3 teens face felony murder charges after accomplice dies
A 15-year-old boy who broke into a Davenport home wearing a mask and was shot by a homeowner died Thursday and his three alleged accomplices have been charged with felony murder, authorities said.Sounds pretty cut and dried, right? Couple of kids break into a home wearing masks while their buddies stand lookout. Homeowner catches them in the act and perforates them both, ending one's criminal career permanently and sending the other to the hospital gut-shot. Happy ending to the story, right? And to top it off, the accomplices will be charged with felony murder as well as accessories to B&E - a heavy price to pay all around, but PSGWSP.
Except for this:
However, investigators searched the house and found narcotics. Oyola-Aponte was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine, the sheriff's office said. He was released after posting $5,000 bail.Now, I'm as pro-legalization as they come - WRT drugs, legalize, tax, and make some damn money off them rather than spending billions on some quixotic "War" on drugs. However, right now they are not legal, and possession of narcotics is a crime. It doesn't state how much cocaine was involved, whether it was just a small amount for personal consumption (which it sounds like if he was released on only $5K) or more.
I'm torn on leaving it as a DGC addition, wondering if the proclivities of the homeowner should influence the inclusion of the goblin's untimely demise. I think I'll leave it, because there's two possibilities here. The first is that it was coincidence, that they just happened to break into a home where the denizens thereof happened to enjoy a little Colombian marching powder from time to time. The other possibility is that the homeowner in question was known as the local snow lord, in which case the victim selection fail makes the case for inclusion.
The addition stands.
Dead Goblin Count: 67
That is all.
6 comments:
Just to add a 3rd POV here:
What where the cops doing searching the house? Sounds like they (hopefullly) had reason to suspect this was more then a legal defensive gun use.
The low bond amount does mean it's not much. I gather he should easily be able to walk on the drug charge if his lawyer is worth anything. The two key questions for the searching officers are "what are your probable cause for drugs or where was your warrant specifying drugs?" The cops act like there's never been coke found in a Florida house before and there's no established procedure for looking.
The idea that they'd search the house is kind of odd to me too. For the most part, FL is fairly gun-friendly, and we have castle doctrine, so why the police would do a search after a DGU makes my ears prick.
On the other hand, I don't care WHO gets rid of violent criminals, if they were in a position where any normal person would shoot them, I think it should count.
I live down here in the Tampa Bay area and heard a blurb on radio news which I am pretty sure was about this same story - the hoods were doing the B&E looking specifically for drugs.
Another radio news blurb I heard (which was specific to this story) is that the deceased hoods parents had the plug pulled because he was too far gone.
You are correct about whether this should be added to count. I say treat it as a standard DGC case. If they wanted to buy Coke, they could have just approached the homeowner peacefully and made the buy. But if they came in with Evil Intentions, then does it really matter what the Goblins were after? Coke, Money, Rape, Murder, Whatever; there is only one Correct Response to Goblin Behavior: Shoot First.
I think Les has it right - if they had wanted to buy drugs, they wouldn't have broken in. Regardless of the legality of the homeowner's trade, he was a victim in this case.
As far as the search, I wonder if something incriminating got left where the cops were able to see it "in plain sight" during the course of the investigation into the shooting (or where part of that investigation uncovered it). I assume the homeowner was hiding certain items rather quickly before the cops got there, and may not have done a good job of it.
Post a Comment