Absolutely despicable behaviour by cops

[Rick]

Cool, I'm at peace.

Thanks for yer time & effort...

[liberty]

Canadian Man Charged After Using Gun to Defend His Home From Firebombers
Posted on January 22, 2011 at 1:25pm by Jonathon M. Seidl

A Canadian man has been charged with multiple weapons violations after he used his revolver to defend himself from firebombers who tried to destroy his home. And it was all caught on camera.
Ian Thomson is a 53-year-old former mobile crane operator from Southwestern Ontario. He‘s also a devoted student who’s using his years after 50 to study environmental geosciences. And he’s even a former firearms instructor. But this fall he became a criminal in the eyes of the law.
It all began in late August of last year, when Thomson woke up to the sound of three masked men tossing at least six Molotov cocktails at his house:
[WARNING: Contains graphic language]
In response, Thomson grabbed his Smith & Wesson revolver and ran out of his house in his underwear and “fired his revolver two, maybe three times, we’re not sure,” his lawyer, Edward Burlew, told Canada’s National Post.
Thomson’s security cameras captured the attack. But when he turned the footage over to the local police, Thomson couldn’t believe what happened: he was charged with careless use of a firearm, and his collection of seven guns, five pistols, and two rifles was seized, along with his firearms license. More charges were added later, including pointing a firearm and two counts of careless storage of a firearm. Prosecutors are recommending jail time.
“I don’t have enemies,” Thomson told the Post. “I don’t know that many people. I’m a quiet man. I just want to go back to my life and be able to live out my days in relative peace.”
He and his lawyer are baffled by the charges. According to the Post, it is legal to claim self-defense in cases such as this, but Canada does lack the U.S.-style “Castle Doctrine,” which allows citizens to defend their property with force.
“If the public are wondering can you run out of your house and [fire a handgun at an intruder], the bottom line is, according to the laws of Canada, no, you can’t,” Constable Nilan Dave of the Niagara Regional Police Service, which charged Mr. Thomson, told the Post. “That’s why the courts are there, to give a person an opportunity to explain their actions.”
Burlew does think the court will side with Thomson and will recognize he was simply defending himself, but he believes the charges, and the process, is ridiculous.
“I’m sure that will be recognized at trial, but why would a citizen, where it’s so obvious that what he was doing was protecting himself during a continued attack, be put to the expense of a trial?“ he wondered aloud to the Post ”It’s demeaning.”
Even more baffling is that no one was hurt by Thomson’s actions and the attackers were eventually caught and charged. Still, Thomson’s case is just one example of Canadian citizens being charged after defending their property, the Post says:
Mr. Thomson’s is the latest in a series of high-profile cases in which people have been charged after defending their homes and businesses against criminals. Central Alberta farmer Brian Knight became a local hero after shooting a thief who was trying to steal his ATV. He pleaded guilty to criminal negligence earlier this month. In October, Toronto shopkeeper David Chen was acquitted of forcible confinement charges after he tied up a repeat shoplifter and demanded he stop raiding his grocery store.
Police are still unsure what prompted the attack.
“This is just an absolute nightmare, this whole thing,” Thomson told the Post. “People need to know that this is what can happen to you and which side of the victim line do you want to stand on? Lying down dead or in court? That’s the way it seems it has to go.”
Read the entire story from the National Post.
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[rubato]

No enemies other than THREE people who are tossing SIX molotov cocktails at his house?

The story has a great deal left unexplained and somewhat suspicious.

Why does he have multiple security cameras? I have to give the whole thing a low plausibility rating.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

The only google hits for this 'story' are gun-nut blogs.

Bullshit

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

This was initially an MSM story. There is a lot this version of the story doesn't say, like how he killed one of his neighbour's chickens when it wandered onto his property. The guy is not playing with a full deck. Not that it justifies firebombing his house, but shooting blindly into the night at targets already driving off in their cars isn't exactly a responsible way to use a firearm.

