at. If someone steps onto the grass in front of a house to avoid bumping into someone on the sidewalk, or walks on the grass because there is no sidewalk, are they automatically a target?

I am in full support of the Castle Doctrine... but I have not seen anything here that shows that he felt threatened in any way.
Also, if you are worried about someone on your property, what is the point of shooting out their tires? Don't you want them to leave?
If they are in the car and you want to scare them, shoot into the ground... or better yet, don't do anything and just wait for them to leave while calling the cops.
People are idiots.

speaking of spooky
 

This is the dude:
Attachment 9627 (Edit: guess when I copied I got the pic of the girl too. Unintentional)

Excerpts from another article:

Allen S. Davis, a 40-year-old man who lives at the house with his mother, said during a jailhouse interview that he was defending his home.

He admitted opening fire from his first-floor bedroom window after hearing the girls outside around 10 p.m. He said he repeatedly fired shots from a .22-caliber rifle.

"Did they threaten me?" he said. "No.

"I didn’t know what their weaponry was, what their intentions were," he said. "In a situation like that, you assume the worst-case scenario if you’re going to protect your family from a possible home invasion and murder."

Police said the girls were mischievous, but they weren’t even close to the house and hadn’t harassed Davis or his mother, Sondra, when he opened fire.

Two of the girls stayed in the car while the other three started up the concrete walk to the Davis home. They didn’t get far before turning around.

"One of the girls honked the horn to scare them," Francis said.

After they all were back in the car, the girls heard what they thought were firecrackers, but was gunfire instead. They made the mistake of circling the block, Francis said.

Davis said he fired again as they returned.

"To the best of my knowledge, that did the trick," he said. His mother, he said, was asleep upstairs, and he didn’t learn he’d hit someone until police arrived later.

Police said no one got out of the car the second time the girls drove past. They discovered that Barezinsky, in the front passenger seat, was shot as they drove off. The panicked girls headed for N. High Street, where they found police.

"I regret that (Barezinsky was shot)," he said. "However, I would ask, why was that teenage girl engaging in delinquent behavior?"

He said he and his mother didn’t notify police of the ongoing harassment because of their poor relationship with the city.

From jail, her son laughed at the legend that had brought five girls to his home.

"Wow, a haunted house, huh?

"Wow."

Dispatch staff reporterDean Narciso contributed to this story.

If you ask me, it's just another loser Norman Bates type who has no spine so he used a gun.

When I was young we drove by Crazy Mary's house once. She was glaring at us from the door. We just wanted to check the place out (she had hundreds of old toys, garden implements, etc hanging from her trees.) We didn't get out of the car, wouldn't have anyway, and drove off.

Kids are curious. Some adults are psycho.

So you see, the girls were merely driving by the second time when he opened fire. Can you say GIANT LOSER?

Is this where I'm supposed to rant about gun control? K.

He had the right to own a gun unless he was a felon or something. They might take it away now that he is alleged to have used it irresponsibly. Woot, America!

There are 2 lessons to be taken from this sad story:

1. You don't have the right to mess around with other people's stuff. This means you can't randomly visit their property in the middle of the night unless you are invited to do so.

2. If in the course of doing something stupid you find yourself injured or killed, it's nobody's fault but yours. The fact that a large percentage of the public will sympathize with you and try to blame the incident on any and every possible alternative cause doesn't change one fundamental truth:

You were doing something idiotic; that's why you got shot/eaten/run over/poisoned/diseased/drowned.

Instead of gun control, let's talk about self control.

So you never did anything silly when you were a kid?

So the guy has a right to shoot repeatedly as the car DROVE BY later?

I say take his gun and shove it up his pimply-faced, momma-livin', never-had-a-friend-because-he's-so-creepy, my-gun-is-my-penis ass.

The right to bear arms comes with a certain responibility to use it wisely; he admitted he didn't feel threatened.

Hell, I could feel threatened just looking at that fuck head, but I wouldn't shoot him over it.

he is a fucking Idiot !!!!!!!
A) they were NOT on his property ,
B) they were NOT threatening him , his mother , or their property
C) he is a FUCKING PSYCO that NEEDS to be sent away for a LONG time !!!

The Columbine kids were picked on until they snapped. I bet this guy is cut from the same cloth.

I think it's entirely possible that he has had to deal with a lot of people treating him poorly based just on his looks, and that has made him less tolerant of delinquents fucking with him. He says that this has been a recurring problem.

You should judge him for his actions, not based on how he looks. It's that kind of treatment from others that led to this.

He was wrong to shoot these girls. He belongs in jail. But we shouldn't be surprised that this happened. mrnoodle makes a lot sense here.

