Teenager shot for walking across his neighbour's prized law

Originally Posted by Vfr400

I'm sorry Philipmac, but Americans are probably the last people on Earth you'd trust with anything sharper than a hairbrush and even then they'd probabily try to batter each other to death with it.

chris

No need to apologise to me man. Americans are not all bad though, in fairness

Originally Posted by northwind

And the law recognises that too. Tooling up and going downstairs, and charging someone with a big stick, not reasonable. Tooling up and waiting until attacked, or until the burglar starts to come into occupied areas, reasonable force.

This I believe is correct, I was once told by a police officer that if you were to 'engage' shall we say, an intruder in your home you should ensure that you say in your statement you confronted them upstairs. By coming upstairs into the area where you and your family were sleeping they have given you no choice but to defend yourself and family against an unknown intruder.

Maybe the legal eagles among us could elaborate on this?

But thats crap, are you just supposed to let them ransack your house downstairs so long as they don't come upstairs and say hi?!

[northwind]

As said earlier, IMO you'd be out of your mind to do otherwise. There could be half a dozen gorillas with knives, or some kid with a gun. Is that worth risking for a video?