A convenience store clerk has been charged with voluntary manslaughter for fatally shooting a man who Richmond police said had robbed the store.
A Richmond grand jury indicted Jeremy Z. Simmons, 31, of the 600 block South Allen Avenue, for voluntary manslaughter and discharging a firearm in a public place in connection with the incident on Feb. 2.
At 7:43 a.m. that day, Richmond officers responded to the 2000 block of West Cary Street, where they found the body of Joseph A. Harris III, 43, of the 300 block of East Jerald Street in Henrico County, on the rear porch of a home. Harris had been shot, police said.
During their investigation, detectives determined that hours earlier, around 3 a.m., Harris had robbed a store in the 2100 block of West Main Street where Simmons worked, police said in a statement. Simmons fired several shots at Harris inside the store from his personal handgun, and pursued Harris outside the store and fired several more shots as Harris fled the area, the authorities said.
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So this poor store clerk who had no criminal intent may wind up a manslaughter felon just because a gun was at hand. Over and over again we see guns making felon signs out of people who would otherwise go through their lives wit no brush with the law. Fewer guns = fewer gun deaths
Fake news. He is not being charged because a gun was at hand. He is being charged for shooting someone who was fleeing. More fake news via Double D.
Fake-news J-roam.. there would be NO charges if a gun was not at hand. It's amazing how really thick the low education voters that Rump says he loves are.
The one question not asked in the article (and the only relevant one): Was the robber retreating/fleeing and no longer a threat to Simmons? Unless an attacker presents a real and present danger to you or the public at large, you may not use deadly force.
The ONLY relevant question to be answered is why does the US allow the weak control of guns that allows firearms to be used much more frequently for crime than I thenother large first world democracies that have tough common sense gun control laws.
Fake news again from DD. He Fails to mention none of these other countries has a 2nd Amendment and have murders from other implements that are rising along with their gun shootings. Fake News DD again.
Despite J-roam's wishes... the 2nd amendment was not handed down carved in stone from the almighty. When amendments cause more harm than good it's time for them to be repealed. It happened to the 18th.. it might be time for the 2nd.
All Drake can do is deflect, when asked to explain how the laws of other countries stop criminal use of guns. But he also can't explain how those same laws don't work in Mexico, Brazil, and so many other large democracies.
All Dennis can do isn’t demonstrate over and over again in these pages his lack of understanding about the relationship between tough common sense gun control laws at the national level and fewer shootings. Nor how when governments choose not to give priority to enforcing laws... the laws are just words on paper. He (dis) credits the USA with not being able to enforce laws as well as France or Canada and puts us on a law enforcement level with Brazil and Mexico. HOW unpatriotic!
And not a word of sympathy for the poor victims.
Why is this guy being charged. Who is to say the robber wasn't going to gather his thoughts and come back with a bigger gun? Give this guy a break, he performed a public service.
A basic strategy of combat is to retreat when over matched and then counter attack. Simmons isn't compelled to make himself a sitting duck while a criminal plots his demise.
If only all civil shootings were like military combat where the lines are clearly drawn and everybody is a trained combatant. How does this keep little Johnny from blowing his sister’s head off from playing with daddy’s gun?
Hmmm is this convenience clerk a good guy or a bad guy? Is this manslaughter or defensive use of a firearm? Seems like this store clerk should have put the robber on hold while he reviewed the appropriate section of law for manslaughter. The lines are SO blurry when a gun is involved.
If he gets off he’s a hero of the NRA. If he’s convicted he’s one of those terrible criminals that no one can possibly keep from getting his hands on a gun.... should never be able to cast a vote again.
Better to have tough common sense gun control laws that reduce the likelihood of a gun in the equation at all. Then nobody gets shot and nobody is charged with manslaughter.
"Better to have tough common sense gun control laws that reduce the likelihood of a gun in the equation at all. Then nobody gets shot and nobody is charged with manslaughter. " Because, according to Drake, a disarmed victim at the mercy of a criminal, lying beaten and dead, is always preferable to hurting a criminal.
Dennis wants to keep criminals armed in other large first world democracies there are far fewer victims than in the USA because tough common sense gun control laws laws limit them for criminals as well.
Better to have 50,000 to 2,000,000 more dead people that are currently alive because of so called uncommon sense gyn control which will save few lives. Somebody will still get shot anyway.
What part of your arse did you pull THAT statistic from Fred? How many of those people would not have been threatened if the agresssor didn’t have a gun?
What part of your arse does not research and seen this is from the FBI's own statistics. Put your head back up your own rump and do some fact checking before you post more of your fake news. So now you want to blame the victims? Keep posting so all know the unintelligent level of liberals.
Please share a link to that research document J-Roam... or a newspaper report.. Or is this another one of those conservative "beliefs" with no basis in fact...
Even YOU must admit that 50K to 2,000K is a pretty large margin of error!
Or maybe not.. Do the low-education voters that Rump says he loves learn addition and subtraction?
"Yet the most comprehensive study on the effects of these (right to carry) laws found that violent crime rates increased with each additional year such a statute was in place, presumably as more people were carrying guns. By 10 years after the adoption of a right-to-carry law, violent crime rates were 13 to 15 percent higher than predicted had such laws not been in place."
https://www.nber.org/papers/w23510
"Additionally, armed civilians are rarely able to deter or interrupt various crimes or even mass shootings. In fact, in zero of the 111 gun massacres analyzed by researcher Louis Klarevas did an armed civilian stop a mass shooting in progress. A separate FBI analysis revealed that unarmed civilians are more than 20 times as likely to end an active shooting than are armed civilians (excluding armed security guards)."
If shot in the store during the robbery, he will get off. But it seems that he pursued the robber outside, and shot him possibly in the back as the robber is running away. If so, the store employee will likely be convicted of a murder charge albeit a lesser one, perhaps manslaughter. The family of the robber will likely try to sue to sue the convenience store although I don't see that having much success. Perhaps a small settlement.
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