Man fires "warning shot"; kills trespasser

[Playboypenguin]

The problem is you will never know when the need for a split second shot is going to present itself. You will not be chambering anything in that type of situation. You will just be pulling the trigger on whatever round is in the chamber. If it is a blank you could end up with your head caved in by a baseball bat or have a few extra holes added to your person by an attackers knife. You have much more time to plan a warning shot than a self defense shot s plan for self defense and improvise for a warning shot. I would actually say never fire warning shots at all, but that is just me.

 

[triggerhappy2006]

Touché, maybe carry a blank gun? I agree with not firing a warning shot i think me pointing my gun at somebody is warning enough

 

[triggerhappy2006]

btw i am playing devils advocate here, i am not saying that keeping a blank in the chamber is something i would do because i would not give warning shots, i am just saying that if one were to expect to give warning shots i thought blanks would be a good idea

 

[Playboypenguin]

Okay, then we can agree that "if you are the type of bozo that actually likes to go around firing warning shots, then you should load your gun with blanks."

That I can get behind. The type of guy that fires warning shots could probably not be done too much more damage by a blow or two to the head anyway.

 

[PT111]

The moral of this story is don't pull your gun out unless you plan to use it. How many times has it been discussed on here about how fast you can get your gun ready to use and which caliber is the best man-stopper. Then someone wants to fire a warning shot or show the gun to scare someone. If that is your attitude leave your #### gun at home. I have no sympathy for the welder in the OP and even less for the boss who told him to help keep an eye on things. That is exactly the type of things that give gun owners a bad name.

 

[triggerhappy2006]

and besides if there is the chance that somebody would fire warning shots at me and they listened to my advice i would have a chance to get behind cover

 

[speakerguy79]

I live in Texas. We had a jewelry store owner in my hometown pursue three theives outside of his store and he fired several shots at them from his revolver "in defense of property" (injuring no one). No charges were filed against him. Just an FYI as to how things can work down here.

And yeah, warning shots are stupid.

 

[Nnobby45]

Looks like the "guard" was a bit of a bozo.

I guess one of the hazards of being a criminal and a thief is assuming risks---like running into a bozo with a gun.

Seems like some folks may have more sympathy for the dead criminal and would be thief than lots of folks have for innocent victims.

 

[BillCA]

I guess one of the hazards of being a criminal and a thief is assuming risks---like running into a bozo with a gun.

This brings up a valid point.

If a person is a criminal and derives a portion of their income by theft, burglary, robbery and other unlawful acts, it is incumbent upon that person to have their own insurance for hospitalization and injuries.

That said, I recall parents and other "elders" from my youth preaching that criminals injured during a crime, willfully put themselves in harms way, so claims against a homeowner, for the most part, should be moot.

Shoot someone for simple tresspass or other petty crime? No, of course not. But at some point even petty crimes add up to serious losses. Tresspassing, B&E, theft plus damages adds up to a pattern of behavior. If said thieves threaten, or make any attack, the blame rests on the criminal. For if he had not undertaken a criminal action he would not have put himself in harms way.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Want an eye opener, check out the percentage of lawyers in the world practicing in this country comparing our population percentage to that of the world's population.

Well, at least part of that is due to two different phenomena. One is that we have a Federal government and a series of state governments and each has their own set of overlapping regulations. So a lawyer from Colorado can't very easily do business in Texas unless he is familiar with both sets of laws (and has been accepted to the bar in both states).

In more countries with more centralized governments, someone with a license to practice law can practice anywhere in the country.

The second part of that is that America is a massive economy and we do business internationally. We are also a major source of law and legal concepts throughout the world. Some of the law firms located here in the United States actually do most of their business overseas in complex arbitration between nations and private business.

As for warning shots, the big problem with killing or injuring someone with a "warning shot" is that you just admitted that you had no intention to shoot them; but that you caused them a serious injury or death. At that point, even if you had a legal right to cause them serious injury or death, you have opened yourself up to a civil lawsuit because you just said you weren't trying to do that - so it must have been negligence on your part that caused it. As a bonus incentive, you might not have a cent to your name; but your homeowner's or renters insurance will usually pay for negligent behavior on your part that injures another person - even when it wouldn't pay if you had caused the same result deliberately.

