Georgia Man Arrested For Shooting Young Man Over Halloween Egging Of His Mercedes
KATE BRUMBACK | 11/19/10 09:15 PM |
ATLANTA — An Atlanta man has been charged with gunning down a young man he thought threw eggs at his Mercedes in a Halloween prank.
Police spokesman Carlos Campos says officers arrested 20-year-old Michael Hunnicutt around 1:35 p.m. Friday and charged him with murder in the death of 18-year-old Tavarus Erving on Oct. 31.
Police say Hunnicutt shot Erving after he confronted him because he believed Erving splattered his Mercedes with eggs. Police say 10 shots were fired.
Hunnicutt was being held Friday in the Fulton County jail. Police said they didn't know if Hunnicutt had an attorney.
Ed here: This is where the extravagance of contemporary hardboiled crime fiction meets the reality of people who shouldn't own guns.
Couple things. I don't own a gun because of my temper. I don't own a gun because at my age my eyesight is bad. I don't own a gun because the thought of that makes people I love nervous.
This isn't to say that there aren't times when I don't wish I owned a gun. A number of things alarm me today than weren't around when I was young and healthy. Most ominous to me are home invasions. I think there should be a law that says if you break into somebody's home when they're there you get seven years tacked on to your sentence whatever other crimes you might commit while inside. Even if you don't harm the people. Even if you don't take anything. Tough shit asshole.
On the other hand the Hunnicutt case reminds me of a local case back in the eighties. A guy who lived in a tony condominium heard somebody in the garage below his unit. He went down there with a gun in his hand and found a black eighteen-year-old about to steal his pricy foreign car. He shot him dead. Point blank. The kid wasn't armed. My memory is that he wasn't charged. I didn't think that was right then and I don't think that was right now. In that circumstance there were a number of alternatives to killing. I'm sure the guy was a hero to some. To me he was a murderer.
I have a friend who spent most of his life in the military. He's also written many, many, many novels in various genres. Him I trust with guns. He did two tours in Nam as a chopper pilot, fought in the Gulf war and did two tours in Iraq. He knows how to handle himself in dangerous situations, He and his very pretty wife bought a nice new home and soon after were awakened one night by burglars on the ground floor. He took his pistol from the nightstand drawer then walked to the head of the stairs and said loudly, "I have a gun. If you're not out of here in sixty seconds I'm coming down and you'll be sorry I did." He always laughs when he talks about all the noise they made scrambling to get out of the house. They knocked over a lot of furniture but they didn't do any damage.
I know there aren't any easy solutions to this. I also know that people get scared (I do) and will do anything to save their lives. That's one thing. But when you're simply pissed off and kill somebody in the guise of protecting yourself, that's something else altogether.
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6 comments:
Sounds like Kevin. He still writing?
RJR
You win a Kelvinator, Bob. Yep it's Kevin. And he's still writing though mostly now in the paranormal area. Great to hear from you.
The case the Hunnicutt case reminds you of reminds me of the movie that gave us the latest immortal Eastwood line: "Get off my lawn."
I agree wholeheartedly that the guy who shot the kid in his garage committed murder. He might have panicked, and if so still should have been charged with, at the least, manslaughter.
I have a gun. Consider the world warned.
Shooting someone over egging a car (Honda Civic or a Mercedez) is more than extreme and should be deemed murder. Much like the police who shot the kid in Oakland while he was on his back being held down by a few other police (all on video ... like Rodney King).
I have a temper too ... and no longer keep a gun in the house (for the same reasons, Ed). And I have friends who are very responsible with guns--them I trust, not myself.
The couple that own the local comic shop near here have, on three different cases in the last eight years, hauled out their guns to defend their store from being burglarized in the middle of the night. In each case, they were in the store (in the middle of the night?). They've killed two of them (he got one, she got one) and initiated a high speed chase that ended with them pulling a gun and forcing the guy off the road.
Evidently, they prefer sitting in their store at night and killing people to putting a couple of bars on their windows.
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