Man Shoots Teen During Snowball Fight

[eric.cartman]

http://cbs3.com/local/Snowball.Shooting.Teen.2.661821.html

Man Shoots Teen During Snowball Fight
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―

A Philadelphia teenager celebrating his 16th birthday is fighting for his life after being shot over an errant snowball.

Authorities said the Feltonville teen, identified as Tavin Rutledge, was shot in the head at point-blank range while playing with neighborhood friends in the 4800 block of D Street.

Witnesses say the shooting was sparked from a casual snowball fight amongst children.

A friend of Tavin's, who was also involved in the playful snowball fight, said the shooting happened after a wayward snowball accidentally struck a nearby neighbor.

Police said the adult male became enraged and left the scene, returning moments later with a gun.

Witnesses say Tavin's effort to apologize to the man went unnoticed and the pulled out a gun and began firing.

Family and friends celebrating Tavin's birthday heard gunshots and found him bleeding on the front porch.

"We ran outside and saw Tavin laying on the step," said the victim's friend Mercedes Lebron. "When I picked him up, smoke stared coming out of his head … He still was breathing and we told him keep breathing, calm down."

Tavin was rushed to Temple University hospital where was listed in critical condition on life-support.

Everyone who knows Tavin, described as a nice, well-liked boy, is trying to cope with the senseless shooting. "It was just a snowball fight," said neighbor Catherine Briggs,

"They were outside having fun with snowballs and instead of hitting him back with a snowball, he came back and shot him with a gun," said neighbor Monica Albelo.

Philadelphia police detectives said they are actively searching for the gunman who they believe is a resident of the same block.

 

[Nacho Libre]

That's bad, I hope they find that man.

 

[damien]

I am not so sure this is about "guns" unless the guy ends up being a CCW holder. This is just a crime story. Why not post every crime story that involves a gun? Hundreds or thousands a day...

 

[ZeSpectre]

Why do I always suspect that there is a lot more "background story" to be told after reading articles like this?

 

[NG VI]

I'm in with zespectre, almost all of these stories where all the witnesses say the victim wasn't doing anything make me wonder, but either way the shooter is way beyond help

 

[RKBABob]

"When I picked him up, smoke started coming out of his head … He still was breathing and we told him keep breathing, calm down."

Oh, man. Just the description of that is going to give me nightmares.

I'd bet that this criminal didn't "just snap" but has a long history of increasingly violent behavior. Or there was a previous dispute between the two... though one would hope the adult would be, well, adult.

.

 

[MD_Willington]

The underlying motive of publishing the story is this media generalization;

If you make firearms owners mad they will shoot you...

We all know this is a fabrication, but the media will keep pushing this fabrication, and continue to socially engineer the viewers.

 

[romma]

I remember fondly an incident that occurred when I was twelve. It was after Friday night basketball, and I was walking home bored, so I made a snowball. It was round, with just the right heft to it, and as a car drove past, I couldn't resist throwing it... The arc and the trajectory were both perfect for that instance, I hit the car dead on, reverse lights lit up, the car came flying backwards and I ran for my life... This dude was going to kill me, no doubt in my mind...

I barely made cover in the woods with the madman right on my heels, I jumped behind some rocks trying not to breathe loud and shaking with fear while he was taunting me from the outskirts of the woods. He was telling me he could see where I was hiding and would beat me worse if I made him come in and get me...

I looked up and saw his head scan left to right and back again, I realized he had no idea where I was hiding so I kept my mouth shut, and put my head down.

He left after 5 minutes or so and I waited at least another 5 minutes to make sure he was gone.

Sad though that people kill you for getting hit by a snowball these days.

 

[MinnMooney]

I'm w/romma. I did the same thing when I was a kid - hit a car with a snowball. The guy came around the block and caught me by the back of my coat. He was really P.O.'d and gave me a good shake using a one-handed hold on my jacket. He didn't hurt me at all but I really got the message. That's the way it should be done and it was accepted back then (the early 60's). Can you imagine if you grabbed some brat by the jacket now-a-days and gave him a shake? You'd be in jail with a record!!

 

[Soybomb]

The underlying motive of publishing the story is this media generalization;

If you make firearms owners mad they will shoot you...

While that would make a great media conspiracy, I think its far more simple than that and just comes down to sensationalism. The full story is boring but a story about a 16 yo boy on his birthday being shot for throwing a snowball? Now thats going to get eyes. Ymmv, I don't think all of the media is out to get us, some have just lost integrity and are most interested in crafting the more entertaining story even at the cost of accuracy.

 

[Fish828]

i was watching this on the news here in philly last night. RKBABob, you thought that quote was bad, on the news they had an interview with one of the kid's friends that was there with him and she said that he was moving his mouth trying to talk to her but no sound was coming out and there was just blood pouring out of the hole in his face. unbelievable. and this was just one of over a half dozen shootings here yesterday, a few of which proved to be fatal. unfortunately, most, if not all, of these shootings were preformed with illegal firearms, which the news fails to distinguish between the law-abiding legally-gun owning population.

 

[Magnum.35744]

If that was my son...

