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Ooh-rah Marine!
Posted by Duncan on July 2nd, 2008
PLANTATION, Fla. — The family of one of the men who was shot by a retired United States Marine while they attempted to rob a Subway sandwich shop said the customer shouldn’t have pulled the trigger.
According to Plantation police, two armed men barged into the Subway at 1949 Pine Island Road shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday, demanding money from the employee behind the counter. When they tried to force John Lovell into the bathroom, he pulled out a gun and shot both men, police said.
Donicio Arrindell, 22, was shot in the head and later died at the hospital. Fredrick Gadson, 21, was shot in the chest and ran from the Subway, but police found him in hiding in some bushes on the property of a nearby BankAtlantic.
Lovell, 71, was the lone customer at the time. Police said he had a concealed weapons permit.
First of all, I congratulate the former Marine for offing one scumbag and I am going to give him a pass on the second because he did hit him center of mass, though it is unfortunate that nothing vital was struck. Second, if I am armed and two thugs think they can take me into a bathroom to do God only knows what to me, which probably will finish with my execution, I think I’ll try my luck with me and my .40 cal.
Gadson’s grandparents told Local 10 on Thursday that Lovell was wrong for pulling the trigger.
“He should not have taken the law in his hands,” said Rosa Jones, Gadson’s grandmother.
Her husband, Ivory Jones, also condemned the media for its portrayal of Lovell’s actions.
“I don’t condone what they did, (but) I definitely don’t condone the news people making him out to seem like they’re making a hero out of this man because he shot somebody down,” he said.
Typical.
“Mr. Lovell shouldn’t have pulled the trigger. He should have let my grandson rob him and Subway, complete with a pistol whipping. Instead he shot my poor widdle Frederick and killed his friend. That just wasn’t right. They were just both great, upstanding members of our neighborhood, with bright futures. This is just a tragedy.”
The grandparents (where are the parents btw?) are angry that their little hoodrats were shot while commiting a felony. How dare that 71 year-old man stop them? I am just CRYING, CRYING for them. I mean, I am weaping TEARS!! Big ones. Can you see them?
I am sure those grandparents loved their grand-children. Too bad their grand-children preferred the “Thug Lifestyle™” instead of working an honest living. Had they, one might still be alive and the other have one less new man-made oriface. And isn’t it telling that all of these relatives of dead criminals shot by law-abiding citizens are coming out as if their dead criminal relatives were somehow wronged by being made to assume room temperature?
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
[...] would try to explain my feelings but I think Duncan over at Rightly So has already done so… Too bad their grand-children preferred the “Thug Lifestyle™” [...]
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Go Marine.
I’m reading more of more of these articles of sympathy for criminals being shot at by…peasants. The media portrays the peasant as the criminal and places the thug on a pedestal. What’s that about? As for families of said thugs- perhaps they are blinded by their love for their thugchild, and cannot see the evil? It’s that “my child is an angel and could do no wrong” mentality? Whatever…their thug child was caught attempting to commit a crime and in most cases, was actually committing a crime. If a police man had shot the thug, would the outcome be any different? No.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 am
This isn’t taking the law into one’s own hands; looks like self-defense to me; he was in immediate threat of grave bodily injury or death. This isn’t a case of shooting fleeing suspects in the back or some other possible gray area.
Of course, if Lovell hadn’t been armed and they had killed him, then their family would be complaining how Lovell had provoked them or how their children were victims and didn’t deserved punishment.
How can these families mind-read what these guys would have done, when they obviously couldn’t control their behavior enough to keep them from armed robbery.
There are no “rules” of crime, especially these days when you read of crime victims being murdered for no apparent reason. As far as I’m concerned, once you pull out that gun and thereby threaten someone with death, you have no recourse if they decide to resist shoot first. Them’s the breaks.