Leftists Choose Criminals Over Victims

Interesting news: Michael Drejka has been charged with manslaughter.

This is not a surprise to me. I predicted it a while ago.

Michael Drejka is a Florida man with a disabled parking permit. He was brutally attacked by a younger, larger, and stronger man, Markeis McGlockton. Drejka shot McGlockton, who then died.

Drejka is white. McGlockton was black.

Drejka has a history of arguing with people who park in handicapped spaces without permits. He saw McGlockton’s girlfriend parked in a handicapped spot by a convenience store, and he scolded her about it, peacefully. While the conversation was going on, McGlockton rushed at him from the side and shoved him down on the pavement.

While Drejka was on the ground, unable to flee, he pulled a pistol and fired. Before he fired, McGlockton–a coward and a bully–saw the gun and turned away. He was brave enough to attack a smaller, weaker man without provocation or warning, but when he realized his victim could defend himself, he went yellow and became a pacifist. Too late.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri refused to arrest Drejka, claiming Florida’s “stand your ground” law (“SYG” for convenience) barred prosecution.

Our SYG law says that when you’re in a situation calling for deadly force, you don’t have to flee. You can go ahead and defend yourself. It’s an excellent common sense law. Unfortunately for Mr. Drejka, it does not appear to apply in his case. People in the press want it to apply, because the shooting looks bad on video, and they want to get SYG repealed. Ignorant journalists are citing SYG with regard to the case, but they’re wrong, just as they were wrong when they said it applied to the Zimmerman railroading.

SYG says you don’t have a duty to flee. The law may kick in when you’re standing up and you have a path away from your assailant. It does not kick in when you can’t get away. George Zimmerman could not get away, because Trayvon Martin, a larger, stronger, younger person who was in good condition because of his status as a high school football player, was sitting on his chest, beating his head on a concrete sidewalk. Michael Drejka could not flee, because he was on his knees with an angry criminal standing nearby.

No escape route, no stand your ground case. It’s that simple.

The Zimmerman case was a textbook case of self-defense. The law applying to that case comes straight from England. It has been the law for centuries. If you REASONABLY fear DEATH or SERIOUS BODILY HARM, you may use deadly force. When someone is sitting on you, beating your head on concrete, you can shoot them. There is no need to think about SYG, because it’s not involved. You’re doing something you were allowed to do before SYG existed.

This is not rocket science.

Even in messed-up jurisdictions where there is a duty to flee if possible, Zimmerman would have been within his rights. You can’t flee when someone is sitting on you.

The Drejka case is different. Drejka could not flee, but the criminal who attacked him chickened out when he saw the gun. By the time Drejka fired, it appears that brave McGlockton was cowering. Drejka did not have a duty to flee, but he did have a duty to refrain from harming a criminal who was no longer a threat. Once McGlockton’s knees turned to water, Drejka was obligated to hold his fire.

You can shoot a thousand people in a day, if they’re coming at you. You can’t shoot people who are running away, no matter what they’ve done. The only exception would be a case in which you had a reasonable belief that your assailant was going to resume his attack. We don’t see that in the Drejka case. McGlockton’s cowardice was on full display. He probably would have licked Drejka’s shoes had he been asked.

It appears that the shooting was a crime of revenge. Drejka probably knew he was safe when McGlockton started cringing. He shot anyway, and the best explanation is a desire to punish. The law doesn’t allow that.

If it seems like I’m angry with the deceased, well, I am. He behaved like a savage. He was a bully. He would never have gone near his victim, had Drejka been as big and strong as he was. He had no justification for touching Drejka, let alone for attacking him viciously. A person like that deserves to get shot, even if the shooting is illegal. He could have killed Drejka with that hard landing on asphalt. The fact that Drejka didn’t sustain a fatal head injury is a testament to McGlockton’s luck, not his good intentions.

I’m disgusted by McGlockton’s attack, and I have no sympathy at all for him, but I think Drejka is a murderer, and I believe he should be prosecuted. The charge is manslaughter, but the shooting looks like second-degree murder to me. It was not premeditated, so it can’t be murder one, but it appears to have been a deliberate killing evincing a lack of regard for human life. That’s second-degree murder. I don’t know why he was charged with manslaughter. Maybe the state’s attorney knows most jurors will agree that McGlockton got what he deserved. It may be easier to get a conviction for manslaughter because the penalties are not as harsh.

One wonders what the state will do. In the Zimmerman case, Governor Scott became afraid of bad publicity that would follow a refusal to indict, so he got prosecutor Angela Corey and her underlings to perjure themselves in order to get Zimmerman charged. Right now, journalists are trying to gin up a new publicity threat surrounding SYG. Will our elected officials put politics above the truth again? Prosecutors should charge Drejka, but our legislature should leave SYG alone. It’s a beneficial law that only hurts criminals. Like most laws, it will be abused from time to time, but that doesn’t justify doing away with it.

Imagine a world without SYG. Picture an angry, dangerous criminal attacking you on the street. If there was any possibility of escape, you would have to run away and hope he didn’t pursue you. If he followed you, you would have to keep running until the police arrived. That’s unreasonable and impractical, and that’s why we have SYG. Without it, criminals could chase us around at will and drive us out of public places.

Anyone who persists in trying to harm you needs to be incapacitated quickly, by whatever means you choose. You shouldn’t have to play hide and seek with criminals, or die or be raped, in order to avoid a prison sentence.

Journalists want us to believe that SYG is a quirky law passed by nutty Florida extremists. In reality, it’s the law in most states. Most of the states where the doctrine doesn’t exist are in the northeast. Even California, which doesn’t have an SYG law, applies the doctrine in practice.

Journalists also want to get rid of the castle doctrine, which says you don’t have to retreat in your home or any other legally occupied place. Imagine that. A group of criminals rush into your living room, and you have to leave! No civilized society would hold innocent victims to that standard.

Our journalists are pro-criminal extremists. Maybe they’re trying to disarm us because they know most violent crime in America is committed by black people. Blacks commit most violent crime, and Hispanics are much more likely to commit violent crime than whites. The sad consequence is that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to die in self-defense shootings, but the answer to that problem isn’t to let criminals hurt the innocent. It should be noted that blacks are much more likely to be crime victims than whites, and when we disarm the innocent, we put innocent black lives in danger.

To sum up, McGlockton was a violent criminal who would have been jailed had he not been shot, Drejka appears to be a murderer and should be prosecuted, and SYG is a good doctrine that needs to be preserved. It’s sad to see so many people standing up for bullies.