Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

[Telstra]

Well done to him.

You don't really know what really happened to that girl,
and you support the killing of another person? That is pretty bad in my opinion.

 

[refujiunderground]

Revenge killings have no place in this country.

the irony of that saying when america has the death penalty. and the murder occurred in.... texas which has killed 500 inmates in the last 30 years so what's your point?

 

[Telstra]

"the father was remorseful" He didn't intend to kill.
Therefore he is guilty of manslaughter.

 

[refujiunderground]

Well then... he should have let it go to the legal system.

a honest question. do you believe that the us justice system works and that all offenders will be punished? just saying.

 

[oakpope]

a honest question. do you believe that the us justice system works and that all offenders will be punished? just saying.

That's such an abhorrent question. Do you believe that the us justice system is not perfect, so it is acceptable to do the 'justice' yourself ? Cue to lynching the guy whose look you didn't like or who look at you in a weird way... If your mother is killed by someone who lost control and thought he was protecting his child, it would be totally acceptable to you ? Oh he lost control, and he just wanted to render justice himself so let us just forgive him so that he could do it again, with your blessing...

That's crazy and the open door to barbaric behavior.

PS : if a relative of the pedophile came with the father, would it be justified that he let his relative die, or should he have killed the father ? If he had killed the father, should we let him go or not ? He would have been just defending his relative, wouldn't he ? In such case, the mother would be entitle to kill the killer of her husband, wouldn't she ? So the father of the relative should kill the mother, no ? And so on...

 

[Kulindahr]

a honest question. do you believe that the us justice system works and that all offenders will be punished? just saying.

...or that all who are punished really are offenders?

 

[bankside]

A couple of things:

The only way to know how you react in a situation is if you have trained for it and then verified your training by being in that situation.

There is no moral justification for continued violence once the threat has been ended.

In situations like this, our reasoning tends to shut down and out animal hindbrain takes over.

The trouble is, the cessation of a sexual attack on a child is paramount above all other interests, including, certainly, the life of the assailant. If the animal hindbrain is activated and engaged in furnishing that protection, the law should do nothing to dissuade that; to do otherwise would be a disservice to the child. No parent removing a rapist from a child should be told to "compose himself" as the effort required to do so distracts from the task at hand.

I mean just to give a trivial example, I have a grandmother who shot-putted a cat that had hopped up into my aunt's baby carriage and sat on her infant head.. Grandma should not have been charged with animal cruelty, even though her response, by any strict rational evaluation, exceeded what was required to secure my aunt's safety. Of course a rapist is more wiley than your average housecat, and more dangerous too, in that the harm done is not inadvertent; we should not burden responsible parents by demanding a more restrained response. I mean the rape of a child is by definition not only corrupt intent, but the abandonment of restraint; the response (of an emotional parent) cannot ethically be expected to show greater restraint in the moment where they confront this kind of threat.

 

[refujiunderground]

That's such an abhorrent question. Do you believe that the us justice system is not perfect, so it is acceptable to do the 'justice' yourself ? Cue to lynching the guy whose look you didn't like or who look at you in a weird way... If your mother is killed by someone who lost control and thought he was protecting his child, it would be totally acceptable to you ? Oh he lost control, and he just wanted to render justice himself so let us just forgive him so that he could do it again, with your blessing...

That's crazy and the open door to barbaric behavior.

all i have to say is this. you guys can call the guy a murderer or whatever but hey, who's fault is it though?

let me put it to you like this. none of this would have happened if that child molester didn't decide to act on his urges. he shouldn't be doing what he did in the first place and he would still be alive. you expect me to feel sorry for someone who basically fucked themselves off. i don't see why you guys are being sympathic towards someone who basically put himself in that position to have that happen to him. so enough of your boo hoos. the man is NOT a victim here. the real victim is the child that he raped. he wouldn't be dead if he kept his dick in his pants.

i can't believe you guys are painting a damn father who was saving his child's life or any man for that matter as a cold blooded killer that was getting off on hurting this dude. are you people serious?

