Recently, an armed homeowner shot and seriously wounded a
person who illegally trespassed on his gated property around two in the
morning. Sounds like a clear case of self-defense to me. But when I heard that
the homeowner is being accused of attempted second degree murder for shooting
an intended burglar, I got upset. Since when can we not protect our family and
home?
Louisiana has very strong and clear self defense laws to
protect people trying to protect themselves. These laws are considered the
Louisiana Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground Laws. (RA 14:19-20, RS
9:2800.19) In a nutshell, these laws grant a Louisiana citizen under attack the
right to protect their person and property using any force necessary without
having to retreat. Given this and the facts that I am aware of, the homeowner
was well within his right to use force, the gun, to prevent the impending
attempted robbery, a felony offense. The robber jumped a fence at two a.m., rousing the family
dog that started barking which alerted the homeowner that someone was outside
in his private yard. Given the circumstances that night and recent instances of
property theft, the homeowner had a reasonable fear for the safety of his self
and his family. Therefore, when the intruder continued onto the private
property after being forewarned by the barking dog, the homeowner fired one
round at a distance of 30 feet to stop the intruder. By my interpretation of
the statues, the homeowner was within his rights to shoot at the intruder. One
might argue that the force used was not “reasonable” against an unarmed
suspect. However, to counter, one might argue that the force was indeed “apparently
necessary” given the unknown fact of if the burglar had a weapon or not while
he posed a threat to the family.
One of the many questions that have arisen from this
incident is: where were the teen’s parents? Yes, that's right. A fourteen year old was the burglar in this situation. Surprised? As seems to be the case in much of
the crime committed by inner-city youth, the teen intruder came from a broken
family of eight children raised by the mother and the eldest son, 23, in
a low socio-economic setting. As many would agree, this does not sound like a
recipe for a happy and healthy upbringing. There are many factors that, if
changed, could have affected this teen. What if his father was still at home?
What if he didn’t have so many siblings? What if he had a part-time job or a
youth group to keep him positively occupied? Pastor Christiana Ford seems to
thing this is the solution: to put the blame into someone else’s hands for the
problems of the youth. While I agree that having jobs and church programs could
certainly help, I disagree that this lack is where the problem lies. All problems
that people exhibit can be traced back to the parents and parenting style, or
lack thereof. Studies have proven time and again that a majority of low income
children have very little future respectable prospects in life and get caught
in the norm of violence around them. Occasionally, one kid will shine through,
one kid whose parent(s) made an effort to truly be a part of their child’s life
and encourage them to be more. I believe that if more parents could take that
extra step, no matter how small, we would see less juvenile, and therefore adult,
crime.
This entire situation is tragic. A good man protecting his
family is accused of attempted murder. A teen with a troubled past is in
critical condition because no one taught him now to be good. Both these persons
and their families’ lives have been changed because of this incident which
should never have come to happen. We as a community need to do more. We need to
educate ourselves about the self-defense laws. And we need to hug our children
while telling them how much they are loved. Change starts with you. Only until
after you change yourself can you change another.
I support Merritt Landry.
Links and Further Reading:
