Buying a house while black . . .

[Mharvey]

Yeah, I don't know what else to say about this other than those neighbors are idiots. Not necessarily malicious idiots, but idiots with racial prejudice. Let's just say, if a white man and a white woman were inspecting the house, I doubt they'd have gotten the rifle.

The police... hard to say. Residents of a neighborhood claim strangers are breaking into a house, those strangers can't produce proof they own it (even if they do)... what do you do in that position? Take them down to the station to straighten it out sounds reasonable. Though, if they also didn't also take the rifle-toting yokels with them as well (not sure if they did), that would be something I'd pick on.

A call to 911 would have sufficed.

Also this. Unless these are like the Georgia Hills and help is 30-45 minutes away (maybe, not a geographic expert), I don't see why anyone would feel the need to take this matter into their own hands.

[benbradley]

It looks like the police have decided to change their minds about who was doing something illegal.

Newton County may charge neighbors after home buyers' arrests
http://www.ajc.com/news/newton-count...e-1424231.html

Porterdale resident Robert Canoles said he has no second thoughts about interrupting what he thought was a robbery in progress Thursday night at his neighbor's house -- though he may end up facing criminal charges just four days after deputies lauded his armed response.
...

[rugcat]

Originally Posted by Mharvey

The police... hard to say. Residents of a neighborhood claim strangers are breaking into a house, those strangers can't produce proof they own it (even if they do)... what do you do in that position?.

Not hard to say at all.

You have a middle aged couple who have driven right up to the house and begun working on it, in plain sight, with no attempt at concealment. You have their car. You have their IDs. (I assume since they drove there they at least had their driver's licenses.)

They have tools (since they're changing the locks.) They claim the house is theirs. They give you the name of the real estate license agent. Even if it turns out the house was illegally foreclosed on, or there was some other issue, it's a civil, not a criminal matter.

You get all the information you need about the situation and write a report. You do NOT take them into custody and charge them with loitering and prowling.

Oh, and as a neighbor if you see something you think is suspicious next door, you call the cops. You don't take your AR-15 out, confront them, and hold them at gunpoint. This is the way tragedies happen.

And of course, the response of the neighbors and cops had nothing to do with race, I'm sure.

[ColoradoGuy]

Originally Posted by rugcat

And of course, the response of the neighbors and cops had nothing to do with race, I'm sure.

Of course not. Besides, as we all know, both sides do it^TM. And those shrill people who point out blatant racism are the true racists.

[muravyets]

Originally Posted by Roger J Carlson

The part where we make a judgment on their personalities based on a 500 word article. The man was black, so they must be bigots. They carried guns, so they must be kooks. They made mistakes so they must be stupid.

This rush to judgment...say, isn't that exactly what they did?

Would it be better to rush to the judgment that they're intelligent, reasonable, tolerant people who don't take the law into their own hands and somehow that's why they did something so rash, stupid, suspicious, and potentially dangerous?

A rushed judgment will usually have to be amended later, but nevertheless, there is still wisdom in the old adage that things that look, swim and quack like ducks are usually ducks.

And if someone acts like a bigoted moron, there's a fairly decent likelihood that a bigoted moron is what that person is.

At any rate, being a bigoted moron is a better excuse for acting like one than simply having chosen to act like one even though one is smart enough to know better.

[Mharvey]

Originally Posted by rugcat

Not hard to say at all.

You have a middle aged couple who have driven right up to the house and begun working on it, in plain sight, with no attempt at concealment. You have their car. You have their IDs. (I assume since they drove there they at least had their driver's licenses.)

They have tools (since they're changing the locks.) They claim the house is theirs. They give you the name of the real estate license agent. Even if it turns out the house was illegally foreclosed on, or there was some other issue, it's a civil, not a criminal matter.

You get all the information you need about the situation and write a report. You do NOT take them into custody and charge them with loitering and prowling.

Oh, and as a neighbor if you see something you think is suspicious next door, you call the cops. You don't take your AR-15 out, confront them, and hold them at gunpoint. This is the way tragedies happen.

And of course, the response of the neighbors and cops had nothing to do with race, I'm sure.

Fair points, but I'm not a dumb guy myself. I wouldn't have thought to ask about the real estate agents. Maybe if were the other gentleman trying to prove I owned the house, I might have considered that... but then again, I was just threatened by guys with rifles and might not have been thinking straight. Or they might have tried the real estate agent and gotten a busy signal. With no one to corroborate the story, no proof they owned the place, and eye-witness testimony (no matter how unreliable) that said they were trying to break in, you'd just let them go without holding them for a few hours until everything got sorted out? I'd say that would be a very ballsy call.

And as far as the other common sense stuff, I'm sure every police officer can tell stories about stupid people committing crimes. Besides, I seem to recall that being a valid robbing technique. You don't conceal your intentions, look like you own the place or are doing repairs on it... all the while robbing it blind.

The gun-toting yokels on the other hand... probably another story. I'm with you on them. I'm just not sure there's enough evidence here to support the cops went out of their way to be malicious, racist or even exhibited particularly bad judgment, given the circumstances. It does seem like they dropped the charges in a hurry once they got confirmation of all the facts.

[missesdash]

I just try to avoid places where their might be backwoods, trigger-happy individuals. You know, like anywhere below the mason dixon

Kidding! Sort of...


ETA: did you see what kind of guns they were carrying???? What the hell do people do with guns like that? Hunt squirrels? Ugh, what idiots.

[Yorkist]

Originally Posted by veinglory

Holding someone at gunpoint is not a small 'mistake'. In fact, I would have assumed it was some kind of crime?

It is. It's called assault with a deadly weapon.

Originally Posted by Mharvey

I'm just not sure there's enough evidence here to support the cops went out of their way to be malicious, racist or even exhibited particularly bad judgment, given the circumstances. It does seem like they dropped the charges in a hurry once they got confirmation of all the facts.

Bad judgment such as arresting the victims of a crime and then praising the criminals?

[Mharvey]

Originally Posted by Yorkist

Bad judgment such as arresting the victims of a crime and then praising the criminals?

At the risk of a cliche, hindsight is 20/20.

I'll lambaste police when I feel they've screwed up huge (*cough* Travyon Martin/UC Davis *cough*), but I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt when things are unclear. We don't have enough information to know for sure what the arresting officer knew (or could prove) at the time.

[Manuel Royal]

Originally Posted by Linked article

"I don't know what they can charge me with," Canoles said late Monday afternoon, before the interview with authorities. "This is my Second Amendment right. Look, this is the county out here, and we protect our own."

I don't think this guy is a Constitutional scholar. Maybe he'll find out he can be charged with trespassing, and misdemeanor or felony assault with a deadly weapon. (There's no law here in Georgia against just being an ignorant asshole, or they'd have to arrest half the General Assembly.)

[veinglory]

He wasn't on his property, he was on theirs, so I have no idea what that has to do with anything.

[ColoradoGuy]

Originally Posted by Mharvey

It does seem like they dropped the charges in a hurry once they got confirmation of all the facts.

Or that they dropped the charges, and are reportedly thinking about charging the guy with the gun, when all the publicity came out. I think that is the more likely.

[AncientEagle]

Originally Posted by Manuel Royal

I don't think this guy is a Constitutional scholar. Maybe he'll find out he can be charged with trespassing, and misdemeanor or felony assault with a deadly weapon. (There's no law here in Georgia against just being an ignorant asshole, or they'd have to arrest half the General Assembly.)

I live in Georgia too, and I say your count is low. They'd have to arrest at least two-thirds.

[backslashbaby]

Originally Posted by ColoradoGuy

Or that they dropped the charges, and are reportedly thinking about charging the guy with the gun, when all the publicity came out. I think that is the more likely.

Well, and this part:

...
District Attorney met Monday with the Kalonjis and their attorney, Don Samuel. Samuel typically handles a higher-wattage clientele, including NFL star Ray Lewis, former Atlanta Thrashers phenom Danny Heatley and rapper T.I.
The lawyer said he took the case as a favor to Bruno Kalonji, who had taught his kids soccer. Charges against the elder Kalonjis were dropped while the sheriff promised an internal investigation into the deputies' actions.
The Kalonjis said they were also given assurances that their new neighbor will face charges for what Samuel called his "vigilante justice."
...

I love it when folks know when to go straight to a good lawyer Especially a high-profile one who knows your son socially!

http://www.ajc.com/news/newton-count...e-1424231.html

[Atlantis]

When I was a young kid I came home from school and no one was home so clever me opened one of the windows that faced opposite the street and crawled in (window opened on ground level) unlocked the door and took my bag inside. We lived opposite my school and a high school. A few moments later I got a knock on the door and it was two old people looking at me nervous and asked "Do you live here little girl?" and I looked at them and went "Um, yeah!" and they were like "Oh, okay then," and shuffled off. It was good of them to do that. They would have been within their rights to call the cops on me. I did break into my own house and they wouldn't have known what they were seeing. They did the right thing talking to me and then leaving it at that.

Who pulls a gun on someone for walking around a house? That is frightening. I've never seen a gun in my life and hope that I never will. I find it hard to fathom people so willing to whip out a gun and threaten someone with it or shoot them for no real reason. This story is disgusting. What I did was suspicious. I crawled through a window!! I think back on that story now and laugh myself silly about it.

These people had a key and opened the front door. If I saw that it wouldn't even register in my mind as weird. I thought just think meh.

[Celia Cyanide]

Originally Posted by Roger J Carlson

The part where we make a judgment on their personalities based on a 500 word article. The man was black, so they must be bigots. They carried guns, so they must be kooks. They made mistakes so they must be stupid.

This rush to judgment...say, isn't that exactly what they did?

Their rush to judgement was when they assumed the couple was breaking into the house. The appropriate response would have been to call the cops. What they did was completely over the top.

[Lyv]

Originally Posted by ColoradoGuy

Or that they dropped the charges, and are reportedly thinking about charging the guy with the gun, when all the publicity came out. I think that is the more likely.

I do, too.

I've been thinking about this story. Both times my husband and I closed on houses, we went back to work after the closings and got to our new house after work, after dark. Both times, I got there well before my husband and had no papers of any kind to indicate ownership. At the closings, he put the documentation in his briefcase and all I had was a single key. I sat in our current house with one tiny lamp lit, wandering in rooms that didn't have overhead lights with a flashlight. It never occurred to me I'd need any. I never have to worry about things like this, and my being so white I glow in the dark, imo, is why.

[Lyv]

Originally Posted by Celia Cyanide

Their rush to judgement was when they assumed the couple was breaking into the house. The appropriate response would have been to call the cops. What they did was completely over the top.

Very. And dangerous.

We tend to discuss the motivations and fears of the gun-toters in these cases, but give less attention to what the innocent person or people think of the strangers pointing guns at them perceive. We know, after the fact, that the strangers weren't trying to mug them or harm them, but the people on the other end of the gun don't. This time, no one went for the gun, no one had a heart attack because a gun was pointed at them, no one got trigger happy. This time.

[Chrissy]

Originally Posted by Lyv

I do, too.

Me three.

[Yorkist]

Originally Posted by Lyv

We tend to discuss the motivations and fears of the gun-toters in these cases, but give less attention to what the innocent person or people think of the strangers pointing guns at them perceive. We know, after the fact, that the strangers weren't trying to mug them or harm them, but the people on the other end of the gun don't.

This.

I'm having trouble even talking about this because, you know, not only have did these folks flee a brutal regime:

Kalonji, who grew up in the Congo, said the experience brought back painful memories.
“There, they put me down with the gun to my head, and come here, the same,” he said.

But they're roughly the same ages as my parents. I've recently gone through that life transition where I come up with transparent excuses to visit in order to, you know, fix certain household stuff and do anything that requires climbing a ladder or going up into the attic, which they find infuriatingly patronizing I'm sure, and... well. Let's just say that the idea of anyone assaulting my parents at gunpoint fills me with such a boiling rage that my neural synapses don't fire properly, and if I were that homeowner, I might be the one in jail.