Two for one special for some lawyer and yet another in the long list of reasons why warning shots are a bad idea.

 

[B.N.Real]

I absolutely agree with the statement that a theif should never get protection from the consequences of his illegal actions.

In any other legal situation,if the perpetrator is not acting in a legal manner at the time of any offense,he is found guilty of the offense.

 

[PT111]

Sounds to me like there weren't any warning shots.

http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2008/09/17/news/breaking_news/doc48d18fd1c7971647250059.txt

The Pueblo Chieftain

A late-night security guard at American Iron and Metal has been arrested for fatally shooting a man outside the scrapyard late Tuesday.

According to an arrest affidavit, the suspect, 46-year-old David Lee Noriega, wanted to move the victim's body inside the scrapyard and reportedly placed a baseball bat next to the victim "to make it look like the guy he shot had a weapon."

Noriega was booked into Pueblo County jail on a warrant for second-degree murder. His bail was set at $250,000.

The victim was identified as Clay Frank Eldred, who would have turned 43 on Friday, according to Dave Santos, acting coroner for Pueblo County. The incident happened about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday outside the scrapyard located at 831 Santa Fe Drive.

Detectives with the Pueblo Police Department and Pueblo County Sheriff's Office are investigating the case because the shooting's location overlaps their jurisdictions.

Preliminary investigation found that Eldred was shot once in the back, the affidavit said.

An official autopsy is scheduled Thursday, but Santos said Eldred died at the scene from a single gunshot wound to his torso.

Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk Taylor said at a press conference this afternoon that no evidence was found indicating Eldred was trying to break into the property.

Due to the price of metal, law enforcement agencies have seen an ongoing series of metal and copper thefts from both residential areas and scrapyards.

Ronald Galvin, 36, a fellow security guard at American Iron and Metal, told investigators that he didn't witness the shooting. Galvin said he heard Noriega fire at least three shots outside the yard, and then Noriega called him to his location.

When he arrived, Galvin said he saw Noriega had a man, later identified as Eldred, face down on the ground. Galvin said he threatened to pepper spray Eldred, then noticed he was dead while applying handcuffs.

As many as 20 minutes passed before police were called, according to the affidavit.

During that time, Galvin said Noriega "wanted to drag the body in the yard to make it look like the party was actually on American Iron and Metal property" and that "Noriega told him they needed to make it look like the guy he shot had a weapon," the affidavit said.

Galvin denied helping Noriega. Investigators found Eldred outside they scrapyard

 

[furyfour]

assault type pistol.... ugh

 

[LanceOregon]

Sounds to me like there weren't any warning shots.

Yep, I fully agree. Noriega is simply a liar, that is all. And a rather stupid and bad one at that.

Warnings should be shouted, not shot.

Metal Scrapyards would be a hotbed for crime these days, with the prices that various metals are now selling for. Here where I live, thiefs are ripping gutters and drains off of houses. Homes that are not being lived in are being broken into and ransacked for metal.

The evening news recently showed one house that had pipes literally ripped out of its walls, doing tremendous damage to the home. All just for selling the metal for scrap.

.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Surely some of y'all are still hung up on the semantics of "warning shots" in this story. The guy didn't fire any warning shots. He just made the claim, along with the other fabrications.

 

[Angelica79]

