Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

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jrs_diesel
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#16

Post by jrs_diesel »

JALLEN wrote:
C-dub wrote:I would not be surprised if the man was no-billed by a grand jury or acquitted if it makes it to trial. He was obviously confused having just come out of a seizure and could have thought the fireman was an intruder without fully recognizing him as a fireman/EMT.

IIRC, back when I was in the Navy, a man could not be held responsible for his actions within something like the first 10-15 seconds of being awakened. Not from when he woke on his own, but if he was awakened by someone. Also, IIRC, this arose because of people being startled when roused from sleep and swinging out at whatever. A tragic incident to be sure, but barring any other circumstances, I would not be surprised if he was acquitted or no-billed.
How many times each night in the Navy are people awakened by others to go on watch? I had no idea it was so dangerous.
Change of watch is every 4 hours, typically (at least in the Coast Guard). That said, most people wake up fairly easily, especially when whey know they have watch in a few hours.
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JALLEN
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#17

Post by JALLEN »

jrs_diesel wrote:
JALLEN wrote:
C-dub wrote:I would not be surprised if the man was no-billed by a grand jury or acquitted if it makes it to trial. He was obviously confused having just come out of a seizure and could have thought the fireman was an intruder without fully recognizing him as a fireman/EMT.

IIRC, back when I was in the Navy, a man could not be held responsible for his actions within something like the first 10-15 seconds of being awakened. Not from when he woke on his own, but if he was awakened by someone. Also, IIRC, this arose because of people being startled when roused from sleep and swinging out at whatever. A tragic incident to be sure, but barring any other circumstances, I would not be surprised if he was acquitted or no-billed.
How many times each night in the Navy are people awakened by others to go on watch? I had no idea it was so dangerous.

Change of watch is every 4 hours, typically (at least in the Coast Guard). That said, most people wake up fairly easily, especially when whey know they have watch in a few hours.
Yep. I was never the wakor, always the wakee.

But in a ~400 ship Navy, formerly a 600 ship Navy, and watches changing every 4 hours, that is a lot of waking up. I was active and reserve, in for nearly 20 years, and do not recall ever hearing of a problem.
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#18

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On my fourth patrol the Blue crew brought the boat back to Charleston, SC for crew change. We, the Gold crew were going to head down to the Caribbean to Eleuthera Island to the AUTEC range to qualify on the then new MK-48 torpedo. I had recently made Second Class Sonar Tech. It was just after Christmas and my oldest son received a pair of cap pistol six shooters. I was packing my sea bag and Mrs. Anygun was helping. My son wanted to give me a present so he stuck one of his pistols in my sea bag. Neither Mrs. Anygun or I knew. When it was time to leave I threw my sea bag in the truck and She drove me to the boat. The boat was tied up next to the tender at the Naval Weapons station where the spare nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles were stored. Back then if you broke down you did not exit your vehicle. You would likely be shot. Serious stuff.

I kissed my wife and sons goodbye and went down the dock to the tender. At the quarterdeck my bag was searched but they did not find the pistol.I discovered the pistol when I dumped my sea bag to store my stuff in my locker. I put the pistol away. After a few days of being underway I got bored fast and decided to play a joke. I fetched the pistol and put it under my pillow. I was in a top bunk outboard port side berthing. Real dark. The off planesman woke up the ongoing watch. Our watches were six hours underway. The off-planesman was typically a non-qual and usually fresh out of sub school.

This is the way it went:

Off planesman slides my curtain open - "Petty Officer Anygun, time to wake up. First call"
Me - "OK" and slide my curtain closed.
He does it again, second call.
I am awake and hear him coming for third call. I have cap pistol in my hand.
OP- "Petty officer Anygun, third call"
Me - I stick the cap pistol in his face and say "You wake me up again and I will shoot you" I slide my curtain back. He runs out of berthing screaming. Very soon after the lights in berthing come on and the Chief of the Boat, an enormous Master Chief Fire Controlman storms into berthing, turns the lights on, throws back my curtain and drags me out of my rack by my chest. Literally. He is holding me off the floor by my chest flesh and hair. I weighed about 185 then. He is screaming at me to give him the weapon. I still had it in my hand. I screamed back at him "COB, its a cap pistol!" I held it in front of his face and pulled the trigger a few times. He let me go and said "Put it in your locker and don't bring it out again." He yelled for everyone to go back to sleep and turned the lights out. The non-qual asked him what he was going to do about it and he told the non-qual off planesman it was over.

