Though the stories of neighbors looking out for neighbors are nothing new, it seems that the armed neighborhood watchman has become the new vigilantism of the future. Neighbors with good intentions attempting to take the law in their own hands, are finding themselves more and more on the wrong side of the law.
The first of these stories actually came to surface in November 2007. According to CBSNews.com, in Pasadena, Texas. Joe Horn, 62, shot and kill two illegal immigrants, Hernando Riascos Torres, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, that he believed was about to break into his neighbor’s home. This entire incident was caught live on a 911 recording including the gunshots that killed both suspects. Mr. Horn, since has been cleared of any wrongdoing according to Texas law.
Next there is the case of Summer Moody. According to WKRG News 5, in April of 2012, the 17-year-old Baldwin County, Ala., teen was shot in the head while suspected of committing a burglary of a neighbor’s home with three of her male friends. The shooters, Lonnie Davison, Larry Duncan Jr. and William Hearn, have not been charged, but a Grand Jury will review the evidence.
In both cases in Texas and Alabama, neither were under an official neighborhood watch program, nevertheless they were trying to protect their neighbor’s homes. In Texas, a person has the right to use deadly force to protect property or life and according to investigators in the Alabama case, the men were only trying to fire warning shots, but mistakenly hit the 17-year-old suspect.
I bring up these cases because they are showing a terrible trend, not of neighbors helping neighbors, but of neighbors unintentionally shooting the suspects that they were trying to scare. Neighbors finding themselves on the wrong end of the law for attempting to take the law in their own hands for protecting property that isn’t theirs.
But what happens when the neighborhood watch details go horribly wrong, when the suspect isn’t a suspect but a law abiding citizen?
These stories of neighbors using guns to protect other neighbor’s property seemed to be a microcosm of what’s beginning to fester up around the nation. In November of 2010, according to The Jewish Daily Forward, prosecutors contend two brothers, Eliyahu Werdesheim, 24, and Avi Werdesheim, 21, were performing neighborhood watch duties when they drove their car up to a 15-year-old teenager. Eliyahu and Avi are accused of getting out their car and attacking the teenager even though he was not committing a crime. The teenager, who was just walking through the neighborhood, ended up being treated for broken wrist and head lacerations amongst other injuries. Both brothers claimed self defense because the teenager was carrying a piece of wood, but prosecutors did not believe their story and have charge both men with 2nd-degree assault, carrying a deadly weapon, and false imprisonment.
Clearly the most notable, but not the most current case has been the killing of Trayvon Martin in February 2012 in Sanford, Fla.. George Zimmerman, 28, shot an unarmed Martin, 17, whom he believe could have been potentially committing a crime. Unfortunately in the Zimmerman case, it turns out that Martin was just headed home to his parents’ house. He was just a young man that was unrecognized by the unofficial neighborhood watchmen. Zimmerman is now facing second-degree murder charges.
Unfortunately, these cases are not, neither will be the last of their kind and they are not just limited to young adults on the wrong end of the gun. According to WSBTV in April of 2012 in Newton County, Ga., two men acting as neighborhood watchmen held at gun point and threaten to shoot Jean and Angelcia Kalonji, the parents of a new homeowner who had just purchased the house. The older couple was just changing the locks after the purchase of the home. Unfortunately, the two unofficial neighborhood watchmen are now facing charges including kidnapping and false imprisonment.
There is no doubt that in America a person should have the right to defend and protect their lives and property. Needless to say there needs to be more open constraints on neighbors acting as vigilantes and stop just pointing guns around and just shooting people.
All of these cases mentioned above are examples of what of could go terribly wrong when neighborhood watchmen act as vigilantes. Their job is to call 911 if they believe there is an emergency, but in fact, most neighborhood watch programs are equipped with non-emergency numbers for the police just to make sure they have direct contact with the law. However in these cases of above it appears that things didn’t terribly go wrong until all the neighborhood watchmen took the laws in their own hands and acted as vigilantes, which in turn more innocent lives were affected than true crimes were prevented.
