Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Homeowner apprehends burglar with fiream and then HE gets arrested

based upon your posts here over the years, your "say" carries a lot of weight with me.

i love to hear of good folks doing good jobs


imo your community is very blessed to have you serve in the capacity you do for them George.

I'd be willing to bet the attorney you speak of would pretty much say the same about you.

it's a bit of a paradox to me that our country recognizes the bravery and courage of our armed forces so readily these days, but there seems to be a tendency to withhold those feelings of regard for our domestic folks in uniform.


we're all adults and realize even with the respect we bestow upon our military members, there's bad apples and occasionally bad behavior by pretty good apples in an org of that size.


why as a society we don't seem to be able to recognize the same for our LEO remains a bit of a mystery to me.


thank you for sharing the general consensus of your guys there George, it gives me great peace and hope when LEO's share the same sense of outrage over possible misapplication of the law as the citizens they're sworn to protect.

hope it turns out well for everyone, sans the burgular.

Every where in this country is unique, in it's requirements after an arrest involving force. Bond & bail is a priveledge, not a right. You either sign and agree to the requirement of the bond agreement or your butt can sit in jail until you appear before the Judge.

They oughta give him one of their issue pistols to go along with his collection and then give him some free handgun training. That would clear up the "warning shot" issue so many seem to have a problem with.

I was pretty critical here and I think with good reason. The problem is with the law itself and also with a cop who had no good judgment. I don't think anything should happen to the cop. I know that will surprise some. I think he made a terrible decision especially the part where the guy's guns were confiscated. He was following the law though. The department needs to informally watch the guy and make sure he doesn't do more stuff like this with penalties in the future if he does. Of course if he already has a history of bad decision making, maybe he needs a suspension or desk or something.

Kudos to the County Attorney. He sounds about 90% better than the assclown we have for one.

Thank You.

I know here in Pa (at least in my county) any arrest involving a gun you have to give up your firearms, Also an arrest for Dui you have to give up your firearms.... before trial. One of my best friends had to turn in all his guns after being arrested for DUI, the case was thrown out at the magisterial level. But because the charges were dropped "with prejudice". He could not get them back. He can still buy new guns, just can't have the ones he turned in

I love this idea!

It's "corrective training" as we used to call it in the Army.

Unbelievable! Well... I guess... not really.

That sounds crappy!

The confiscation of the weapons, is probably not a decision of the LEO, it's a decision of the Judge or the Magistrate, Judicial Commissioner, who writes the Mittimus for the arrest as a condition of bond.

The LEO followed the letter of the law. Do you think he put this all together by himself? I can guarantee you there was supervision on the scene of this shooting, they proceeded on the side of the law. That's why we have a checks & balance system. An arrest didn't have to be made at the scene, the case could of been presented to the Grand Jury at it's next setting.

In this state the only arrest that has to made at the scene is that of domestic violence, if evidence shows that an assault has occurred and the suspect is present.

Don't read into my comments as leo bashing, the officers have nothing to due with how laws are written, they just have to enforce them. In the particular case (my buddie), I was reffering to, I have a feeling the guns were already gone when he went to retrtrive them.

Here's the problem...and I'm speculating this was the case here. There are two things officers, and/or their agencies do. Officers often are trained to believe that courts "sort things out". That could have been the case here.

The other is departmental policies that say probable cause = automatic arrest. I'm betting this is the more likely scenario.

In either event, it's passing the buck, and it's passing it to an entity that is NOT charged with investigating, and "sorting things out"...the DA is charged with prosecuting crimes, and the courts with maintaining procedural safeguards. Cases brought to him should have been "sorted out" by the investigating officer(s). That's what an investigation does, sorts out facts, and circumstances.

I think we could have and must ask for common sense to prevail. The arresting officer "jumped his gun" in being so quick to arrest the victim. Had he used better judgement, the victim would have never gone through what was foisted upon him, and he would not have an arrest record to contend with.

On the outside, looking in...it appears that LEO takes no interest in the long term ramifications of these quick arrests and the harm they might cause an innocent person who plays by the rules all his life and causes no harm, ever.

This isn't a condemnation of LEO painted with a broad brush, but...dammit...LEO works for us who abide by the law, and they need to remember that sometimes, while doing the most difficult job imaginable...to protect us all.

This old guy now has a permanent record of a felony arrest. And you know how that's viewed by most folks? They think he "beat it on a technicality". Which he did. The technicality was that he didn't commit a crime.

He should of got an Atty. and sat down with the DA & Judge and got an order releasing the guns back to him. The guns went somewhere? There should be a log of where they were logged into evidence and logged out.

The Judge or DA has the authority to call the State Police to investigate the agency who seized the guns, at least they do in this state anyway.

We don't have a State Police per say, we have TBI (TN. Bureau of Invest.) I've seen them investigate many an agency and make arrests of LEO's to include elected Sheriff's.

Let things cool down a bit, hire an Atty. and look at an expungment of his record. He already seems to be in good with the DA, who would be the one to primarily object. Expungements happen all the time here. Do they do them in the court that you work in???

The system would function a lot worse, and more injustice would occur, in a zero tolerance world. If you start out with the supposition that the law is designed to discourage bad behavior, rather than merely to punish, the goal frequently can be accomplished without the need for enforcement action. Once an officer makes a decision to act or not act, s/he owns the decision, so it behooves the officer to examine the issue in good faith and have a really good rationale either way.

We don't have an expungement statute in AL. Seen it tried and failed only a handful of times. There's talk of writing legislation to allow it.

Second, that only works at the state level, he'll still have a record on NCIC. Since 9/11, the Feds won't expunge anything.

THIS!

Makes sense...

Yes, and people wonder why some people blow a gasket and walk up to a cop in a donut shop and shoot the mofo dead. When I read about incidents like that I always hope it was one of the youtube thugs and not an actual "peace officer".

I suppose you'll pony up and PAY for his attorney to make sure justice was actually done???

Geeze! Ignorance is frustrating...