Defending His Rights

Hi. I'm Clay Eldred's daughter and once again I am faced with a discussion board where people are saying rude things about my father who was shot to death. The police have said that he was NOT a trespasser and I don't know why headlines keep printing that as a title...I guess to get more readers. There was no evidence that my dad was doing anything wrong at the time that he was shot. The man who shot him, David Lee Noriega said he heard a car door shut and took that to mean someone was breaking into the property. I hear car doors shut outside of my house all the time but I don't run out and shoot the people. My dad had a job where he only got to work about two days a week because he did construction and the guy wasn't working him much. In his spare time, he would take scrap metal to places like American Iron and Metal. He may have been there to ask a question about something. He may have been there to drop some stuff off...I don't know what time they close because I don't live in Colorado. David Lee Noriega came to work that night dressed all in black and not in a security guard uniform. He brought three guns with him that night; an AR-15 pistol (which is just an assault rifle cut down to be pistol sized), a .454 caliber Casull, and a .40 caliber handgun which he told Ronald Galvan (security guard) to carry with him. Noriega wore earplugs that night as if he expected to shoot someone, but then claimed he was shooting skunks earlier. Noriega was not a security guard. He normally was a welder and not trained to be a security guard. He shot my dad in the back and while my dad lay there dead, because I'm sure that the AR-15 killed him instantly, he threatened to pepper spray him and then handcuffed him before they realized he was dead. Noriega instructed Galvan to get the baseball bat from his truck and place it next to my dad's body and tried to convince Galvan to drag my dad's body onto American Iron and Metal's property to try and justify what he had done. Galvan did place the baseball bat, but he would not drag my dad's body onto the property. Twenty minutes after all of this, they finally called the cops. I am still angry with Galvan for the part he played in all of this, but I am thankful that he has told the police as much as he has. Noriega has lied throughout it all and tried to cover himself and make my dad out to be a bad guy. There are long articles on the internet that cover the story the way it should be covered and there are short ones that also paint my dad to be the bad guy, but the police have revealed the facts as discovered by themselves and told by Ronald Galvan. American Iron and Metal has kept their mouths shut. They have never apologized to our family and they did not ask if there was anything they could do for us. Clay Eldred's (my dad)'s mother had to pay $6000 to have him shipped home for his funeral and will be paying for his funeral for much time to come. She has lost a second son and is beside herself with grief as are all of us. He was 42 years old and he would have turned 43 three days after he was murdered. He had a lot of life ahead of him. I'm having a hard time accepting that he's gone because he was one of those people who were so ALIVE and he'd go out of his way to help others. What I can't believe is that people are so fast to say things about my dad when they don't know anything about him and that they would support David Lee Noriega when they know he is a murderer and a liar.

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq10/AngelicaH79/ClayEldredandfamily.jpg

 

[Stagger Lee]

First of all, my condolences.

Noriega is clearly a liar and was undoubtedly in the wrong, but your dad sure wasn't stopping by that place to use the bathroom or "ask questions"at 10:30 at night. As I see it, a Walter Mitty wanna-be rubbed out a thief, just not in accordance with the law. it was an NGPI situation: No Good People Involved.

 

[Angelica79]

My dad did a lot of things at night. He didn't sleep much. He was always going. But let's say, for example, that he was there to do something like break in. He was unarmed and he hadn't done anything yet. He wasn't on the property of the company. What SHOULD have been done was a suspicious person reporting. If he had tried to enter then they should have apprehended him and held him until the police arrived. The place had scrap metal in it. Since when is losing any of that equal to the loss of a life?!? I know what you're thinking too. All of you think we are going to sue them and get all rich. Well, they deserve to get sued and I think his mother should do it. I think the money should go to charity, though, because I wouldn't want to spend money like that knowing why it came to me. I can't believe, though, that you're saying this man had ANY right to shoot someone who hadn't even done anything. He was outside of the place and no attempt had been made at doing anything. And, like I said, even if he had, he wasn't armed and therefore wasn't going to hurt anybody so there was no reason to shoot him. Scrap metal can be replaced...money can be earned again...my dad can't be given back to us.

 

[Stagger Lee]

Yeah, but your dad made the choice. He apparently decided that it was worth risking his life to steal someone else's property rather than get a job and actually earn his money like the rest of us do.

Sounds like he gambled and lost. But again--his choice.

The scrap company should be sanctioned if they knew about Noriega but that doesn't translate you your family getting rich. I could probably support them having to pay a sum to a charitable organization but not buying all of your kin big-screen TV's and nice new cars.

 

[Angelica79]

Okay once again I reiterate that he did have a job but wasn't being given much work. He was working in construction and let me tell you...no one I've ever known worked as hard as my dad did his whole life. Also, once again, I tell you that he had not done anything. He was standing outside of the property when he was shot and there was NO evidence that he had even tried to enter American Iron and Metal.
I don't see how American Iron and Metal could not know about what Noriega was doing. After all, he is their employee. Do you know why I think they should be sued? Because I think they should never forget my dad's name and so that this never happens to anyone else. I don't care about money.
By the way, I don't need a new TV or a new car and I wouldn't want it from my father's blood money.