Almost There

A young Oklahoma mother shot and killed an intruder to protect her 3-month-old baby on New Year's Eve, less than a week after the baby's father died of cancer. Sarah McKinley says that a week earlier a man named Justin Martin dropped by on the day of her husband's funeral, claiming that he was a neighbor who wanted to say hello. The 18-year-old Oklahoma City area woman did not let him into her home that day.

On New Year's Eve Martin returned with another man, Dustin Stewart, and this time was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife. The two soon began trying to break into McKinley's home. As one of the men was going from door to door outside her home trying to gain entry, McKinley called 911 and grabbed her 12-gauge shotgun.

McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO that she quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby's mouth and called 911. "I've got two guns in my hand -- is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?" the young mother asked the 911 dispatcher. "I'm here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?"

The 911 dispatcher confirmed with McKinley that the doors to her home were locked as she asked again if it was okay to shoot the intruder if he were to come through her door.

"I can't tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby," the dispatcher told her. McKinley was on the phone with 911 for a total of 21 minutes.

When Martin kicked in the door and came after her with the knife, the teen mom shot and killed the 24-year-old. Police are calling the shooting justified.

"You're allowed to shoot an unauthorized person that is in your home. The law provides you the remedy, and sanctions the use of deadly force," Det. Dan Huff of the Blanchard police said.

The only thing left is to convince the dispatchers that they can tell her it's OK to shoot. Twenty-one minutes isn't unreasonable for a police response time, all things considered. We should work that reality into how we train people to think about cases of home invasion, and how we train 911 dispatchers to advise people to react.

9 comments:

bthun said...

"The only thing left is to convince the dispatchers that they can tell her it's OK to shoot."

You'd think a short/sweet if you feel threatened... blah, blah, Castle Doctrine/No Retreat legislation provides legal protection for anyone being attacked and/or fearing for their or another's life, blah, blah, or something to that effect, would be OK to relay. Then I think of the howling and flood of litigation that would result from 911 tape(s) being made public which contained an official aka 911 dispatcher sharing that information.

*sigh*

E Hines said...

I think the dispatcher handled the situation absolutely correctly: ...you do what you have to do to protect your baby....

I'd substitute "family/property," or some such, for "baby," though. The dispatcher isn't on scene; s/he has no way of knowing whether the call is legitimate or just to set up an alibi to premeditated murder.

The self-defense aspect becomes more evident in the aftermath, but it does all of us good to remember that when the bad man comes, and seconds count, the police will be only minutes away.

Ultimately, though, it's on us to "do what we have to do;" it's not on government to permit us to.

Eric Hines

bthun said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bthun said...

Take 2:

"Ultimately, though, it's on us to "do what we have to do;" it's not on government to permit us to."

Spot on.

Initially, I almost started down the path of commenting on the responsibility of the individual to [try] to keep up with what is and what is not law, particularly with regard to how it applies to self-preservation. Right quickly the absurdity of expecting any regular citizen, much less a recently widowed 18 year old to be able to keep up with the Perpetual Motion Legislation Machine hit me.

Then I wondered, being a father who did teach my children such things, why her family elders had not taught her when it is appropriate to act and ask for forgiveness rather than permission?

Shortly after, I snapped back to the here and now and realized that the young lady is probably not the exception, but more than likely the rule regarding having a working knowledge of such matters. Especially at her age.

All in all, the young lady did what she had to do and earned her Mama Bear Certification with Valor device.

Salute!

Texan99 said...

Sounds to me like the dispatcher first spouted the party line, which is that she's not allowed to give advice like that, and then she reverted to human mode: "You go ahead an do what you and I both know you have to do."

Eric said...

I think T99 is on the right track.

RonF said...

The dispatcher's job is to determine the nature of the emergency and then send the correct emergency personnel to the site of an emergency. Dispensing legal advice is not part of his/her job. The dispatcher did exactly the right thing here.

douglas said...

"Initially, I almost started down the path of commenting on the responsibility of the individual to [try] to keep up with what is and what is not law, particularly with regard to how it applies to self-preservation."

No way. I get reminded of this almost every job we do now. Code research, and visiting the building department to verify or determine the parameters of a given job are becoming a bigger and bigger part of each job. With code changes every couple of years it seems- green regulations imposed because of global warming zealots, zoning code restrictions designed to restrain development using the force of government- and the number of variables of zoning, special overlay zones, codified exceptions, ifs, ands and buts, it seems the code is so complex now that even the city employees who work with it every day don't, and can't know it. When it's that complex, is it realistic to expect that the average citizen can hope to have a clue about what is permitted and what isn't? I think criminal and civil law aren't far behind building codes anymore, if they're even behind.

Maybe I shouldn't complain, as we get more work from people who in the past would have worked only with the contractor and skipped hiring a designer or architect, and hire us as much to get through the bureaucracy as to take advantage of our design skills, but still...

bthun said...

"No way"

Which begs for a Victor Borge exclamation point. =:^}

..."we get more work from people who in the past would have worked only with the contractor and skipped hiring a designer or architect, and hire us as much to get through the bureaucracy as to take advantage of our design skills"

What it is... We've a little bit of land on the north end of one of the lakes around here. The zoning, right of way, easements, water and other access issues, and sundry other codes and restrictions have made it not worth the time, effort, expense to build anything on the site. If the economy ever recovers, it'll be on the block for some other sucker... ah, make that some other astute purchaser of lake front property to enjoy.

As I mentioned in the other thread, if Walkin' Boss and I ever get around to building another hovel, the process will start with a design by the best architectural firm we can afford.
Design it right and build it right, one time and DONE!