 

[Zaphod]

That is an attractive idea but it will lead to complacency because it will not make the offender safer at all. It does not take testicles to have an erect penis. And even if you go with "Chemical Castration", it doesn't help either. It does nothing to remove deviant fantasies or impulses, and you don't need an erect penis to molest a child. Sex offender registration leads to the same complacency. "No offenders on my street. I checked the website." No offenders who have been caught, successfully prosecuted, and then required to register. I am not opposed to registration because it helps keep released offenders accountable and traceable, but it does not really tell you much about the threat to kids, because statistically the greatest threat to a child in terms of being molested comes from the child's own family.

 

[refujiunderground]

That's not the point. This isn't a country where people can kill others because they think the justice system won't work. If people did that, why even have a justice system? Your question is indeed abhorrent (I agree with oakpope 100% here). We have a justice system that renders verdicts. Those verdicts do not revolve around vengeance.

yeah but hey... regardless if the man lived or not, he should have thought about what would happen to him if he got caught. hell, i bet you he would rather chose to be a dead man than to wind up getting locked up or whatever because he knows someone would probably kill him on the inside or rape him. hell, it just irks me that the man could plead guilty and get a lighter sentence for child rape. i would rather not him get the chance to do that so he can just end up in some bullshit program where he'll reoffend.

 

[bankside]

Yeah but hey. We still have a justice system in this country and not a system based on vigilantism and killings outside of the justice system. I doubt the prosecutors would have gone easy on the case of child rape. I'm sorry but no. I'm not buying it.

I think you are confusing a direct parental reaction to the violation of his child in real time, with "vigilantism."

 

[bankside]

Actually it does! That's the whole point. When someone sees a child being raped, if the brain is forming thoughts like "I wonder how best to proceed to be legally compliant" or "Let me analyse what moral duty I owe to this adult whose penis is currently in my child" then his brain is letting him down. More importantly, his brain is letting the child down. There is no duty to do anything other than whatever action, instinctive or irrational as it may seem, that will most expediently neutralise the attack on the child.

I don't care whether that is wrestling the attacker to the ground, hitting him on the head with a brick, shooting him, throwing him in the nearest wood-chipper, or just causing him to flee by charging toward him. There is absolutely no duty to do anything other than the first action that comes to mind in order to abbreviate the attack on the child.

 

[Kulindahr]

Actually it does! That's the whole point. When someone sees a child being raped, if the brain is forming thoughts like "I wonder how best to proceed to be legally compliant" or "Let me analyse what moral duty I owe to this adult whose penis is currently in my child" then his brain is letting him down. More importantly, his brain is letting the child down. There is no duty to do anything other than whatever action, instinctive or irrational as it may seem, that will most expediently neutralise the attack on the child.

I don't care whether that is wrestling the attacker to the ground, hitting him on the head with a brick, shooting him, throwing him in the nearest wood-chipper, or just causing him to flee by charging toward him. There is absolutely no duty to do anything other than the first action that comes to mind in order to abbreviate the attack on the child.

Charge, bearing red hot poker and a hatchet.

I leave to the reader to imagine what they're for.

 

[Kulindahr]

For the armchair philosophers here, step down off the pedestal and listen for a moment:

This type of response is wired into our hindbrains. It comes from hundreds of thousands or millions of years of evolution. All the ivory tower pontificating of "should have" or "ought to" isn't going to change the nature of the species -- any more than prayer and fasting is going to turn gay folks straight. There are things built into our biology, and messing with them too much is ill advised.

Those who don't see the basic rightness of this guy's response are either so far removed from any close relationships that they just don't get it, or they're pretending to themselves that they live in a different reality. Calls for punishment are futile, because most of the race knows in gut and heart that a father protecting his child isn't limited by ordinary restraints, and can't be, because anger and the urge to protect take over, and that these fires within are inherently right. They are at root tied to the same impulse that drives humans to risk the lives of dozens in order to find a pair of lost children, to risk their own lives to save strangers in a disaster.

