Almost three years ago, Steven Jones, an 18-year-old freshman at the Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, along with two of his friends, were attacked by a drunken mob of fraternity members. One frat boy ran up to Jones and sucker punched him while Jones’ friends were down on the ground defending themselves.

The fraternity members then chased him. Jones ran to his car and retrieved a legally owned and transported GLOCK pistol. When another drunk fraternity member came at him, he fired, killing him and wounding two others.

The incident has been characterized as a school shooting by the media and the university. Jones was charged with first degree murder. According to evidence presented at trial, there is little dispute about those facts. The only point of contention is whether Steven Jones was justified in pulling the trigger.

All of Jones’ attackers were legally intoxicated. Most of them had traces of marijuana in their blood as well. Jones had neither. Jones cooperated with authorities from the beginning as police video from the scene confirms. The video was initially withheld from the jury because it was “prejudicial.”

After a jury was allowed to see a partial transcript of the police video, the trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial.

Parents of one the students who was shot by Jones filed allegations of conflict of interest of Jones attorneys in the case. The tactic backfired. The attorneys have said they can’t realistically continue the defense while under threat of removal. The conflict of interest charge has delayed the second trial.

The earliest date for a second trial of Steven Jones is now sometime in October of 2018.

From azdailysun.com:

A jury in Steven Jones’ first trial deadlocked on murder and aggravated assault charges, and he had been scheduled for a retrial in July.

However, Coconino County Superior Court Judge Dan Slayton granted a request from two of his attorneys to push back the date but didn’t immediately set a new one. Jones remains free during the process.

The attorneys said Jones doesn’t want other counsel, but they can’t focus on his case while the State Bar of Arizona investigates a conflict of interest allegation against them filed by one of the victims.

Slayton said he considered the impact of asking lawyers Bruce Griffen and Ryan Stevens to withdraw, leaving in place a third defense attorney who has said he doesn’t feel confident taking on the case alone. Slayton said that could lead to claims of ineffective counsel and potentially a third trial.

Notice the Arizona Daily Sun claims the students shot by Jones are victims. One of the points to be settled by the trial is who were the victims that night and who were the the aggressors? Given the hung jury in the last trial, the answer isn’t as obvious as media reporting suggests.

The many checks and balances in the American court system can cause trials to be long and expensive. The common wisdom is delay favors the defense. In this case, delays move the case away from the initial overheated reporting that the shooting was a rampage murder. Only as evidence was slowly released was the possibility of a legitimate self defense shooting revealed.

No one can predict the outcome of a second trial. It’s unclear if Judge Slayton (also the judge in the first trial) will again withhold the video evidence from jurors. The individual who admitted to sucker punching Jones has never been charged.

The prosecution in the case comes from the Coconino County Attorney’s office. This is the office that persecuted Harold Fish. Fish was in prison for three years before the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed his conviction. Arizona law on self defense was reversed to what it had been as a result. That case was so egregious, the legislature voted three times to reverse itself, with the legislation being vetoed twice by Democrat and former prosecutor Governor Janet Napolitano.

If Jones had to defend himself using the rules Harold Fish was forced to operate under, he might have been found guilty at the first trial. We’ll be watching his second trial closely.

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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60 COMMENTS

    • Obviously the best solution. Can’t have people voluntarily associating, now can we? Better send the government after every fraternity member because of this tiny group. Confiscate their letters and kill those who resist. Besides, nobody *needs* a fraternity…

      • What exactly do frats do? Between the media and experience with people who have come from campuses with frats they almost sound like organized crime groups put together to promote underage drinking, illegal drug use/distribution, rape, assault, and cheating. I’m sure it’s a “few bad apples” situation but what exactly is a “good” frat’s purpose?

        • I recall reading a piece in The Atlantic that postulated that frat culture has grown to its present form due to two things. Mothers Against Drunk Driving getting the drinking age raised to 21 and the movie “Animal House”. College freshmen who like booze can get easy access to it and a place to party by joining a frat. Animal House served as a commercial that put an awareness in the minds of prospective college students of what fraternity life “could” be.

          https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/the-dark-power-of-fraternities/357580/

          And to be frank young people are going to get booze and do dumb things and they might as well do it in a frat house that exists for that very purpose and keep their foolishness indoors.

        • More like disorganized crime…..Sex, drugs, alcohol, etc., etc.

