ebd10
Member
It still doesn't justify shooting someone for shining a flashlight!!!!
If that was the case Security Guards, Hikers, Joggers, Newspaper Boys...all who use flashlights at night, would be open season for inadvertantly shining a light in a doorway or window.
That argument is specious. This was not an inadvertant shining of a light into a window, this was the intentional, volitional, shining of a light into someone's home for the purpose of seeing who or what was in there. The homeowner suspected, rightly according to the jury, that his life could be in danger, based upon the premise that anyone who has entered the boundaries of your home while you are there, probably has nothing good in store for you. The cop, in his zeal to find out who the rock thrower was, abandoned caution, common sense, and procedure, and became the focus of The Fickle Finger of Fate. It boils down to a convergence of bad choices by the cop and bad experiences of the homeowner's.