Sorry if my overprotective feelings make anyone around here feel old. *hugs boomers*

Originally Posted by Atlantis

When I was a young kid I came home from school and no one was home so clever me opened one of the windows that faced opposite the street and crawled in (window opened on ground level) unlocked the door and took my bag inside.

Hell, I ended up climbing through a window at least once weekly when I was a teenager. Because I, y'know, got locked out of the house. Yeah.

In fact, of all the hundreds of times I've brazenly climbed through a front window at my parents' house, which includes at least once every time I visit now because my parents forget to make sure I'm inside before they lock up since I no longer live there, I have never once gotten questioned. Hell, cop cars have driven by while I was in the process of doing so. And I've never had a problem. Because I'm white.

[Manuel Royal]

I'm trying to understand the mental state of the neighbor. I can understand someone owning a gun. I can understand someone having the right to use a weapon to defend himself, or someone else, from harm. But this idiot thought he had the right to point a gun at two people because he thought, possibly, they were committing a nonviolent property crime.

Guns are small machines for killing people. You don't point a gun at somebody unless you're willing to kill them (unless you're some kind of utter moron who thinks a gun is a toy). The actions in this story only make sense if the man looked out of his house and said, "I think those people are breaking into that empty house. For that, I'm willing to kill them both, for lo, I hold the power of life and death."

[Mr. Pocket Keeper]

Originally Posted by Yorkist

This.

I'm having trouble even talking about this because, you know, not only have did these folks flee a brutal regime:


But they're roughly the same ages as my parents. I've recently gone through that life transition where I come up with transparent excuses to visit in order to, you know, fix certain household stuff and do anything that requires climbing a ladder or going up into the attic, which they find infuriatingly patronizing I'm sure, and... well. Let's just say that the idea of anyone assaulting my parents at gunpoint fills me with such a boiling rage that my neural synapses don't fire properly, and if I were that homeowner, I might be the one in jail.

Sorry if my overprotective feelings make anyone around here feel old. *hugs boomers*





Hell, I ended up climbing through a window at least once weekly when I was a teenager. Because I, y'know, got locked out of the house. Yeah.

In fact, of all the hundreds of times I've brazenly climbed through a front window at my parents' house, which includes at least once every time I visit now because my parents forget to make sure I'm inside before they lock up since I no longer live there, I have never once gotten questioned. Hell, cop cars have driven by while I was in the process of doing so. And I've never had a problem. Because I'm white.

(Bolded mine.)

You know that?

How?


First, I just want to say that these people were wrong. Obviously wrong. They were idiots and they were morons. (Talking about the neighbors more than the cops.)

But…seeing that a charge of racism is just about as bad as you can get nowadays, it drives me nuts when that charge is thrown around willy-nilly.

When I was much younger, and in school, four black men held me up at knifepoint and stole my brand new winter jacket. Not a single racist word was thrown around. They said nothing for me to believe that there was any other reason for the robbery other than the fact that they wanted my jacket. But, they were black and I am white. Should I just assume racist intentions?

My Grandmother was mugged and knocked to the ground by two black guys. They stole her purse. Again, not a single racist word was uttered, but they were black and she was white. Should I assume that racism was behind the mugging?

Point is, how about we wait till we have some proof…and maybe it is there…but, how about we have some proof before the racism charge is just thrown onto the bonfire.

[fireluxlou]

Quotes from the Canoles on their arrest:

It took four days for events to turn completely around, with charges of loitering and prowling dropped against the Kalonjis, and the criminal charges filed against the Canoles. Robert Canoles says he was initially praised by responding officers, the Associated Press reports.

"I don't know what they can charge me with," Canoles said late Monday before turning himself in, the Journal-Constitution reports. "This is my Second Amendment right. Look, this is the country out here, and we protect our own."

[Chrissy]

"I don't know what they can charge me with," Canoles said

aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal trespass

This is what they can, and did, charge you with. Idiot.

[benbradley]

The idiots father-and-son anti-crime team are out on bond:
http://www.ajc.com/news/father-son-w...d-1425343.html