[liberty]

Do Canadians have a de facto right of self defense? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/Rec ... story.html

Opinion
Reclaiming our right to self-defence
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National Post · Jun. 16, 2011 | Last Updated: Jun. 16, 2011 2:03 AM ET
Crown prosecutors in Alberta struck a very small blow for common sense on Tuesday when they withdrew assault charges against Joe Singleton, an oilfield consultant from the town of Taber, Alta. Last May, Mr. Singleton and his wife returned to their rural home to find a car idling in their driveway. Mr. Singleton parked his own vehicle across the driveway, trapping the unknown vehicle, and went inside to find their home ransacked. Mr. Singleton then went back outside to discover that a burglar had gotten into the idling car, and was attempting to ram Mr. Singleton's vehicle out of the way to make good his escape.
Mr. Singleton's wife was standing nearby, exposed to danger and fearing for her safety and knowing that police response times in rural areas are appalling, Mr. Singleton armed himself with a hatchet. Using the blunt end, he struck the car-ramming burglar in the side of the face, knocking out some the perpetrator's teeth and breaking several bones.
To most citizens, this constitutes an appropriate response by a law-abiding citizen confronted with an intruder on his property, committing aggressive acts capable of inflicting grievous bodily harm upon a loved one, with no realistic hope of timely assistance from the authorities. And while the Crown eventually came to this conclusion as well, police and prosecutors first put Mr. Singlteton through the wringer for nearly a year and forced him to run up large legal bills. During that year, Mr. Singleton was pressured into doing community service so he could avoid going to trial, even though he had not been found guilty of any crime.
The resolution of this case, while welcome, in many ways merely continues the criminalsfirst attitude our justice system has adopted. For instance, police first decided to charge Mr. Singleton based solely on a complaint by the burglar, 20-year-old Luc Roy (who was given a conditional sentence for the burglary). They laid charges against Mr. Singleton before they had even interviewed him and taken down his side of the story. In other words, they acted solely on the say-so of a confessed breakand-enter artist against a citizen with no previous criminal complaints against him. Indeed, last summer when police decided to charge Mr. Singleton, they called him down to the local RCMP detachment by implying they had recovered some of the goods stolen from his home. Only after he was at the station did they book him.
This is completely at odds with the origins of our criminal justice system and our form of consent policing. Both were originally designed to protect society and the citizen from criminals, not to confuse the two and put citizens on the defensive for guarding their homes, property and loved ones.
Mr. Singleton is not the only Canadian to face such a situation, nor is the problem confined to Alberta. Toronto grocer David Chen was arrested for subduing a shoplifter at his downtown store before being acquitted by a judge. Ian Thomson, of Port Colborne, Ont., was charged with dangerous use of a firearm after he fired warning shots into the air to disperse three men who were lobbing flaming Molotov cocktails at his home, a violent escalation in a long-simmering dispute between neighbours. Mr. Thomson has yet to be tried. The same is true of Canadian military veteran Lawrence Manzer, who is due to be tried next month on weapons charges after he came to the aid of a neighbour confronting three intruders while carrying an unloaded shotgun.
Canadians clearly still have a long way to go to restore their ancient right to self-defence -even armed self-defence -when their lives and property are threatened. The right to self-defence is rooted both in our Common Law traditions and the Criminal Code, though police and Crown attorneys continue to treat citizens who protect themselves and their families and possessions as criminals no different than the ones who initiated the encounter.
Before Parliament was dissolved for the May 2 election, the Tories were shepherding through Bill C-60, which would have helped clarify (to the police and Crown as much as the public) the rights of a citizen when confronted by a violent attacker or other criminal at home or at work. We hope they see fit to reintroduce Bill C-60 immediately, and see to its swift passage into law.
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[Scooter]

That's not self-defence, it is defence of property. The guy was injured trying to escape in a way that was damaging the homeowner's vehicle. What danger was the homeowner in that could not have been avoided by not approaching the car that was being driven AWAY from them?

