#fridayfundamentals
I’ve written about the Cost of Killing several times. https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2016/07/24/the-cost-of-killing/ Even to someone who is involved but not the shooter, it’s incredibly hard on people.
Here’s yet another sad example.
I-Team: St. Louis family demands answers after double homicide case went from murder to self-defense
Note that the story begins with “Eric and Arron Smith were gunned down following a domestic violence incident,” as if they were innocent victims of a senseless shooting.
A précis of the incident is that a violent domestic abuser and his violent brother, Eric and Arron Smith, were shot and killed in self-defense by the victim’s sister’s boyfriend. The sister had stashed the abuser’s pistol in her purse when the rescue party arrived. The abuser’s brother arrived with his own pistol, beat one of the party with it, and gunpointed the rescuers. At that point, the victim’s sister took the abuser’s pistol out of her purse and gave it to her boyfriend. The boyfriend then shot and killed both the abuser and his gunpointing brother. The boyfriend was arrested, charged with Murder, and placed in Jail with no bond.
The prosecutor subsequently hid evidence from the shooter’s defense attorney. When this was uncovered by a Grand Jury and judge, the charges were reduced to Manslaughter, and the shooter was released on bond. Fourteen months later, shortly before trial, all charges were dropped.
The saddest part of the entire affair is that a few days before the trial was to begin, the sister who gave the gun to her boyfriend to protect the rescuers committed suicide. The shooter’s defense attorney didn’t want to speculate why she did that.
“We don’t know what occurred that led her to take her own life.”
Having been a party to the killing of two men she knew and then having to recount all the details in court is a good guess as to why.
“We weren’t trying to start any problems, we were just trying to help my sister,” she told the POlice.
RIP Kaylee Castro
tacticalprofessor 