Dispatcher: "OK. County 13 is advising that you can defend your property if you need to."
Jackson: "I don't want to have to kill this man, but I'll kill him graveyard dead ma'am."
Dispatcher: "I understand."
-An 911 operator explaining to 57-year-old Donna Jackson, of Cushing, Oklahoma, that she was within her rights to kill an intruder in her home. Which she then promptly did. "Police said they will not charge Jackson with a crime. Prosecutors said she was justified under Oklahoma's 'stand-your-ground' law." The main downside, it seems to me, is that, now that the intruder is dead, she'll never know why he was breaking in. I guess I just hate unanswered questions.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
78
Poor Santa.
This is what happens when you give a gun to Little Cindy Lou Who.
I want to move to OK and just call 911 all day shouting "here is something you can't understand!"
OMG. You can't just leave that hanging. It's like the "shave and a haircut..." thing in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Wow, this is making my brain itchy.
We can't afford Timberlands!
How much I really want a ham!
I'm ashamed to admit I know this song from the RATM version. I blame it on being 6 years old (and heavy into Dorothée) when it came out.
So they can get her instant legal advice but in more than 10 minutes they can't come up with anything this woman might do besides kill the guy? Top notch.
What else would you have suggested?
She couldn't have just winged him?
I know! Go for the kneecaps, is what I say.
That's a tough shot to ask of a frightened 57-year-old woman in the dark, and one that, with a shotgun, wouldn't necessarily keep the intruder from shooting back, though.
I'm kidding. I don't own a gun, and I would have just gotten the fuck out of the house. I'm a bacon-eating Canadian, they're welcome to my shitty computer and free dining set.
Yeah, I figured you were, but there are always people who really do wonder why the shooter didn't try to wing the shootee.
Dispatcher: "It's OK ma'am. It's OK."
Sorta like Chinatown I guess.
Needs more incest.
What's sad is that she didn't want to kill him. She waited several minutes on the phone, pleading with the operator to hurry, and then fired warning shots. The police didn't get there fast enough.
From the call transcription, it sounds as though intruder may have been insane or in a drug-induced rage.
A couple of years ago there was a break-in in my fairly densely populated neighborhood. The elderly gentleman owner had his head cut off by an intruder. The killer was caught a few days later trying to get on to the Paramount lot. Security turned him away but one of the guards recognized him from a police sketch and he was caught. Turned out he was on a drug bender.
Given how severely Oklahoma's been hit by methamphetamine, I suspect your assessment may be correct.
If there's one thing loves, it's a nice justifiable homicide. And ghoulishness.
Yeah, the woman in question didn't sound real excited about it, actually.
I think of it more as the intruder committed suicide. Much like suicide by cop. If you break into an occupied house in Oklahoma, you are as good as dead.
That's actually pretty much the law everywhere...
Though I guess you might be talking about the percentage of Oklahomans who are gun owners?
Both!
As not in favor of people getting shot as I am, I have to say that when you break into someone's home -- especially loudly, and especially in rural Oklahoma -- it's something you just have to accept might happen.
I get that The Awl's gimmick is being ever so snarky, but shitting on a woman for killing some lunatic who just broke down her door with a fucking patio table? It's like Bizzaro Limbaugh up in here. Effete much???
I'm not shitting on her. Where are you getting that?
And actually, "ever so snarky" is not our thing at all? I know that text is hard to read for tone, and we are often sarcastic, but I also suggest you're reading too fast. And reading things that aren't there.
Where I grew up, my dad had a shotgun under the bed, and we were told how to use it, for just this sort of situation--which happens rather uncommonly! But you never know.
He's got a script and he's sticking to it.
My dad had a shotgun in the closet. A very nice shotgun.
i hear those smilie things are good for indicating levels of seriousness.
Criticizing in French? That's just cold.
Um, it's really more about the asking permission from the 911 lady to enact the death penalty for trespassing. Dumb much?
Again, the law in (all?) jurisdictions is you don't have to "retreat" in your own home. If someone comes at you in your house & you fear for your life, killing the intruder is considered justified homicide. No "enact[ing] the death penalty for trespassing" glibness about it!