And if you want to play comfy chair philosopher, consider this: those three people were not the property of the state. Most importantly, the child was not the property of the state. If she was anyone's property, it was her father's -- yet she wasn't property at all, but a precious thinking being in his care until she can assume exercise of her own self-ownership. So the state has little claim on intervening: the offender violated the self-ownership of the little girl, and the custodianship of the father, thus surrendering any right he had to be considered as anything but a wild animal come to destroy. Not only was the response of the father right, it was his duty.

There are times in civilization that the right thing is to let loose of civilized constraints and unleash our inner animal. A father defending his child is one of those times. We should not be accusing or condemning him, but giving respect.

 

[bankside]

Okay lets back this up a bit. I still think we're going off the rails on the vigilante/private citizen question.

Suppose there is a hostage taking. Police are involved. Tactical snipers are in place while negotiations proceed with the hostage takers, thus the snipers are ordered to do nothing, as the police are under a mandate to pursue negotiations in the hopes of ending the stand-off without violence.

One of the hostage-takers expresses his frustration with the police and leaves the phone line while others continue to talk. The frustrated hostage-taker decides to relax for a while by raping a child, which is imminent, obvious, and visible to the tactical snipers through a window:

Is the lesser evil:
a) keep the hostage-takers on the line to pursue the hope of negotiating release of the hostages, making a note of the time and particulars of the rape for subsequent prosecution, or
b) engage the tactical snipers to take out the rapist, and thus by policy to snipe all the other hostage takers simultaneously in case they take cover or react to the first shot.

It is, for the purposes of this exercise, a split-second command decision and thus there is no option C.

 

[bankside]

For the armchair philosophers here, step down off the pedestal and listen for a moment:

This type of response is wired into our hindbrains. It comes from hundreds of thousands or millions of years of evolution. All the ivory tower pontificating of "should have" or "ought to" isn't going to change the nature of the species -- any more than prayer and fasting is going to turn gay folks straight. There are things built into our biology, and messing with them too much is ill advised.

Those who don't see the basic rightness of this guy's response are either so far removed from any close relationships that they just don't get it, or they're pretending to themselves that they live in a different reality. Calls for punishment are futile, because most of the race knows in gut and heart that a father protecting his child isn't limited by ordinary restraints, and can't be, because anger and the urge to protect take over, and that these fires within are inherently right. They are at root tied to the same impulse that drives humans to risk the lives of dozens in order to find a pair of lost children, to risk their own lives to save strangers in a disaster.

And if you want to play comfy chair philosopher, consider this: those three people were not the property of the state. Most importantly, the child was not the property of the state. If she was anyone's property, it was her father's -- yet she wasn't property at all, but a precious thinking being in his care until she can assume exercise of her own self-ownership. So the state has little claim on intervening: the offender violated the self-ownership of the little girl, and the custodianship of the father, thus surrendering any right he had to be considered as anything but a wild animal come to destroy. Not only was the response of the father right, it was his duty.

There are times in civilization that the right thing is to let loose of civilized constraints and unleash our inner animal. A father defending his child is one of those times. We should not be accusing or condemning him, but giving respect.

Actually it is the other way around; the act of becoming a parent creates a debt of fealty to the child which is judged to last at least 18 years. The child owns a defender; her parent. And the parent's obligation is to defend. This vassal, this serf in fact, must defend to the death. The rapist has no stake or moral claim at all which should be determinative of the option taken by the defender. Generally the defender is obliged to take the first expedient action that occurs to him, in what is of necessity a moment of panic and horror. Whatever action that is, we cheer it on and hope for its success. Whether it is lethal to a rapist is of no consequence.

