In Texas, it's totally legal to murder a kid if he's sleeping with your daughter
by David Atkins
Girl sneaks boyfriend into bedroom. Dad hears noises. Dad comes bursting into room with gun. Girl freaks out, claims she's being raped. Dad talks to the boyfriend for a while. Dad shoots and kills boyfriend.
Dad will probably not be charged:
The Houston father who police say fatally shot a 17-year-old boy who was inside his daughter’s bedroom early Thursday morning will likely not be charged, an area prosecutor told MyFoxHouston.com.
Although a grand jury will review the case, prosecutor Warren Diepraam said it is unlikely that the father will be charged.
"What was going on in the person's mind at the time of the shooting, [not] what they found out after the fact" is key, Diepraam said. "They're looking at what he was thinking when he made the decision to shoot."
The investigation into the shooting is ongoing, and a grand jury will ultimately decide if charges are appropriate. But so far it appears the father, who was only identified as a 55-year-old in reports, was awaken by one of his other children at about 2:20 a.m. He was told someone was in his 16-year-old daughter's bedroom and he grabbed his gun.
He reportedly found the teen in bed with his daughter and confronted him. His daughter apparently told him she did not know the boy.
The father said he told the teen not to move, but reportedly saw the teen reach for something, at which point police say the father opened fire. The teen did not have a gun. His daughter later confessed that she snuck her boyfriend, 17, into the house, the report said.
Certain parts of the this country are certifiably insane.
Update: I am utterly amazed at the number of people who want to lay all the blame on the daughter in this scenario. Let's be very clear: yes, what she did is immoral. But she didn't pull the trigger. She didn't kill him. The father did. Nor should we be terribly surprised that the daughter of the sort of violent man who would straight up murder this kid would be too afraid to tell him the truth about her sex life. I imagine the truth wouldn't have gone down well with Daddy.
Yes, the daughter panicked. But she wasn't carrying a gun. Daddy panicked too, but since he was carrying a gun an innocent kid is now dead.
A lot of people out there harbor fantasies about killing "evildoers." A lot of guys out there want to be able to murder their daughter's rapist and have society sanction that. Even had she been telling the truth, the father and his gun don't get to serve as judge, jury and executioner. Daddy and his gun are not a court of law. The daughter wasn't on the stand to perjure herself, and she committed no crime. Had the father shown an ounce of self-restraint and called the police, the situation would have resolved itself quickly and she would have recanted her lie. Daddy, his temper and his gun cut justice short.
It also highlights everything wrong with Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground. This kid was unarmed and posed no threat to anyone. The father says that he felt threatened and saw the kid "reach for something." Well, unfortunately this innocent young man is dead now, so we'll never know if he did make a sudden move or not. He's not around anymore to tell his side of the story. Insanely, the burden of proof is now on the state to demonstrate that violent men with guns didn't "feel threatened" by something or other. In the vast majority of cases, the only violent threat in a room with an armed man is the armed man himself.
Update 2: Removed the racial identifier in the title. There was a picture of a man being taken to the hospital that I assumed was the victim, but instead it was the father.
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