The lesson here is: don't repeatedly pick on someone because they are different and then be surprised when they snap.

I never would have judged him based on his looks alone had his actions not been those of a crazed lunatic. The fact that he is a freak was just a bonus. Snapped? That's why he was laughing in jail about the girls thinking the place was haunted? Yeah, really funny. Funny, funny stuff.

I know...he's just different, just has his own points of view. Let's make him a cop! :eyebrow:

Also, the Columbine kids had the common decency to shoot themselves.

Justifiable because he was "picked on"? Wah. Give me a fucking break.

Where did I say it was justifiable?

I said he belonged in jail for this.

OK, you are correct, you never said it was justifiable. But you agreed with the noodle, who said as much.

(I realize this is going to turn into one of those typical cellar semantics arguments, which is why I am conceding that I turned your words around. However, I still contend that you are implying that somehow the girls got what they ought to have expected. Because the guy was picked on? Because, since the beginning of time, teenagers act a little crazy sometimes? Sorry, that just doesn't hold water with me.)

Oh, and also, the guy said they had been bothered in the past, but never informed police of the ongoing harassment because of their poor relationship with the city.

What? They supposedly have been persecuted, but it's better to take the law into your own hands than have a paper trail proving the persecution? Like "I'm so mad but not mad enough to call the police, but if I get madder still I plan to shoot at them"? I'm guessing the "poor relationship" was over problems with the property, as other parts of the article said a neighbor said it was an overgrown mess.

Spooky is as spooky does.

A) the article says they were
B) he says they didn't threaten him directly, but that he didn't know their intentions, either. As the only person in this scenario who was minding his own damn business, he deserves to be heard out.
C) So, is that your perception, or a fact? Making snap decisions about people's intentions seems to be the order of the day...


One of my elderly relatives lives in a house in the woods in Mississippi, on the same "hill" as his brothers and sisters. He's delusional, and thinks that black people are always sneaking around his house leaving trash on the porch and trying to steal things. They aren't, of course. But if someone ever decided to skulk around that place at night -- for whatever reason -- they would get shot at. If they were particularly unlucky, he might even hit what he was aiming for, although this is an exceptionally rare occurrence.

Is he nuts? Probably. Racist? As the day is long. Armed? Without question. It seems like it would be a bad idea to rustle the bushes around his house, regardless of his criminal culpability in whatever happens next.

Those kids were where they weren't supposed to be, and something bad happened. That's not an excuse for shooting people, it's a case study in cause and effect.


Edit:
ATTENTION PEOPLE WHO LACK COMPREHENSION SKILLS:
mrnoodle did not justify the shooting. He simply noted that people who drive around the block, honk the horn, walk up to people's houses, and act like idiots in the wee hours of the night are probably going to find trouble somewhere, and are not free from responsibility for their actions.

Edit 2:
CLARIFICATION:
The weird guy who shot a .22 out of his bedroom window to scare away a carload of teenagers is also an idiot. I repeat, the shooter was wrong.

Edit 3:
So, I'm not in favor of people getting shot.

K?

So I guess it would be ok for me to shoot at the folks that cut the corner short on the road and cross into my property ??

YeeHaaaw !!!! Movin Targets !!!!! Lets get some ammo !!!!

What I am saying is if he had walked out on the porch and fired a couple of warning shots he would have been in the right , but NO he had to shoot AT them !!!

Oh and it would Probley be a good thing if you disarmed that crasy relitive .

Oh, Mr McNoodle...do not accuse me of poor comprehension skills. I did not attack your intelligence, or lack thereof. I said you said "as much." Here we get into semantics arguments again. Let me rephrase: you implied that the girls got what they should have expected. Not free from responsiblity for their actions, true enough. Give them a ticket, a warning, call their folks...something like that might have happened if the man didn't have a "poor relationship with the city" and had called police. He may have even set a precedent if he had notified authorities, taken license plate numbers, filed complaints...sent the message that he would not tolerate people screwing with his life. He could have had an initial spine, or balls if you will, rather than wait to snap. Instead, a young lady is laying with a bullet in her head.

But I'm sure our shooter's comprehension of that situation, or any other situation, is impeccable. He's a damn reasonable human being. Arm all the lunatics, I say. Hopefully I won't accidentally jaywalk.

What if a person who is nuttier than the shooter had wandered into his yard? Or, what if my grandmother with Alzheimers had been confused and wandered into his yard? She should pay because he was persecuted so terribly by a bunch of curious kids?

Wow.