 

[Kulindahr]

Actually it is the other way around; the act of becoming a parent creates a debt of fealty to the child which is judged to last at least 18 years. The child owns a defender; her parent. And the parent's obligation is to defend. This vassal, this serf in fact, must defend to the death. The rapist has no stake or moral claim at all which should be determinative of the option taken by the defender. Generally the defender is obliged to take the first expedient action that occurs to him, in what is of necessity a moment of panic and horror. Whatever action that is, we cheer it on and hope for its success. Whether it is lethal to a rapist is of no consequence.

If you want to go with a system of fealty, you're absolutely right.

And under that view, what happens to the rapist actually is of consequence: exposing the child to the process of a trial would be cruel, besides costly to the defender's peers -- so killing the perpetrator there is the proper course.

The fealty view also sheds brilliant light on what Giancarlo just doesn't get: this isn't about angry actions, it's about devotion and loyalty... which leads to the conclusion that the man deserves an award for ridding the community of an invading barbarian. Republicans are right that the family is the basic unit of any society; what this man did was permanently relieve society of the burden of a threat to its foundations.

 

[bankside]

Bankside, apples and oranges. The man in this case went way too far and should have restrained the rapist.

Some seriously need to reduce the inflammatory political rhetoric... not everybody thinks the same way.

I would gladly have borne the responsibility of demonstrating what parallels do, or do not, exist between the situation in my thought experiment and the situation of this rape victim and her defender. Instead you choose to make fruit salad. This is not a question of "not thinking the same way." I had no idea that such cavernous blind spots could exist to a fairly open-and-shut case of moral responsibility.

A parent can't take the time to calculate the "minimum effective response" to an attacker who is threatening the physical well-being and sexual privacy of his or her child. It is absurd to even suggest it. They aren't defence experts; they're frightened people whose circumstances require them to exert what is most likely a once-in-a-lifetime effort to dissuade an attacker. This is a defence mechanism that springs to life without an off-switch, for the very reason that such a switch would be counterproductive.

I am quite certain the father has no serious regrets about his actions upon discovering the situation though undoubtedly he will agonise over what simple trivial thing might have occurred to prevent the attack. It is regrettable that the rapist is not around to endure punishment, but that is a small loss.

 

[Kulindahr]

Okay lets back this up a bit. I still think we're going off the rails on the vigilante/private citizen question.

Suppose there is a hostage taking. Police are involved. Tactical snipers are in place while negotiations proceed with the hostage takers, thus the snipers are ordered to do nothing, as the police are under a mandate to pursue negotiations in the hopes of ending the stand-off without violence.

One of the hostage-takers expresses his frustration with the police and leaves the phone line while others continue to talk. The frustrated hostage-taker decides to relax for a while by raping a child, which is imminent, obvious, and visible to the tactical snipers through a window:

Is the lesser evil:
a) keep the hostage-takers on the line to pursue the hope of negotiating release of the hostages, making a note of the time and particulars of the rape for subsequent prosecution, or
b) engage the tactical snipers to take out the rapist, and thus by policy to snipe all the other hostage takers simultaneously in case they take cover or react to the first shot.

It is, for the purposes of this exercise, a split-second command decision and thus there is no option C.

If all the hostage takers are in clear sight to snipers, take the shot.

If the judgment is that any of the H.T.s is likely to just eliminate the hostages if the rest are killed, inform those on the phone that the rapist is to be restrained by them or all bets are off. If they argue, take the shot.


My brain is too tired to cover more than those two possibilities at the moment.

 

[Kulindahr]

This is a fairly open and shut case of moral responsibility? I don't think so. I don't think the father killing a man shows that. I think he took his action way too far and he should be prosecuted. Of course some will say "natural instincts" matter more... wow... that's quite something. That excuse can be applied to just about anything. It's kinda shocking that some will excuse the actions of the father who lowered himself to the level of the rapist.

Fortunately, if charges are filed, no one with your cruel view is likely to make it onto the jury.