(Idiot joke backfires) Taxi Driver Shoots Man in Bin Laden Mask

[Desertdog]

Taxi Driver Shoots Man in Bin Laden Mask
http://news.yahoo.com/newstmpl=stor...n_fe_st/costa_rica_bin_laden_mask_1&printer=1

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) take note: You wouldn't be safe in Costa Rica. A startled taxi driver shot and wounded a jokester wearing a plastic mask of the al-Qaida leader, police said Tuesday.



Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the Bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela, about 20 miles north of San Jose.


Arias had startled several drivers that way on Monday afternoon. But when he jumped out in front of taxi driver Juan Pablo Sandoval, the motorist reached for a gun and shot him twice in the stomach. He was hospitalized in stable condition.


"For me and I think for anybody else at a time like that one thinks the worst and so I fired my gun," Sandoval told Channel 7 television.


Police declined to detain Sandoval, saying he had believed he was acting in self-defense.

 

[shermacman]

What part of dressing up like Osama and running around with a pellet gun in public is funny? I feel sorry for the cabbie. He must have been scared and now he has to live with the fact that he shot a fool.

 

[Warren]

Big ups to the cabbie for shot placement and instincts for dealing with someone he thought was trying to hurt him

Though I fail to understand why he thought OBL would be terorizing motorists in such a fashion, and why he would travel all the way to Costa Rica to do so.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the Bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela, about 20 miles north of San Jose.

I'd guess he was actually attempting armed robbery: he's at least three decades too old for such antics.

 

[Greg L]

That would be my guess as well SW. Most Costa Ricans I've met/seen are nowhere near 6'5" so the "look like him" theory is kind of weak .

Still, it is probably easier to fight a "stupid practical joke" charge than "attempted armed robbery" (assuming that Dr. Darwin isn't on the jury ).

Greg

 

[XLMiguel]

I serously doubt that he thought he was shooting OBL. What he saw was a guy in a mask with a gun behaving in what he believed to be a threatening manner, so he defended himself. Kudos to the CR police, seems like they have a fair grasp of the obvious and reacted rationally.

 

[DRZinn]

Yeah.