<p>I can’t believe ya’ll are so down on the perp. Don’t we have a 30-strikes-and-you’re-out rule in this country? He had only 29 convictions.</p>
<p>This kid is in trouble. </p>
<p>And if you disagree, you don’t know Baltimore. </p>
<p>The public pressure on the City Attorney to bring charges will be immense. </p>
<p>Think of the pressures in the Duke lacrosse hoax. The same will exist here. </p>
<p>All too many citizens in Baltimore dislike law enforcement and the justice system and will look upon this as a chance to make that system work for them and even scores. Think I am wrong? Baltimore is the source of the infamous stop snitching DVD, an underground classic in one of the worst crime ridden cities in America. </p>
<p>I would hope that this young man gets the best counsel he can find, and that unlike in the Duke case, the University does all it can to support him.</p>
<p>Wow mam1959, I sure hope that doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>Read the story of a brutal murder by four thugs of a young man in Baltimore, Zach Sowers. </p>
<p>The struggles of his young widower are chronicled in Zach Sowers.com. Read in particular about the phenomena of jury nullification that occurs in Baltimore. In the Sowers case, prosecutors took weak plea bargains, expressing doubts as to whether they could get a jury in Baltimore to support a murder conviction for all four. </p>
<p>I am from Chicago, and consider myself pretty able in tough neighborhoods. And I am not inclined to be skittish in any event. But Baltimore is one place I am really careful about. </p>
<p>Note to JHU students - I recognize the Homewood campus is a nice place, but the med school areas are not. And anyone in the Charm City, including JHU students, should develop a healthy sense of caution, period. The crime and the culture in many areas of this city are as bad as they come.</p>
<p>Video news clip:
[Police:</a> Student Armed With Sword Kills Intruder - Baltimore News Story - WBAL Baltimore](<a href=“http://www.wbaltv.com/news/20920863/detail.html]Police:”>Baltimore News, Weather and Sports - Maryland News - WBAL-TV 11 News)</p>
<p>It sounds like the student could, indeed, be in serious legal trouble.<br>
I worry about his mental/emotional state after killing someone.</p>
<p>I kind of wish the girl at Yale had a sword to defend herself.</p>
<p>Karen Colleges - I hope they are helping this young man with his mental state.</p>
<p>“If it’s self defense no charges should be filed. The intruder had no business being in the student’s home. Maybe it’s good riddance.”</p>
<p>We don’t know if it was self defense. Just because the student said the man lunged at him doesn’t mean the man really did lunge at him.</p>
<p>I notice that the deceased had been convicted before of burglary, not robbery. If it ends up that his previous convictions were for nonviolent crimes, that could indicate that while he was a thief, he wasn’t the type of person who would attack anyone. </p>
<p>I also wonder whether the thief did try to attack someone holding a samurai sword. If the guy was, for instance, basically just interested in stealing stuff, seeing someone with a weapon might have caused him to flee, not to try to bum rush the Johns Hopkins student.</p>
<p>It could be possible that the student was so angry at the fact that he had had 2 laptops and a playstation stolen Mon. that when he saw the apparent thief, the student deliberately attacked the thief who may even have been trying to get away.</p>
<p>Of course, this is all speculation, but they are examples of why the student might not have been immediately released.</p>
<p>The kid should have made zero statements once he told his original story. He should not talk and should lawyer up.</p>
<p>If someone breaks into your house to steal your stuff, it’s clear that they don’t care anything about you. As a victim of a robbery or attempted robbery, you must immediately realize that the robber cares nothing in the world for you and will kill you without hesitation. When the time comes where you’re confronted with this situation, you have no time to ascertain if the robber has any weapons on him. It’s best to assume he does, even if you don’t see any. If I had a samurai sword and this happened to me, I would cut off both of the robber’s hands and call 911 immediately. I’m not kidding or exaggerating. I live in Chicago, and I know that these robbers care nothing for you and they’ll beat you to death and not feel a thing. It’s something you have to keep in mind if you don’t want to be killed.</p>
<p>
So even if it wasn’t self-defense, so what if the thug is killed? He had it coming.
