A case out of Lake City County, Florida where a sheriff’s deputy, looking a suspected armed robber (who he had been chased and missed minutes before,) shot and killed an innocent man who opened the door of his apartment with a gun in his hand.
The thread where I caught this was based on an article from Slate and of course, slanted as hell. The court granted qualified immunity to the deputy and there is an argument about it going on. But this in not where I want to take this post but rather why the victim felt compelled to open the door, gun in hand.
According to the court documents, the shooting happened around 1:30 AM, the deputy did not identify himself and the victim opened the door armed. Deputy sees the gun and immediately opens fire, killing the victim. Again and leaving all the legal crap behind for other forums, why did the victim (19-year-old male) open the door? Why didn’t he checked out who was out there first before opening the door?
In the court document, there is a somewhat crappy shot of the apartment:
It does not have a great definition, so I found one of an apartment similar to the one in the document belonging to the same residential complex:
I see no peephole.
Now, there is a window with curtains also, but apparently it was not used to check outside either. Nor was there a verbal challenge by the deceased inquiring who was knocking at that hour. And he removed a barrier of his home shell leaving him open to danger even though he had a gun (which it was proven not a talisman with deadly accuracy)
My guess, his youth and lack of knowledge led him to make one silly mistake. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you will blindly open your front door without suffering consequences but in this case, a fatality resulted.
Again, I am not here discussing or assigning blame, but to show this case as a teaching moment and to drill not to open your shell unless you are sure there is no threat on the other side. Use both eyes and mouth to get identification and even though, be wary.
PS: I went over another case of opening door without checking and security equipment in a previous post.