Vigilante Justice or Murder?

The St. Petersburg Times has a story today about the outcome of a recent trial here in Tampa.

A jury on found restaurant owner Lawrence Storer not guilty of manslaughter for chasing down and killing a man who tried to rob him in 2003.

Storer?s attorney John Fitzgibbons argued that he had committed an excusable homicide. Storer, testifying in his defense, told jurors that when Wilson pointed a gun at him, he was terrified of dying, and was acting in shock and instinct when he chased after him in his car. He hit Wilson, killing him on a downtown street.

Now, there are some details to fill in here. The gun turned out to be a pellet gun, but most certainly looked real. The robber got away with $15.00. The robber had a previous criminal record.

The robber had already run about two blocks away when Storer got in his truck and ran the guy down. Then he got out of the truck and was shaking his fist in the guy’s face as he was dying.

I’m sure there are a lot of people saying the robber got what he deserved, and the justice system worked. I’m not sure I can come down on one side or the other about this. Is that what we really want? Any body being able to run down some one for any reason?

I?almost?took?Storer’s side of the?story until I saw him standing over a dying man cursing him and sticking his fist in his face. The man was pretty cold hearted. After all, by that time, the guy knew he was not going to be killed and he knew he had only lost 15.00. He killed a man for 15.00. Seems kind of barbaric to me.

I can see him shooting a robber who was still in his store or still had a gun on him, but this man had already run two blocks away and the defendant got in his truck, chased him and ran him over. Not happy with that, he got out of his truck, ran over to the man and cursed in his dying face while shaking his fist at him. Seems a little overboard to me. In a civil society, you don’t just hunt people down and kill them on your own.

Of course, on the other hand you have nuts who think robbing someone is an acceptable form of employment thinking twice about their chosen profession.

So, I’d like to hear some more opinions on this case. Please use the comments section to share what you think of this case.