MYSTERY SHOOTING IN SMALL TOWN IN FLORIDA - DISTURBINGLY MYSTERIOUS

                                                              AN APOLOGY

I APOLOGISE FOR ABANDONING MY BLOG FOR SO LONG. IT'S BEEN MORE THAN TWO MONTHS. I'VE HAD ONE COMPLAINT - WHICH, PERHAPS, SAYS IT ALL. I'M SADDENED BY THE FACT THAT MY OWN AGE GROUP DOESN'T 'DO' BLOGS AND NOTHING WILL MAKE THEM. I SOMETIMES THINK THAT IF I TOLD THEM THAT IN A DREAM I HAD COME UP WITH THE NUMBERS THAT WOULD WIN THE NEXT TOP PRIZE IN THE NATIONAL LOTTERY AND WOULD BE RUNNING THEM IN MY BLOG IT WOULD MAKE NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL. MINE IS A GENERATION THAT STILL HAS DISCUSSIONS ON WHETHER OR NOT KINDLE IS A GOOD THING; KINDLE IS STILL CONTROVERSIAL. MOST OF THE PEOPLE I KNOW WHO ARE OF MY AGE-GROUP DON'T USE KINDLE - TO THEM IT'S LIKE A KIND OF DEVIL WORSHIP. DON'T THINK I DON'T LOVE MY GENERATION; THEY ARE GOOD PEOPLE AND MY VIEW OF THEM IS REINFORCED EVERY TIME I GO THE FUNERAL OF ONE OF THEM AND SHARE THE GRIEF OF THOSE LEFT BEHIND. THEY ARE JUST NOT USED TO THE NOTION OF SHARING IDEAS OR EVEN, I SOMETIMES THINK IN MY DARKEST DAYS, HAVING THEM.

AND. OF COURSE, WHY WOULD A YOUNGER PERSON WANT TO READ WHAT A PERSON APPROACHING THE FIRST HALF OF HIS EIGHTH DECADE HAS TO SAY ABOUT ANYTHING? WELL, SOME DO. NOT MANY.

SO THE WHOLE EXERCISE IS A BIT POINTLESS BUT IT KEEPS ME OFF THE STREETS AND STOPS ME PESTERING YOUNG WOMEN (DOESN'T STOP ME THINKING ABOUT THEM 'THOUGH).



Here’s a strange and worrying story I picked up from a newspaper in Florida. It is dated 30 December last year.


A 19 year old man, one Benjy ‘Peewee’ Young, of this small town  was found dead on the pavement.  He had been shot. He had allegedly been trying to steal a motorbike from a parking lot.


The newspaper went on to say that his accomplices had fled. Later in the piece we are told that during the shooting 15 year old Marvin Crowley Jnr was hit several times in the chest and once in the leg; Tavaris Fox, 15, was shot in the foot and Bernard Jones, 17, was shot in the knee. The newspaper doesn’t attempt to reconcile its claim that the alleged accomplices ‘had fled’ with its ability to quote specific knowledge of their names and, indeed, their injuries.


The Sheriff’s 'office spokesman',  told the paper that ‘The attempted-theft victim called 911 after hearing his dog growl and looking outside saw someone backing up his yellow Susuki motorcycle and attempting to put it in a Dodge Ram pickup truck. He yelled out to the group of three. One man reached down to his waist, held something that appeared to be a gun and pointed it at the bedroom window where the motorcycle owner was standing. The motorcycle owner then fired his gun, fatally striking Young. The other men fled the scene and were still at large as of Thursday night’ (No mention is made of the other injuries yet, one must observe, the injured men managed to convey the extent of their wounds to someone or other so that the newspaper was informed).


It’s a minor point but the newspaper appears to believe that four men were involved and names them all. The police spokesman believes there were three. Surely something that is worth establishing?


A man who lives in the vicinity of the shooting says he was awakened when he heard several shots at 4.32 am. ‘It was really loud,’ he said, ‘I heard pop, pop, pop, pop, silence … and then pop, pop, pop. At first I thought it was New Year’s Eve or something.


The paper adds ‘But Thursday morning’s shooting won’t soon be forgotten by the would-be victim of Young’s latest criminal attempt, or the man’s neighbours’. The pock marks in the trees and parking lot near the scene are clear reminders.


What struck me about this account (apart from appearing to be written by young people on work experience) was the number of shots produced by the ‘would-be victim’. Add them up. We have Young, shot dead – assume one bullet hit its mark; Crowley hit several times in the chest, let’s say three times and once in the leg, that would be four times; Fox shot in the foot and Jones shot in knee. Seven shots. That matches the number of pops heard by the neighbour. But then we have the ‘pock marks in the trees and parking lot’. That has to be more than seven. What kind of weapon was the ‘would be victim’ using? I’m no expert in guns but given that people under fire probably move fairly quickly to avoid it this suggest a weapon capable firing many rounds very fast.


The police report says the ‘would be victim’ saw one man holding something that appeared to be a gun and pointed it where he was standing. This would be the ‘would be victim’s justification for blasting off , with considerable accuracy and, it seems likely, considerable speed, at least seven rounds – they are the ones that hit their marks, of course. There must have been others; think ‘pock marks’.


Had this event occurred in the UK how do you imagine it would be treated by the police? Of course, here in the UK, we are not allowed to own guns and the penalty for doing so is huge, whether they are fired or not. So here Mr ‘would be victim’ would have a lot of explaining to do and would probably go to prison. Here you don’t get off by saying you thought you saw a gun; in self-defence one is expected to use only ‘reasonable and appropriate’ force and only then where there is actual evidence of threat. In Florida you may own a gun, so that’s OK. But discharging it and killing one man and wounding three more that must surely be worthy of a bit of a serious investigation?


Well, he, the ‘would be victim’, did see something ‘that appeared to be a gun’. Was a gun found at the scene? Not according to this newspaper. Perhaps one of the wounded men, who either fled the scene or turned up at the newspaper office to reveal the extent of their wounds, took it away with them (Oh, yeah?). Yet, weapon recovered or not, nobody, not even the police, seems to be claiming that a shot was fired by the men who were fired upon.


What was the conclusion of all this? Well, here it is, in the words of the newspaper: ‘The man who shot Young in the torso will not face criminal charges because he fired his gun out of fear', the sheriff’s officer spokesman said. The sheriff’s office did not release the ‘would be victim’s identity.


Now the paper did go into some details about the dead man. It’s clear enough he was a bad ‘un. There had been several run-ins with local law enforcement over recent years which culminated in a July 2010 grand jury indictment for his role in a drive-by shooting. Since 2007 he had been arrested on charges including aggravated assault, robbery, fleeing and eluding police, vehicle theft and possession of burglary tools.


So, to quote the song from Chicago, He Had It Coming. And he got it. Won’t be any more trouble from that 19 year old scoundrel will there? Saves holding a trial and that's got to be good.


Yet the good people of this small town must be slightly disconcerted by the knowledge that someone living in their midst killed one and wounded three men and all he had to do to escape any charges was to say that he thought he saw a gun and was frightened. And nobody knows who it is ...