Stand your ground law is combined with "Castle Doctrine" law in a lot of gun-ownership-centric states. In some cases if you "feel" that even giving a warning will put you in danger you can just start cold shooting everyone in the room. The determination later about you being in that grave a danger is kind of based on your own account after, you know, everyone's dead.
I thought the whole point of stand-your-ground is that you don't have to feel in danger - the fact that someone is entering your home is enough reason to blast them. Which, to me, is bullshit. But that's a separate story.
Wasn't there a japanese exchange student offed in Louisiana because of such a mentality?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Hattori
It appears there was.
Stand your ground law/Castle Doctrine laws are mixed with "Deadly Force" rules in most places making it almost impossible to define ok/not ok in a widespread hypothetical. Stand your ground laws do not, generally, allow for you to shoot anything on your property for any reason. There has to be a reasonable assumption of physical harm to yourself or others to immediately make deadly force ok. But there are also differing rules of using such force to defend damage to/theft of property (meaning you can sometimes shoot somebody on your property to protect it.. e.g. arson).
I happen to know all this because I just took ND's conceal carry test more on which SOON....
It's pretty horrifying that the shooter in the Hattori case was acquitted. I wonder how much of that was because of how the law was written in Louisiana, and how much was a sympathetic jury. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Well I would hazard that this kid was Japanese and that the incident took place in 1992 during the height of a round of yellow peril fears had something to do with it.
AND if every poster in this thread doesn't steal the line "I'll kill 'em graveyard dead" for their next half finished novel, I'll be dipped in shit.
What novel? It's now part of my daily usage.
You too?
Novel-writing is sooo last month.
I'm using it for Twitter.
Is 'graveyard-dead' the homicide equivalent of 'rape-rape'?
Points!
I've heard graveyard-dead used in several contexts in Oklahoma. My driver's ed instructor used it to describe stopping completely at a stop sign - "Stop GYD, graveyard-dead."
I'm pretty sure this is why I don't break into people's houses, meanwhile.
911 is a joke.
Wait, what? I thought that song went "9/11 is a joke."
It works if you're 9 or 29!
Imagine having clearance to kill before the fact. Pretty unusual.
So I can kill the guy, but can I jizz on his body? I mean it's my house dammit.
Please reevaluate.
Whatever man. You try to rob me, they'll wheel your corpse out drippin like a popsicle on the Fourth of July.
Wilmer Cook: Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver.
Sam Spade: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?
If you go to newsok.com, you can find and listen to the 911 tape. Those wanting to judge ought to hear it.
http://www.newsok.com/multimedia/video/54313835001
"Oh, his family. Oh my."
Yes, listen to the tape.
I have chills. Oh my God. I would have been a hysterical wreck, and she stayed so calm.
That was awful.
She is so calm! I would have flipped!
"It's a patio door, it's not worth a nickel."
Holy shit!
Reading the full transcript just made me cry a little bit, so I think I'll refrain.
The best (meaning worst) part of that is the ad that runs before the call is for the gated community of Hidden Creek. Does that qualify as advertorial?
ALSO: Expect to see this case, along with the 911 call, used liberally by 2nd amendment/NRA groups. And it is hard to argue with in terms of a sane person using judicious reason, responsibly defending his/her home.
I have no problem with people owning guns. I have a problem with people owning Uzis and Bazookas.
Listening to the recording, it's a full 10 minutes before she fires the shotgun. I'm assuming this is a really rural area, because 10 minutes is an insanely long amount of time to wait for the cops.
It is reportedly rural--"six miles north of Stroud," which is a community of about 3,000. Sounds like the Sheriff's department are the first responders--over 20 minutes after the tape begins. The weather in the area that night sounds like nothing that made the roads bad.
My main questions revolve around that response time. I get it that there aren't deputies lurking in cornfields. But this is not THAT far from nearby communities, not with what's on the plate for the dispatcher.
The woman's anguish and fear are palpable. And, if I heard correct, the man outside is asking/pleading/acting crazy, seeking help. There's a dog threatening that he does not appear to attempt to harm.
