What sort of a world do the people who run our courts live in?
We of the unwashed masses, remember when David Chen, owner of the Lucky Moose Food Marty Mart in Toronto's Kensington market area, was initially charged with kidnapping and assault for tackling and tying up a thief who robbed his store.
Police even got the thief to testify against Chen.
Public opinion was all for Chen, and swayed authorities to the point where Chen today is something of a folk hero.
A decade or so ago, a guy in Hamilton was charged for firing a shotgun at the pavement which ricocheted and wounded a man in the process of robbing a neighbour's garage.
Again, the law seemed blind to the offense that provoked the guy to defend his neighbour's property. Despite what seemed an obvious act of good citizenship, the guy who fired the shotgun was deemed irresponsible, at fault and a bad example for the community.
He and Chen were examples the public were warned not to emulate.
And now we have another case, as reported in the National Post and elsewhere. One night in 2009, Brian Knight, who owns property near Red Deer, Alberta, spotted three guys invading his property.
Two ran away, but the third guy stole his all-terrain vehicle (ATV) and sped off. Knight chased him in his car and forced the ATV into a ditch. When the thief ran away, Knight fired a shotgun loaded with light birdshot that didn't do much harm to the thief.
When cops arrived, the thief was eventually sentenced to 30 days.
For defending and recovering his property, Knight was convicted of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and sentenced to 90 days -- three times the sentence that the thief got.
Never mind that last week the Alberta Court of Appeal reduced the jail sentence to community service. The fact is that the sentence still stands.
Knight, a solid and productive citizens with wife and three small kids, now has a criminal record and may not be permitted to enter the U.S. where he is supposed to take a fire fighting course.
How dare this guy be saddled with a criminal record for doing what most of us hope we'd do if we were confronted with the same circumstances that faced Brian Knight.
Ironically, Knight seems to feel he was lucky to get his jail time reduced to community service. And perhaps he is right, the way our courts work.
Even he points out that if he'd used a bigger gun, and severely injured the thief, he'd likely have been sentenced to 15 years. All for defending his property.
David Chen inadvertently got the citizen-arrest law amended in Canada, but that doesn't help the Brian Knights of Canada who mistakenly fight back against criminals.
Why can't judges exercise common sense in such cases? Especially when police and the Crown follow the letter of the law, and seem unable to distinguish who is the good guy and who is the bad.
Brian Knight is so obviously a good citizen that one hopes his conviction is reversed and that he is applauded for his behaviour -- rather as David Chen has been vindicated by none other than Prime Minister Stephen Harper who visited his store and purchased maple syrup.
Maybe the PM should shake Brian Knight's hand the next time he visits Alberta.
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You are not defending your property if you are shooting somebody. You are attacking someone with a lethal weapon. You aren't allowed to murder people for committing theft. You cannot shoot a robber in the back even if he's making off with your dead mother's prized jewelry. The correct course of action for this man would have been to remain LOCKED in his house and call the police as soon as he saw people intruding on his property and vandalizing/stealing his things. If he had done that, the very worst case scenario for him would be a lost snowmobile (which would likely be recovered by police and ought to be INSURED anyway). By chasing after the thieves with guns blazing, he made himself more dangerous than they were.
As soon as you confront someone who you know to be a criminal, it is YOU who have triggered a confrontation and it is you who will be (rationally if not legally) responsible for any escalation that follows. Call the police when you see a crime -- it's that simple. Citizens are citizens, and the law is the law; vigilanteism is not welcome.
Now THATS Albertan justice!
Goddamn, even in Judaism we say an eye for an eye, not an eye for a shirt.
Maybe we should do away with appeals tribunals?
Courts are not there to determine who is "the good guy" and who is "the bad guy" but to establish facts in accordance with the accusation and to apply the law. That is done by trained professionals called judges.
What a quaint idea!
Common sense is always and forever a great great argument.
Your right to shoot at people is limited to people who are trying to kill you. This is good policy, as anyone following George Zimmerman and Raul Rodriquez can tell you. Even the cops are no longer allowed to shoot at fleeing criminals.
For a good read on self-defense, read http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com. There are several good pieces on the difference between self defense and fighting, and on just when you are allowed to use force.
It's one thing to defend your own life and/or that of a loved one, a child or fellow human being, but since when is an ATV worth possibly killing someone?
The comparison between this and the Chen case is way off the mark. Chen caught and held the guy. That's it. He used no more force than was necessary. He got off, as he should have. But if Chen had shot him with a rifle, he wouldn't have gotten off either.
Unfortunately, the argument you make is the 'slippery slope' that legal authorities worry about when they charge people like Chen... they're worried if they let some vigilante justice go by, people will push it farther... like shooting a fleeing man.
I think the outrage is misplaced here, it should be why did the thief only get 30 days??? Was he a young offender having a joy ride? A known criminal? the article doesn't cover any of this.
Mr. Worthington just can't get his head around it: a super-great citizen shoots a thief in the back AFTER recovering his stolen property, and he has to face legal consequences? Shameful.
I don't think that I'd enjoy living in the country Mr. Worthington seems to long for.