[rubato]

Canada has a lower crime rate than we do, why would they adopt our ideas?

The emotional satisfaction of fantasizing revenge or self-protection is no basis for public policy. Fantasy is no basis for reality.

yrs,
rubato

[Andrew D]

That's not self-defence, it is defence of property. The guy was injured trying to escape in a way that was damaging the homeowner's vehicle. What danger was the homeowner in that could not have been avoided by not approaching the car that was being driven AWAY from them?

Well, according to the article -- and I am not vouching for the truth of the article; I am just observing what it says -- "Mr. Singleton's wife was standing nearby, exposed to danger". The article says that Singleton acted "fearing for her safety". The article says that he was reacting to the behavior of a person who was "committing aggressive acts capable of inflicting grievous bodily harm upon a loved one".

Are those assertions true? I do not know. Nor does anyone else who was not there.

But if they are true, then that was not merely defense of property. It was defense of a person. And in most circumstances, defense of a third person is legally equivalent to self-defense.

[Scooter]

No, someone who was not there does not know, but someone can use common sense. Husband and wife were inside the house. Husband then goes back outside to see the perpetrator attempting to escape by ramming his vehicle, and his wife does, what? Runs past her husband and places herself in between the two vehicles, or stands in the potential path of the vehicle being rammed? Otherwise, what danger is posed by someone in their vehicle who is clearly attempting to escape.

[Rick]

Scoot

The leap that both husband AND wife entered the house is yours.

The way I read the article it was only the husband that entered the house...

[Scooter]

Fine, let's assume that the wife stayed outside to admire her flower garden. The burglar returns to his car and gets in. She then does what? If she was standing between the cars, Mr. Singleton would have come outside to find her crushed. If she was standing behind their own car when it was rammed once, she wouldn't still have been standing there while it was rammed a second time. So she wasn't in the path of either vehicle and therefore was not in any danger.

[Andrew D]

Whatever this case may turn out to be, it does not look like a simple case of property defense. It does not appear to be a "I saw him running down the street with my TV, so I shot him" case.

Sure, Ms. Singleton probably did not place herself -- and certainly should not have placed herself -- in the path of the escaping vehicle. But what if where she was standing made it so that if the perpetrator shifted gears and moved in a different direction, she would have been run down?

Should Mr. Singleton have been legally required to presume that the perpetrator, who was apparently failing to escape by going in the direction he was going, would not attempt to escape by going in some different direction? A direction which might have put Ms. Singleton in mortal danger?

The authorities have declined to prosecute Mr. Singleton. That seems to me to be the right choice.

[liberty]

I am scheduled to be on jury duty in July, if I on a jury hearing such a cases I will not vote to convict. A person who is being victimize by a criminal has a right to make a citizens arrest and I don’t expect a citizen be as proficient as a professional police officers.

A society that tolerates thugery encourages it. I can’t believe that Canada is a society were one must steal in order to survive. There is no excuse for it in such a country and should not be tolerated

[Guinevere]

Liberty, if you're on a jury, you're required to apply the law as you are instructed by the judge -- not make up your own. If you can't do that, then you shouldn't be on any jury, ever.

[Crackpot]

Speaking of Legal procedures Jurist in Michigan are now (or shortly will be) allowed to take notes and Ask questions of witnesses (subject to Judicial approval)

[rubato]

We were allowed to pass questions to the judge who read them to the witness.

[Crackpot]

Same deal is being implmented here

[Sue U]

We've been doing that here in NJ for a number of years (subject to the judge's discretion). I like it when jurors are allowed to ask questions, because I can get an idea of what issues are of concern to them and address them.

Oh and liberty: What Guin said. In spades.

[BoSoxGal]

The scholarly literature on jury nullification is extensive and the practice has a long history in the US justice system. Most lawyers recognize that as one of the variables at play in the jury system; we in the criminal law most certainly do.