With what I hear, I don't blame the woman one iota. But this has tragedy written all over it, from just about any angle you want to come at it from.
And when I hear the first NRAnick wave this around as a shining beacon of Constitutional Freedom I'll puke down his/her barrel.
Being from the area, I can note that it's actually fairly spread out. Couple that with cuts in state funding, and you probably have only a handful of Sheriff's making rounds throughout the country. Furthermore, a lot of rural areas like that (at least in Oklahoma) can be easy to get lost in, even if you're from there. (Directions can be like, "Take your second dirt road on the left and turn right at the third gate)
"I guess I just hate unanswered questions."
then life must be problematic for you.
i've heard an incident like this firsthand. i say 'heard' because i was 8 and and hiding in drawer at the time. i assure you, the memory of that fear does not recede with time.
unanswered questions are all there is.
Oh, God.
I have no words. I'm so sorry.
i apologize. i'm not trying to come off here as some sort of damaged sad. we were all ok afterwards. everyone else in my family jokes about it. but i was the youngest so maybe it just freaked me out a little more, i don't know.
i do know that i put hotel locks on all of our inside doors and alarms on my daughter's windows.
There isn't one rational person who would not be scarred by that.
I can name at least 3-4 really drunko nights when I thought I was getting back into 'the party' and was at another apartment or hotel door.
The result of the Hattori shooting surprised me. The kid was OUTSIDE Peairs's house. (If you think someone intends to harm you, and they're outside, STAY INSIDE!) There was no disparity of force - Peairs was WAY bigger than the kid. I don't see how he could have seen Hattori as a genuine threat.
But in this case, it seems fairly clear that this was a reasonable case of self-defense. If someone is breaking INTO your home (not merely trespassing on your property), you warn them: "Stay out of my home! I'm armed and will defend myself!*" Be loud. Be clear. If you can get that on the 911 tape, even better. If they keep coming, you have to assume they're going to do you harm; you already know that behaving within societal norms is not high on their list of priorities - at that point you must treat them as a clear and present threat to your well-being.
Some people will argue - "Hey! Why not just leave your house?" Why should you have to flee the safety of your home?! To accommodate someone who is either insane or a criminal (if not both)? What if they have an accomplice outside? You're putting yourself into a situation of potentially greater danger by leaving.
"She couldn’t have just winged him?"
"I know! Go for the kneecaps, is what I say."
I'm not sure if these were meant to be glib or serious, but in case of the latter...
You don't "shoot to wound." It's highly impractical, not to mention foolish. Trying to "wing" someone or simply wound them is entirely too difficult a shot to make in the heat of the moment. The hands, arms and legs are the fastest moving parts of the body and are small, narrow targets. And just shooting something in the arm or the leg doesn't necessarily stop them from harming you. When you have to shoot, you do so to end the immediate threat. The best chance for doing so is to shoot the assailant in the so-called "center of mass" - the chest. Lots of vascular tissue, important organs, and a very easy target that is typically lined up with the average person's instinctual point of aim. Such a shot also has a relatively high chance of killing the person, but what's the alternative? Let them harm you?
I admire this woman's preparedness and ability to react in the face of a terrifying situation. However, I do not envy her being in that situation - taking a human life is no easy thing, even when you're protecting your own.
* - Yeah, maybe this sucks for deaf burglars. But maybe they should find a new line of work.
Here here.
She's in an isolated area--obviously, because it takes the cops 20 minutes to get there, right?--she's 57 years old, and it's late at night. Plus, her only phone contact is from the one plugged into the wall.
If I can defend myself, no fucking way I'm leaving the house.
Again: if you listen carefully to the tape, I believe you'll hear the intruder say, at least once, "I need help" or "Help me." Not that you buy that if you're looking at a face screaming in your window at midnight, but it seems he and sis were probably hopped up and losing their grip, and this was the only place to seek aid. He didn't make himself clear, didn't just sit back and wait for the cops, too--
and so it ended. I feel really badly for this lady, based on what I heard on the tape. That is a heavy burden to now carry through life.