When we returned to Charleston I still had to smuggle the pistol off the tender and Naval Weapons station. When I gave it back to my son at home Mrs. Anygun told me how cute it was the he gave me a present to take with me. Sweet.

I do't think the wake up rule would have applied in my case. The rule was known when I was in but there was nothing in the UCMJ about it.

True story.
Last edited by anygunanywhere on Sat Jan 23, 2016 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#19

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That's one story I'm not buying. But take it at face value and examine it from the anti-gun angle. Guns should be banned because on a planet with BILLIONS of people in the entire history of the world one person recovered from a seizure and shot someone.

It's all about the feelz with these liberal nut jobs. It's too bad we can't gather them all up in say, one state, and then let them run everything according to their feelz, and see how that all works out. It would be entertainment that no amount of money could buy in any other way.
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#20

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VMI77 wrote:That's one story I'm not buying. But take it at face value and examine it from the anti-gun angle. Guns should be banned because on a planet with BILLIONS of people in the entire history of the world one person recovered from a seizure and shot someone.

It's all about the feelz with these liberal nut jobs. It's too bad we can't gather them all up in say, one state, and then let them run everything according to their feelz, and see how that all works out. It would be entertainment that no amount of money could buy in any other way.
I thought that is why we admitted California to the Union? "rlol"
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VMI77
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#21

Post by VMI77 »

Unocat wrote:
VMI77 wrote:That's one story I'm not buying. But take it at face value and examine it from the anti-gun angle. Guns should be banned because on a planet with BILLIONS of people in the entire history of the world one person recovered from a seizure and shot someone.

It's all about the feelz with these liberal nut jobs. It's too bad we can't gather them all up in say, one state, and then let them run everything according to their feelz, and see how that all works out. It would be entertainment that no amount of money could buy in any other way.
I thought that is why we admitted California to the Union? "rlol"
That's a good point....you could add New Jersey, Maryland, and New York to the list for starters and it does tend to demonstrate the phenomenon. However, the outcome is still mitigated by the remaining rational people, and unfortunately, the ones with all the good feelz tend to leak out into other states.

On a smaller scale we do have plenty of cities that show us the results of liberal government....like Detroit. They only still exist because they can call on external resources to some extent to bail them out.
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#22

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WTR wrote:Two of my friends have had seizures in my presence. They were no shape to draw and fire a gun for well over 30 minutes after the seizure ended.
This does seem very odd. Seizures typically leave people tired and disoriented. I suppose the FF could have gotten there just at the tail end of the whole thing, but still seems odd.

Of course we are presuming this is being reported accurately. The reporter may or may not have been given accurate info, or misinterpreted what he was told. As a volunteer FF and medical first responder, I have had combative patients before, but the combativeness was due to diabetic reactions or drugs. (I always worried about getting shot by knocking on the wrong door at 3 a.m. (don't always get good address info) or knocking on the right door and finding out it belonged to a meth lab. So never stood directly in front of the door when I knocked.)

The story has been updated:
Homeowner Mark Pruitt has been charged with manslaughter in the death of firefighter Jason Adams.
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#23

Post by philip964 »

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/volu ... s-36446753

Man charged with manslaughter, not murder. To me it is murder.
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mojo84
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Re: Firefighter mistaken for intruder and murdered

#24

Post by mojo84 »

philip964 wrote:http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/volu ... s-36446753

Man charged with manslaughter, not murder. To me it is murder.

Doesn't surprise me. Nothing I've seen shows intent or premeditation.
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