Boy arrested for murder after police shoot and kill his friend.

Originally posted by lifeform11
reply to post by Annee

 

your right, he should be charged for armed robbery, i think everybody would agree and i don't think anybody is excusing him for doing that.

As far as I know - - the law is - - if a crime is committed (probably felony) - - you are responsible for anything that happens during the crime.

That's just the way it is.

reply to post by Annee


yes it is, but that does not make it right. i do not dispute it is law.

Originally posted by lifeform11
reply to post by Annee

 

yes it is, but that does not make it right. i do not dispute it is law.

Why doesn't it make it right?

reply to post by Annee


i explained in pervious posts mostly on the last page, to save time and space, i'll let you read them and pick fault with what you do not agree with rather than repeat it all again.

reply to post by TDawgRex


I live on the south side, it's bad but not that bad. Tough to call, if his friend wasn't with him who would they charge for murder after killing the kid?

well the kid that is alive should be only charged with robbery and not for the death of his friend, but that is america, in spain you can kill 100 people and only be charged to a maximum of 30 years in prison, and I still think that that is not reasonable sentence, sorry, you do the crime be responsible and man up for your actions, in spain there is no death or live sentence, I think they should change from 30 years to live sentence, no death penalty, make the bast@rds pay the price, it is the only way to learn.. some would say that it is not fair, it never happended in spain, but killing any amount of subjects should be punished accordingly

Originally posted by Majestic Lumen
reply to post by TDawgRex

 

I live on the south side, it's bad but not that bad. Tough to call, if his friend wasn't with him who would they charge for murder after killing the kid?

Let me just say - - I am currently working with my 11 year old granddaughter who is entering middle school next year.

The term "peer pressure" is not allowed in our house. It is an excuse. The only term allowed is "personal responsibility". "Guilt by association" is the other term we use.

If you are part of a crime - - you are part of a crime - - period. Even if all you are doing is sitting in a car waiting. If someone is killed while you commit a crime - - you are as responsible as the person pulling the trigger - - no matter who that person is. It was your choice to commit the crime - - and your responsibility.

My compassion goes to the victim - - - not the perpetrator.

reply to post by purplemer


You never know. Maybe the cop made a deal with the boy. If that's what he's being arrested for, they can never prove it and he will go free. perhaps it's his way of giving the lad a second chance?

reply to post by Annee


I understand that reasoning, but what I am asking is, If the kid that got shot by the officer was by himself, who would they lay the murder charges on?

reply to post by civilchallenger


Huh? You act like you disagree and I guess I could have been clearer but read it again, maybe a little slower and you'll see we are saying the same thing.

reply to post by purplemer


A similar law exists regarding car thefts. If you are in a car stolen car, and you didn't even break in to, or steal the car, you can be charged with illegally entering a vehicle, and illegally taking a vehicle (even though you didn't take the vehicle).

Originally posted by newcovenant
reply to post by felonius

 

A gun in his hands doesn't automatically make him grow up fast.

It might make him seem all grown but you would be making a mistake and would be wrong.

He was mimicking adults yes, but he was and still is young and stupid a child, a teenager.
He may have been desperate. He may be pure evil waiting for a chance to strike but again he might be like the Kevin Bacon character in Murder in the First - a pathetic victim himself caught in a bad situation.

It is like that sentence...Eats shoots and leaves.
You have to have the punctuation before you can determine if they are talking about hungry, burglars or Panda bears. You HAVE to know underlying circumstances here as well and not make a blanket judgement.

All of us somehow managed to survive our worst mistakes.
For other youth there is just the one and game over.

I didnt say anything about the gun making him grow up fast. I dont care if he was 13 or 30. There is NO excuse for "not knowing" what is right and wrong.

Mimicing and adult? REally? The only time I've ever "skinned my weapon" was when i was in danger of being robbed or attacked. period.

Eats shoots leaves? WTF is that?

You are correct in this line. 1 F'up and and game over. If people arent stupid, they wont have a problem.

Originally posted by badw0lf

Originally posted by felonius

Yes he is guilty. He was involved in the commision of a felony involving a weapon. By association, he is everybit as guilty.
!

Who, again, did the boy shoot?

Im missing that part.

As I understood the story, two boys robbed and murdered some one.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


Yeah you are right. I fail to see any logic in your posts. You aren't really making any points relative to the thread. If you take part in the crime, then you get charged for that crime. I don't know why you are making it harder than it really is. You keep bringing up the gun for what reason? Go back through your posts.

reply to post by felonius

As I understood the story, two boys robbed and murdered some one.