Rid a perpetual troublemaker is a crime?
Are you race baiting?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, there is a lot we don’t know about this case. But this appears to have happened.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Johns</a> Hopkins student kills intruder with samurai sword, police say – baltimoresun.com](<a href=“http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-sword0915,0,4027961.story]Johns”>http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-sword0915,0,4027961.story)</p>
<p>Pulling a gun on a cop is pretty brazen. Someone who pulls a gun on a cop probably would not hesitate to attack some student.</p>
<p>“So even if it wasn’t self-defense, so what if the thug is killed? He had it coming.
Rid a perpetual troublemaker is a crime?
Are you race baiting?”</p>
<p>I don’t believe that people deserve to be deliberately killed even if they were stealing someone’s belongings.</p>
<p>I believe that a 49-year-old man with 27 burglary and similar convictions is probably a career criminal, and society would be far better off if such a person were permanently incarcerated or at least incarcerated until they were too old to be engaging in the kind of crimes they had previously been convicted of doing.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, after anyone is killed, police need to take the time to investigate what happened before releasing the perpetrator back into society. Sometimes what initially appears to have been an innocent person who was defending themselves isn’t what was really the situation. I’m not saying that’s the case here; just saying why police are continuing to investigate before releasing the Johns Hopkins student.</p>
<p>So let me get this straight. When someone breaks into your home, you"re supposed to somehow ascertain if he means to kill you or merely rob you before you try to protect yourself?
I can only imagine how scared that kid was. I hope they check the perp’s system for drugs. Burglers have the potential to murder. You read about it all the time, especially when drug addicted.</p>
<p>
Who’s paying for his vacation? The tax-payers.</p>
<p>“So let me get this straight. When someone breaks into your home, you"re supposed to somehow ascertain if he means to kill you or merely rob you before you try to protect yourself?”</p>
<p>Not at all what I’ve said. I’m saying that if a person has been killed in someone’s home, the police can’t just immediately let the perpetrator free simply because the dead person has a log rap sheet and the perpetrator says the victim was trying to attack them and rob them.</p>
<p>The police have to thoroughly investigate before letting the perp go free. Not doing so risks releasing a dangerous criminal into the street. Sometimes what looks like an open and shut case isn’t.</p>
<p>While there’s probably a good possibility that this was a case of self defense, the police can’t just assume that was the situation.</p>
<p>“Who’s paying for his vacation? The tax-payers.”</p>
<p>Prison isn’t a vacation. Of course taxpayers pay for people to be imprisoned, and imprisonment comes after a trial that the public also helps to pay for. Would you prefer mob rule?</p>
<p>
I prefer his final outcome.</p>
<p>The student was not the perpetrator. He was the victim. You should address him as such because we don’t have any evidence that his actions were not justified.</p>
<p>On one level it is regrettable that someone lost his life, even if he was a miscreant. He may have been attacked aggressively rather than in self defense. If that was the case, the attacker would not say so. We will probably never know. In the student’s favor is the fact that there apparenlty was simply one strike, and not a series of coup de grace strokes delivered after he was disabled. It helps support a defense argument. </p>
<p>On the other level, you have these jokers who are “career criminals”. They are often just one situation away from a tragedy. I’m reminded of the Connecticut man who lost his wife and daughters in a rape/robbery/fire, I think, which was committed by a couple of small tim, two-bit criminals who were willing to put themselves constantly in a position where they might wind up comitting an even larger crime…which indeed they did. Its too bad they didn’t burglarize this kids garage. </p>
<p>In this case, you can argue that letting the guy out of jail got him killed. It was a matter of time. He probably miscalculated that he was going to take stuff from a bunch of sissy’s. Ouch. A high price indeed.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/us/07shoot.html?_r=1[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/us/07shoot.html?_r=1</a>
This student would not have been arrested in the state of Florida.
</p>
<p>How does one know an intruder poses no threat to the property owner? Just because an intruder doesn’t wave a gun around doesn’t mean he can’t kill. I think it’s better to er on the side of caution and shoot him first.</p>