[quote=mrnoodle]
A) the article says they were
B) he says they didn't threaten him directly, but that he didn't know their intentions, either. As the only person in this scenario who was minding his own damn business, he deserves to be heard out.
C) So, is that your perception, or a fact? Making snap decisions about people's intentions seems to be the order of the day...QUOTE]


A) the article said they had gone partway into his yard, then ran back to the car. When he shot at them they were driving by in their car.
B) and C) So, the snap decisions of a guy putting bullets in kid's heads is OK, but us supposing he's a nut is not? Good thing I don't go around shooting people I perceive to be bonkers.

Unless they're in your house. Then, I recommend as large a caliber as you can handle accurately and safely. There are probably local firearm safety classes that can help you with any questions you might have.

Oh, unless you live in a country where The Government Has Done Something About The Gun Problem.

In that case, you're already perfectly safe. :worried:



Oh, did you guys hear about the guy who was swimming around with what should have been a harmless stingray and got stabbed in the heart? Something's got to be done about stingray barbs before more innocents are lost.

They weren't in his house, numnuts. :rattat:

And he didn't "go around shooting people".

I call a draw :D

Being "in" a house is a pretty concrete thing. You are either in a house, or you're not.

You know very well that "going around" is a figure of speech, but as semantics are your best defense, I'll take your draw. ;)

This thread was just getting good and now you two are going to stop? Sheesh.

;)

(better put winky smilie in so noodle doesn't think I'm being caustic)

Conflict makes my head hurt. :) (I could just shoot him!) :p

JUST KIDDING

Pre-emption: they might be a threat. Therefore attack them before they do threaten. No different from what George Jr promotes when he says we must kill all those in a world wide terrorist network before they can become terrorists. Some believe George Jr is correct and moral.

Pre-emption: those girls might be a threat. Therefore a home occupant has every right to fire a gun in defense.

Is there a "Godwin's Law"-type definition for when you turn a not-about-Bush thread into an about-Bush thread?

Maybe we need a "flypaper strategy" for teenage girls. Maybe a permanent boy-band concert?

That's like begging for an increase in gun violence.

Both events go right to the heart of each person's morality and ability to think logically; ignore silly emotions. Both events involve a same fundamental grasp of reality. Where is the difference between pre-emption at a presidential level and pre-emption on your own sidewalk? Both events challenge your morality, test your ability to decipher reality from emotional bias, and imply whether you are an extremist or an honest, decent, intelligent, sane, and secure person.

Would those so extremist as to justify unilateral international invasion also sanction gn use to defend a sidewalk? In both cases, use of deadly force was warranted only by a perceived and fictional threat. Why must I lay out the irony step by step? That is a threat? Of course not. Those are events that might precede a threat. Same reasoning, ironically, justified 'Pearl Harboring' of Iraq and is currently being used to declare war on a 'worldwide network of international terrorists'. An honest person cannot, for one minute, ignore that rancid reality - the sardonic similarities of both events. In both cases, a threat did/does not exist. But one with a big gun entertained his fears; speculated the existence of a fictional threat.

Again, I should not have to demonstrate the sardonic similarity of both events nor detail how Cellar dwellers respond to similar events. Some think logically perceive the irony - immediately. Same irony might escape those who respond first with emotion. An irony so obvious that this post should be unnecessary.

Save it for Sunday, Padre. :rolleyes:

The guy's a wacko. He's got no business shooting out the window at possible threats.

But, I agree with noodle that the girls had no business screwing around the guys house. If one of the girls hadn't honked the horn and caused them to bolt back to the car, what had they planned on doing? Roaming around a strangers property at night is pretty stupid. They don't know if there's wackos, dogs, attack roosters or bear traps. If the yard is fairly flat....there could be snakes on the plain.

That is really funny, xob. Thanks!

Well, at least the girl who was shot didn't give up the ghost. :ghost:

That is funny!

I agree that the girls shouldn't have been roaming around the house. But again I ask...what crazy things did you do when you were young and you felt immortal? Sometimes I'm amazed I survived, and I was a fairly good kid. Do you feel you did anything that you deserved to get shot over?

The fact that the guy's defense was continued persecution by evil teenagers, but failing to ever, not even once, report the activity to authorities, negates any credibility that he felt threatened enough to fire at will (or whatever her name was.)

Yep, wacko alright!

You didn't answer my question... :stickpoke

I don't understand who you are arguing with.

Everyone in this thread has said that the guy shouldn't have shot at the girls.

Everyone who has weighed in on the girls' actions, including you, has said that the girls were wrong to be there that night.

We are all in agreement.

This statement is the tip of an iceberg, with red flags on top.

I'm not arguing, I'm reiterating. Clarifying, if you will. Sorry if it took .000254 off the lifespan of your eyeballs.:right:

Sucks to be his mail carrier.:greenface