As I understood the story, two boys robbed someone then one of them got shot in the back by the police.

reply to post by wardk28

If you take part in the crime, then you get charged for that crime.

At which point did either child take part in murder? The law is backwards.

Originally posted by Annee

Originally posted by lifeform11
reply to post by Annee

 

yes it is, but that does not make it right. i do not dispute it is law.

Why doesn't it make it right?

actually, i can answer this with an example from when i was a kid as to why it is wrong. me and my mates were walking down a street, no crime was being commited, i had NO intention of commiting a crime and as far as i was aware there were no intentions of anybody i was with either. one of my mates for no reason i could fathom, picks up a brick and lobs at a window, i have never known them to do anything like that before and as it became apparent i was pleading "don't do it" "what are you doing?"

but right there, that action HE commited i could be arrested and cautioned, just for being there (uk law at the time, i am unsure if it has changed since). how is that fair?

now lets use this situation in the u.s. same thing happens, the police are called they get a report of a brick thrown at a window, the person phoning say's there are two people, the police are now looking for two people even though one of them did nothing wrong and had no intention.you have one who commited the act the other wondering what the hell just happen and why and is having a go at their mate.

the police show up and the mate resists arrest, and pulls a knife the other had no idea they even had on them.
the police have no option but to shoot to save their own life and then charge the other with murder. his only guilt was being there, which he would of had no idea would happen unless he could tell the future.

how is that fair? will the police believe you were innocent or a part of the crime therefore associating you with murder due to the criminal act?

Originally posted by felonius

Originally posted by badw0lf

Originally posted by felonius

Yes he is guilty. He was involved in the commision of a felony involving a weapon. By association, he is everybit as guilty.
!

Who, again, did the boy shoot?

Im missing that part.

As I understood the story, two boys robbed and murdered some one.

Ahh a stereotypical Texan. No conscience, no concept of right or wrong beyond that of a level of a dog. What is next, we are going to start hanging 12 year old boy's for stealing a loaf of bread like they did in your good old country of the UK?(I am guessing your heritage from Texas goes back a bit making you atleast half to full [Scott/English]Anglo).


Since 16 year old's are so mature why not give them the vote? If they can be held to the same standard as an adult then they should have the same rights as an adult. Heck in the "good" old US of A an 11 year old boy is held to a higher standard then a grown woman. So if women are held to a lower standard but are legally able to vote why shouldn't boy's who are held to a much higher standard be denied the vote?

Doesn't seem right. And if you look at it from a neurological perspective, ask any cop what will instantly lower the male crime rate; a 30th birthday(most males fully mature mentally between mid twenty's to thirty). Sure these kid's, because that is what they are, have done wrong. One paid for it with his life, the other is going to end up doing life.

It doesn't sit well with me that the dead beat parents and the dead beat community that led those children astray will not be punished. And it turns my stomach to see those with the mentality of a hunting dog so eager to pass judgment. It is one thing to defend your property, self and friends. If you have to defend yourself, you gotta do what you gotta do. And if it involves something hard like a maniac child, it just makes it all the sadder. But to act so callous about it is beyond damning.

honestly, that law sounds so backwards. it exaggerates what he's actually responsible for. charging him with murder even though he pulled no trigger and had no weapon. if you look at facts, the cop killed his friend..thats just how it is. you might as well charge the victim with murder too, maybe if the victim was smart enough to avoid being robbed, this death wouldn't have happened.

it's just ridiculous to see this being compared to laws where others are guilty just because they were somehow involved. the crime he committed was robbery - that's it. there was no involvement in murder whatsoever. the involvement was with robbery.

maybe it's just me but.. charging him with murder makes no sense to me logically. I've seen people say 'the crime he committed resulted in the murder' but you can just as easily say 'the murder was a result from the boy with the gun turning in the officers direction, and the cop feeling threatened'. ..the robbery is completely irrelevant to the shooting.

hopefully he isn't charged with murder, i would imagine seeing his friend die would be enough punishment. just have him do time for the robbery imo.

reply to post by purplemer


Hi there. I find stories like this intriguing, basically because the story is usually never as cut-and-dry as the charges make them seem. However, in this case and many others, they may be just exactly straight forward as they are perceived to be.

I had a friend that I grew up with from my adolescent years and maintained an adult friendship. He had gotten a divorce and moved in with his father and his father's fiance.

Living there for a couple years, my friend and his father became closer than they had ever been. They had a mutual friend who was also have a rough go of things in his life, so they decided to reach out and off their help and support 0 because my friend and his father know first hand how tough things can be.