I woulda shot the neighboor back

 

[DENALI]

"Mon dieu" what a terrible job of reporting! How on earth this drivel made the AP, how poorly crafted and written, I doubt the author could navigate 6th grade english....Cah cah..

 

[GuyWithQuestions]

Some people out there are sick

Whether the media is trying to make guns look bad or not, I think that guy who used deadly force against that kid for throwing a snow ball is sick. Whether it was a gun, knife, baseball bat, whatever, what he did was wrong. The law in most states says that you can't use deadly force against someone unless you reasonably believe that it's needed to stop or prevent the imminent killing or grave bodily harm or forcible felony against yourself or another. If kids were throwing snow balls at each other having fun and a stray one hit you, if you were in a reasonable frame of mind would you think that the only way from being immediately killed was to walk off the scene, pick up a gun, and then come back to the scene and shoot the kid in the head? Whether the kid teased this guy in past days or had arguments with him, he shouldn't have shot/stabbed with a knife/whatever at him.

Philadelphia police detectives said they are actively searching for the gunman who they believe is a resident of the same block.

All these neigbors saw it, his friends saw it, and no one is able to tell the police who this man was who shot him. So, I'm guessing that the man didn't have previous engagements with the kid and he was just some random man who couldn't control his emotions when getting hit with a snow ball. We should rehabilitate him instead of throwing him into prison with all the other low life felons, J/K I guess we'll find out more if there's any background to this as time unravels.

 

[moe.ron]

The poor kid died

 

[BattleChimp Potemkin]

Not very High Road of me, but I hope the cops dont find him, I hope he picks another lethal fight with someone like us. He wont be harassing anyone after that (not to mention living). People like that are a waste of tax resources to "rehabilitate".

 

[GuyWithQuestions]

The poor kid died

And that moron with the gun makes responsible gun owners look bad.

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

The poor kid died

Not even old enough to drive a car, and some POS shoots him in the head because some snow hit him. Well I hope life in prison was worth it to this low life POS.

 

[silverlance]

even if the kid had been hitting with snowballs every day for a month, and calling his mother a hairy goat whore, he STILL had no call to shoot the boy.

you shoot a man when he's threatening your life; not when he's humiliating you - no matter how badly.

 

[DENALI]

Hmm, POS, life in prison, hoping he gets shot, ect.. maybe we should wait on the whole story before casting this fellow into the dungeon and tossing the key, perhaps there's a history here were not privy to.

 

[silverlance]

This reminds me of a story I heard from my ex girlfriend. When she was a kid in a village in Vietnam, she knew a boy. Well, the boy pissed off some guy in the village. This guy got angry, kidnapped the boy, and chopped off his legs because he was angry. Needless to say he wound up with life in prison PDQ.

there are a lot of folks whose anger far exceeds what the situation calls for. most likely this is an evolutionary thing - if you have a reputation for violence far exceeding what someone does to you, people will most likely leave you alone. guys with this sort of attitude must have been the alpha males of the past.

 

[Flopsy]

Hmm, POS, life in prison, hoping he gets shot, ect.. maybe we should wait on the whole story before casting this fellow into the dungeon and tossing the key, perhaps there's a history here were not privy to.

Yeah maybe. But it's pretty hard to imagine any history that would justify blasting an unarmed kid off the planet. Unless the "history" includes the kid taking some action that placed the shooter in fear of his life, I can't really see any mitigating circumstances.

 

[Wetawd]

What?

Wow that's to bad. The guy should get the death penalty for that.

I'm sure there's more to the story like the kids been antagonizing the guy for long time or something. The guy must have forgotten what it's like to be young and make mistakes. He should definitely be beat to death with a rubber hose.

But about the smoke coming out of his head does that really happen or is it just a major exaggeration?

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

Hmm, POS, life in prison, hoping he gets shot, ect.. maybe we should wait on the whole story before casting this fellow into the dungeon and tossing the key, perhaps there's a history here were not privy to.

Please, tell me a story in which putting a bullet in this unarmed kid's head would be justified?

Excuse me, he wasn't unarmed, he very well may have had snow in his hand.

 

[Soybomb]

Please, tell me a story in which putting a bullet in this unarmed kid's head would be justified?

Excuse me, he wasn't unarmed, he very well may have had snow in his hand.

Its easy for a story like this to get you upset, and it may well be justified. But if you read many of these stories for long you'll also notice that you're seldom getting the full story. Just a clip from a more recent report on this I found now says

A nearby resident, however, said that teenagers would hang out in front of the house and taunt people walking by.

"They were talking at people, making jokes at people," said Tracey Cooper, 40, the block captain of the 4900 block of D Street. She did not know the teens except that they began to gather at the house after a family moved there a few months ago.

Another neighbor said the teens were "sometimes rowdy," but said the behavior was that of "typical kids."

Obviously name calling to the neighbors is no justification for such actions but you never see family and friends quoted as saying "We all knew this was coming, he was a thug and always in trouble." Every kid in an angel in the news. Who knows, maybe this kid has robbed the guys house, slashed his tires, is dealing drugs in front of the house....we don't know yet. The odds of this kid being a saint and the shooter just suddenly snapping for absolutely no reason seem pretty bad. It seems likely the two have had some involvement that we just don't know about yet.