Blame the gun! (argh!)

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thorn726

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berkeley, CA
So i mentioned before how we had this ridiculous "accidental" shooting here in Berkeley, and of course so far we have had one community meeting advocating better gun control (as if controlling guns in Berkeley has any relevance, the shooter, although from Berkeley, currently resides in hayward, or more recently, jail! ha ha)

NOW- why do i say "blame the gun!" ???
the article below describes the incident, in somewhat reverse order due to the fact that the LEs finally caught this maroon, and most locals know the story well by now, but the details are in there.

FACTS- a little sketchy. we have this claim that the murdered girl called shooter and said "i need your help, bring the heat" menaing gun- but the only FACT we have is the girl used her cell to call his.

so we haVE our first "aim" (ha) at the GUn rather than person- she said bring the heat, so he had to bring the gun. people dont think, they just mvoe around the objects in front of them. so since a gun was available, it had to be used, there was no ability for anyone to THINK "hey, aybe a gun is a bit much for this situation"
follow? i know, rag tag story here.

ok here's how it gets worse=

shooter escapes- and people, friends, family are hiding him for an entire summer (too bad for the girl, her last summer was spent in the ground) because they feel bad for him. he "didn't mean to kill anyone"

EVERYONE is accepting the idea that this MURDERER attempted to "shoot over their heads" and accidentallt killed the girl.
that his sentence should be plead out at much less becasue he felt bad.

alright this is too mcuh typing but i hope y'all see what i mean here. media, families, friends of murderers are about to let a guy who thought firing a gun into a crowd was a reasonable repsonse to a few verbal insults essentially get away with murder.

BeCause- it wasn't his fault. it is SOCiety's fault for putting him in a culture of violence and guns, the GUN's fault for existing and being so deadly.

anyone else feel like throwing up?




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here's the article
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=10-07-05&storyID=22462
New Details Disclosed in Willis-Starbuck Shooting By MATTHEW ARTZ
Christopher Hollis, 22, fired the shot that killed his friend and former Berkeley High School classmate Meleia Willis-Starbuck, his attorney acknowledged Wednesday.

Oakland Attorney John Burris insisted the shooting did not constitute murder because Willis-Starbuck called Hollis several times “in a frantic manner” ordering him to the scene and giving the impression that she was in grave danger.

“She was saying to him ‘if you’re my brother you will come here now,’” Burris told reporters. “She certainly said, ‘Bring the heat.’”

In separate hearings Wednesday, co-defendents Hollis and Christopher Wilson, accused of driving Hollis to the scene of the shooting, pleaded not guilty to murdering Willis-Starbuck.

Both men are due to return to court Oct. 14 to set dates for preliminary hearings. Wilson, 20, is free on bail. Hollis, who was arrested last month by Fresno police after more than two months on the run, is being held in Santa Rita prison.

According to Burris, Willis-Starbuck, who would have been a junior at Dartmouth College this year, called Hollis on his cell phone to come to her defense the night of July 17 after she and a group of female friends got into an argument with a group that included Cal football players outside her apartment on College Avenue.

Hollis arrived and fired several shots into the crowd, striking Willis-Starbuck and grazing the wrist of Cal Safety Gary Doxy, Burris said. Hollis, who, at the corner of College Avenue and Dwight Way, was half a block away from the crowd, intended to shoot high in the air to scare off the football players, Burris said.

“He was not trying to hit anyone,” he said.

Burris wants to proceed quickly with the case and go to trial by early spring. He is seeking a bail bond for Hollis.

Based on his review of police records, Burris said the football players initially asked the girls to go to a dorm party across the street. The argument escalated, he added, when Cal wide receiver David Gray compared one of Willis-Starbuck’s friends to Chewbacca, a big, hairy Star Wars character.

“From there it gets kind of nasty,” Burris said. “One person in particular was using profanity and the b-word. It became pretty intense.”

Elizabeth Grossman, attorney for Wilson, accused the Cal football team and athletic department of not cooperating with investigators in order to protect the image of the program.

“They’ve kept quiet about facts they know,” she said. “It’s my belief that everyone over there at Cal—meaning the coaches, the press people and people on the football team— certainly know who was present and I think they should come forward and express what they know.”

Grossman said that Wilson did not know that Hollis was carrying a gun.

Burris, who said he had listened to witness statements from five players, said the testimony hadn’t fully shed light on why Willis-Starbuck believed she was in physical danger, but he questioned whether members of the athletic department could help.

“I don’t know if the coaches could make them less cagey and more forthcoming,” he said.
 
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