Less than a year since it took effect, Florida’s new “Stand Your Ground/Kill at Will” law has been used to justify killing at least six men and wounding at least four others. The good news is one of them was actually armed.
The Orlando Sentinel examined the fallout from the NRA-backed statute, which allows anyone who says they feel threatened to shoot to kill. The paper researched court records from five of the law’s eight months on the books.
The law is all about fear, and acting based upon it. In fact, without clear evidence of some other emotion being involved, specifically “anger, frustration, or malice,” police can only investigate -— not detain or arrest — the trigger-happy. But don’t get the wrong idea, says one of the gunmen.
“You’re not talking about freaks and geeks slinging guns around like Dirty Harry…” said [Michael] Brady, 43, of Winter Haven, who in April killed a stranger who was threatening him with his fist. “I do believe in Americans having a right to protect themselves, but strapping [pistols] on their hips and going back to Western days — absolutely not.”
The Sentinel’s main finding was that there is a huge variation in the way the law is applied and cases are handled from county to county and from suspect to suspect.
In one case, for instance, an off-duty Maitland police officer was arrested after shooting and wounding his host and another guest at a Jan. 15 party near Casselberry.
Despite claiming he feared for his life, Daniel Metevier was jailed by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office on two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.
The charges were dropped two months later…Metevier provided his medical records to prove he underwent knee surgery shortly before the shooting. He claimed he was unable to defend himself, partly because of the injury, without resorting to deadly force…
“I wasn’t so inebriated I didn’t know my name. I was thinking logically,” Metevier said.
Goes without saying.
In many cases, a decision is made on the spot that a shooting falls under the “Kill Whoever You’re Afraid Of” rule, and rather than send a detective to investigate, cops at the scene are just told to mail the paperwork later.
[One] agency’s on-call detective told deputies at the shooting scene to forward their reports to the State Attorney’s Office for review. Carlos Avilez, 15, was suspected of attempting to steal a car near Orlando when the owner’s husband opened fire with a 9 mm pistol, hitting the teenager in the back of the leg. A witness told deputies the teen may have been shot as he was fleeing.
“I don’t see how he could have been afraid of my son when he had a gun and shot him running away,” said Carlos’ mother, Maria Avilez. Her son pleaded guilty to breaking into the car.
The only account from the shooter, Michael Graham, 34, is a brief, barely legible statement saying he felt threatened by the teen.
“I’ll pass,” said Graham, when asked to describe what happened.
Now you’re showing some judgement, Mikey.
Ten other states have followed Florida’s lead and adopted this wrong-headed law, and five more are considering it. And that suits the National Rifle Association just fine, according to:
…former NRA President Marion Hammer, one of Florida’s most powerful lobbyists in Tallahassee. “Nobody has the right to decide what’s in your mind and heart when you’re under attack. So the important thing is to make it more dangerous for the attacker than the victim.”
Or to put it another way, to make it more dangerous for the unarmed 15-year-old than the fear-crazed vigilante with the gun.