Their friend's name was Ben Fowler 'maybe Ben Foster - I will clarify the name in a moment and edit it into the post) and he was invited to move in until he could get back on his feet. He lived with them for an entire summer. He wouldn't hold a job or even go look for a job when unemployed. Even though that was the case, my friend and his father continued to help, naively* thinking he was just going through a period of depression .

Toward the end of the summer my friends father kept finding he was coming up short on his pain medication by a week or more each month that his friend was there. So the my friend's dad, let's call him Layron, confronted Ben Fowler about this and tried to get to bottom of the issue.

Ben Fowler got angry and over protective and one thing led to another and the living arrangements were altered, with Ben Fowler being out on the street.

Months go by with Layron and his son Robert hearing nothing more of their estranged friend. They suspected he had just moved on.

Nearly a year after Ben Fowler was evicted, while watching TV with his dad's fiance, Robert heard a knock at the living room door, (it was pretty late, around midnight/12p).

As my friend Robert stood in front of the door turning the dead bolt lock to greet their visitors, a man on the front porch fired a massive 12 gauge round through the front door before it could even open. The round struck my friend in the upper torso/lower neck and he dropped instantly to the floor. Upon entry into the home, the first burglar fired another round into my friends face, causing irreversible shock.

Taking just a couple steps inside the house and into the living room area, the first burglar found a woman standing with her hands in the air. She was completely startled by the massive sound of two 12 gauge blasts, fired just feet away. The burglar/murderer never hesitated before squeezing out 3 more blasts into the torso area of Layron's fiance', draining her life near instantly.

By this time the second burglar had entered the home, unarmed and behind burglar number 1. By then Layron had been startled awake by the horrifying sounds of high powered shotgun blasts and unmistakable screams of absolute terror.

Immediately, reaching for his gun in the night stand next to his bed, he made his way quickly to the bedroom door and looked out into the hallway to get an idea of what was happening. What he saw was the end of a Mossberg pump action gun staring him down.

Within a split second of seeing this, Layron was luckily able to duck back into his bedroom, allowing the blast to pass by him without injury.

Quickly, he stuck his arm out of the bedroom door and began to unload his 9mm handgun. Firing wildly and hoping to keep the predators at bay, Layron struck and fatally injured burglar number 1. The same burglar who, just moments earlier, murdered his 32 year old son and his fiance'.

While Layron was emptying his magazine into anything that was in the line of fire, he managed to also strike the burglar #2, who fled on foot before he could be identified.

The following morning the police were called to a local hospital on reports of a gun shot victim giving suspicious stories of how the injury occurred. The man claimed that he was out drinking at a bar, when he decided to smoke a joint. When he went outside the men who were to provide the drugs attempted to rob him. In the ensuing struggle he claimed to have been shot.

After a bit of investigation the police determined who he was and what really happened with him the night before.

When some of the dust settled, and a clear picture of what took place the night before, it told a story of a man (Ben Fowler) wanting to rob Layron of his prescription pain medication.

Ben Fowler was able to convince a young, United States Military veteran, who had just recently be discharged, into taking part in a robbery for the drugs.

As more and more details began to emerge it was revealed that the young man in his early 20's had recently lost custody of his child. He had recently found out he was HIV positive and reports of PTSD and severe depression began to tell the story of a very troubled person who felt they had nothing to lose.

Ben Fowler did not knock on the door, nor did he shoot the blasts that killed his victims. He never brandished any type of weapon during the invasion. He did not make burglar #1 join in the plan fire the gun. He simply formulated the home invasion and followed through with his plan.

Not only was Ben Fowler charged with the direct murders of my friend Robert and his father's fiance, but he was also charged in the murder of burglar #1, even though he had never planned to injure him, as they were partners in crime.

News Coverage with Video Report of the Above Story

New Report of the above incident

Personally I think Ben Fowler and anyone else who accompanies someone to perpetrate a premeditated attack like this on someone should be severely punished and should be held accountable for every single person involved, regardless of which side of the fence they happen to be on.

These people are pathetic and they are truly the scourge of modern society.

reply to post by esteay812


I must say, that is a very interesting, and extremely sad story.
Sorry about what happened to your friend and his family.


However, that has absolutely no similarities to this issue being discussed.

2 teenagers.

1 had a weapon, but there is no statements made about the weapon ever being fired.
Not even sure if it was loaded. He may have pointed this weapon in the direction of the officers, after he turned around to face them, but then the officer shot him in the back. It seems some details must be a bit fuzzy.

The other teenager, who had no weapon, and as far as the events have been described, did not harm anyone, is sitting in a cell in downtown Chicago with a $900,000 bail, because of his murder charge.