13 WTHR Indianapolis
Guns Save Lives – by Dan Cannon
A Portland, Indiana man has been found guilty on the charge of criminal recklessness resulting in serious bodily injury. That’s a felony which carries an 18 month prison sentence with it.
David McLaughlin claims that when he opened fire on David A. Bailey he feared for his life due to hand movements Bailey made after McLaughlin told him to stop at gunpoint.
According to The Star Press,
Defense attorney Jill Gonzalez said her client — alerted by an alarm to an early morning break-in at his detached garage last April 21 — had no way of knowing if the intruder he encountered in his backyard was armed.
“This happened in a matter of seconds,” she said. “My client told him to freeze. … He didn’t shoot to kill.”
Gonzalez maintained McLaughlin was acting in defense of his family and property, and had been the victim of earlier break-ins.
“You have to stop somewhere,” she said. “People are tired of having their stuff taken.”
Despite McLaughlin testifying in his own defense that he feared for his life and despite the fact that Bailey testified that he did not commit the burglary (despite the fact that he got shot), the jury quickly returned a guilty verdict.
A somber reminder of how a defensive gun use can go, even when the suspect survives the incident.
http://gunssavelives.net/blog/video-indiana-man-convicted-of-felony-after-shooting-intruder/
If he had been a cop he would have been praised instead.
But he was a citizen so that eliminates the possibility of a good shoot if at all possible. Cops always get the benefit of doubt but that never goes for the lowly citizen in the USSA!
and juries today are just plain stupid.
He had to be convicted of a felony so they could keep his gun.