The Wild, Wild West, Florida Style
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“The wild West never died – it just retired and moved to Florida”
-Carl Hiassen-
Kids my age grew up on on cowboy movies on that new fad: the Television. The Wild West, according to the Gospel of Hollywood was the home of certain knights on horseback: Paladins with a code of ethics and chivalry that was sometimes called the Code of the West.
I suspect the reality was a bit different and the product of dime novels and movie screen writers, but as I knew it; worshiping the 10″ screen on the family’s new Admiral console on a Friday evening, the Code precluded shooting a man in the back. It was worse than stealing a horse which was a hanging offense of course.
A lifetime later I’m still disturbed at the decision not to prosecute a local shopkeeper for homicide after he shot a minor who had stolen some jewelry from his store. The kid fled the store and was already under way in the getaway car when the owner, a retired New York detective, grabbed his Glock, ran out and fatally shot him from behind.
Shooting on a busy street already seems unacceptably risky to my non legally trained mind, and shooting and apparently unarmed someone in the back would – and I’m sure Gene Autry or Hoppalong Cassidy or even ol’ Palladin would unanimously have agreed – be disallowed by the code of the West and any Judge would have agreed.
Not the State Attorney’s office. You see the robbery was “still in progress” and under Florida Law that makes the fact moot that the kid was inside a fleeing car and no longer a danger. No charges of homicide will therefore be made.
Sure there may be other charges regarding the shooting and some Florida firearms laws are a bit difficult to understand to a civilian who learned his law in a fictitious Dodge City. But one isn’t standing one’s ground when pursuing an unarmed robber: One is using deadly force to recover stolen property. One is seeking vengeance.
All I can to is ask myself is “What would Marshal Dillon do?” The answer is crystal clear. It’s the Code of the West – Southern Style. You shoot to kill because a bracelet is a terrible thing to lose.
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Some time ago, in response to angry rhetoric about Florida’s “lax” gun laws I bothered to download and read it. Perhaps “lax” is another word for confusing or even contradictory, because it confuses the hell out of me. Why it should be illegal to tell someone you have a gun as a means to get him to back off, but not illegal to shoot him in the back as he runs away I can’t understand. He could easily have hit someone else.
There has been a dude showing up at a waterfront park in Stuart carrying a fishing rod and an AK. Needless to say people tend to leave when he shows up, but a Florida statute allows open carry if you’re fishing or going to or from the old fishing hole. We also now have (thank you Rick Scott) a law forbidding towns or counties to pass gun legislation more restrictive than the State laws. We can’t make it illegal so unless he breaks some other law, walking on the grass maybe, he gets to stay.
Deadwood by the sea.
Glenn, there is a very similar case going on in, I believe it is Lakeland, Florida. A young man was in some type of outdoor store and was, according to the owner, shoplifting a knife hidden in his waistband. The owner was holding him at gunpoint when the young man pulled away and was trying to escape. As he was clearly pulling away from the owner said owner shot and killed him on the sidewalk at the front door of the store. The store owner is charged with second degree murder and is living under house arrest after making a substantial bond. The value of the knife being stolen was $9. The store owner is the husband of a friend of a friend of mine. It seems that Florida is indeed the wild, wild west that have trouble interpreting their own laws. I find this entire process so weird that it is no longer close to being a joke. We once had fairly settled law on this. If it was a property crime and there wasn’t clear evidence that the person presented a threat to the officer or to the community it was a don’t shoot situation. Now it is “Stand your ground” even if the person is trying their best to get away from your ground, or if you say “Boo!” to someone you are presenting a life threatening threat to them. Jeremy Bentham once wrote that the purpose in making law was to cause the least amount of harm to be done. Well, so much for the “Basic Principles of Making Laws” I guess.