A cop-killing averted
Here’s how the situation began:
[Officer] Bardes and a Florida Highway Patrol trooper were at the scene of a car crash when Strother’s Toyota Camry swerved and drove along the left shoulder at what seemed to be at least 100 miles per hour, nearly striking the officers, a witness told the News-Press.
Believing the near-crash was intentional, officials said, Bardes chased the Camry southbound on I-75 until the driver stopped and got out of his car at an off-ramp.
There are witnesses to the following, as well as photos. Strother, the driver, managed to deck Officer Bardes, who fell to the ground, whereupon Strother straddled him and beat him. Strother was also reaching for the officer’s firearm. Then:
A few feet away, Ashad Russell, who had a concealed-carry permit, was also watching the attack unfold. Russell pulled his gun and approached, the review said. He told the attacker that “he would shoot Strother if he didn’t stop beating the deputy.”
On the ground, the deputy “pled for help and asked that Russell shoot Strother.”
Russell shot, and Strother died. Under Florida law, this is allowable “because [Russell] had ‘a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm’ to the deputy, the state attorney’s office concluded.”
And, as you might have expected, Strother’s brother:
…criticized the sheriff’s response to Strother’s death and questioned the details of the fight. “They are calling him a good Samaritan?” Louis Strother told the News-Press. “Was my brother armed?”
I guess trying to hit an officer with your car at high speed, and then trying to get his firearm while straddling and beating him isn’t good enough to be called “armed.”
Oh, and by the way: both Strother and Russell were black, and Bardes white.
The Lefties keep trying to make it about Raycissssm.
All it’s REALLY about is whether We-The-People will uphold Western Civilization (ie Rule-of-Law that applies to all people equally), or want to go back to tribalism (ie, Our Favored Clients get Special Exemptions – join now!).
You are supposed to “take your beating”. To shut up and pay your taxes. To yield without question, to give up and give out.
The idea that no one has the right to lay hands on you, never crosses the minds of most leftists: neither the supposedly intellectual kind, nor the more obviously mentally limited.
Does a cow feel the need to justify itself to the pasture?
This idea never occurs to them any more than it does that they should be responsible for their own lives or behaviors, or that what we call cause and effect has or should have any meaning in their reality.
They have an urge. You are there as material, an enabler, an appreciative spectator to the dramas they spew, a pawn or support. End of story.
Any other questions?
Russell deserves a medal and national recognition!
I am not a fan of Kentucky’s defense-of-others law because Russell couldn’t have shot Strother to defend Bardes here in Kentucky. Kentucky law is basically a “reasonable person” state for self-defense: if you have a reasonable belief that you’re about to be attacked with deadly force, murdered, or raped, you may use deadly force yourself.
When defending other people, however, you have to be 100% right. If Russell had shot Strother in Kentucky, and he had actually been an FBI agent or State Police undercover agent subduing Barnes, Russell could now be facing second-degree murder charges. And lest one think this isn’t that likely, ALL of the concealed carry instructors in Kentucky use this exact example.
It’s an area where Kentucky law needs fixing, IMHO.
It also amazes me at the complete and utter lack of shame people have at their relatives’ lack of morality. Louis Strother doesn’t seem to care one bit that his brother was about to kill another person.
Even 10 years ago, it would have been rare to see that level of narcissism, especially expressed in public. Now it’s terribly common.
Milady started getting on me for making fun of the victim’s mother blubbering on TV “My little baby was a good boy who never did anything wrong”, and then the next day having the news report that the killing was legitimate self-defense. Then it kept happening, and I couldn’t summons the humor over the horror.
I don’t care what state you’re in, if a police officer begs you to shoot his attacker, you’re not going to serve time for doing so. Never mind twelve random jurors, you’d have trouble finding twelve people total who would find him guilty of a crime.
Kentucky Packrat:
I understand what you’re saying. But much of the time I give relatives in the immediate family a pass, or at least somewhat of a pass, on this. Particularly if their relative is dead as a result. Denial and shock are human reactions in that case.
Many members of the lower class live with what is called the lower class value stretch. In the abstract and at a superficial level they have the same values as the middle class such as hard work, material success and honesty. However, given their low income and employment limitations, they are unable to maintain a middle class life style and they are unlikely to be critical of a relative or neighbor.
it is a moral error to give immediate family members a “pass” for their remarks and conduct when their dead relative died in the act of committing a horrible crime. Members of a moral society would not respond in that way. There are a goodly number of horrible crimes, most touched with sadism. Like torturing and repeatedly raping a thirteen year-old.
Denial is no excuse. Saying, “Oh No!” at such news is denial. The rest of it is rationalization, often preposterous.
Strother’s brother was not in denial anyway. “Was my brother armed?” he asked, rhetorically, as he criticized the Sheriff’s Department.
…”family members….”
Or tribal members.
Look what’s been happening in Paris over the past week or so.
This is the future, unless something is done about it….