          And dirty, filthly, drunkin, slobs (and the sororities are worse).

          There are a few fraternities/sororities that are actually geared towards academics. Emphasis on “few”.

    • People have a right of association, as guaranteed by the Constitution. I agree that frats are stupid and tribalistic, but people have that right of association (1st Amendment).

      How about, for once, the GD courts look at the facts and not a bunch of sensationalized BS. Based on the limited information, I’d say it’s a justified shoot. If there isn’t any more provable information, I’d say dismiss charges anyway since it creates a reasonable doubt.

      It’s easy to quarterback someone else’s actions until you’ve had a brush with death yourself. Your instinct goes into auto-pilot to survive.

      Also, legal precedent would show, that once you are being physically attacked, and you or another party is on the ground receiving blows to the head, that is classified as lethal force and thus attempted murder and lethal force used to stop the attack is justified.

    • Why are we talking about frats, when the problem is Arizona’s failure to recognize a disparity of force (three or more on one) defense case vs. the defendants opportunity to drive away?

  2. I’m sorry, what is prejudicial about the video? Prejudicial to the prosecution maybe? This is substantial evidence that he acted in self-defense.n What is the problem with Coconino Sheriff’s Department/DA? They don’t believe in armed self-defense?

    For those that don’t know or don’t recall, at the time of the Fish shooting, the law required the defendant to prove that he acted in self-defense, as opposed to most of the rest of the country that imposes the burden on the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant did not so act.

    • I think that is exactly the problem. They don’t believe in self-defense, especially if it involves firearms. Or individual rights, unless said “rights” are conferred via membership in some special identity group.

      Notice that Napolitano twice vetoed legislation that would’ve fixed the egregious miscarriage of law and justice in the Harold Fish case. The Duke lacrosse team case, the Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case, the Clinton crime family, all of Chicago, Baltimore, on and on and on… This, folks, is why one should NEVER elect a Democrat to any public office at any level.

      • The SAME Janet Napolitano who was so far up Barack Hussein’s colon she could see tonsils? Shocking.

      • And BOOM goes the dynomite! Great job TTAG and Dan, thanks for all of your hard work and all you do to preserve our 2nd Amendment rights!

        OK Barnbwt, you can respond to Dan now……

      • Oh, okay, so you ran an article like a month ago. I guess that’s all we need to do then, it’s not like Hogg is making daily appeals to his minions to overwhelm reasoned objections on the Register with ignorant emotional appeals. It’s not like it was just released by FOIA that bump stocks still haven’t been verified as having been used vs merely present in Vegas, or that the ATF has released dozens of unanimous determinations over at least a decade that bump stocks aren’t machineguns, or that the Vegas shooter was inquiring about illegal DIAS days before, or that he told his brother he wasn’t happy with bump fire and was using a full auto conversion.

        Yup, no new revelations or reasons to run a followup article. I seem to recall an almost daily blurb about the proposed M855 ban years back, but I’m probably misremembering that too.

        I get it; stocks aren’t popular and “they’re gonna be banned anyway” is the attitude of everyone from Trump to the NRA to the gun media. Too bad the reg also covers binary triggers and large magazines.

        • A comparison between M855 ammo and bump stocks is hardly fair.
          M855 is a very popular bulk buy, while the bump stock is seen as a frivolous buy, even a toy.
          It’s only natural the articles concerning each would very a lot in frequency.
          How many commercials do you see for Mercedes Benze’s vs commercials for Toyotas? There’s a reason for that difference in numbers.

      • CZJAY. A young man up here in Northern NM just the other day was sucker punched in the face with a fist. The young man’s jaw was broken in three places. When he was in the ER, they intubated him because there was so much blood and swelling in his mouth and throat, fearing for his life, they intubated him and placed him on a vent.

        According to FBI crime stats, a third of murders are committed with hands and feet. Yes, an “unarmed” man is a lethal weapon with “just” hands and feet.

        • Then why is the kid being charged with first degree murder? Why does the professional not get brought up on charges of first degree murder? Clearly the second video shows what can happen when a bunch of drunk men start beating you and chasing you down.

          I have seen too many people die from being stomped on when they go down to the ground. That’s how they die by hands and feet. It’s not often a person dies by a single punch.

          If the cop can shoot dead a naked unarmed man that is freaking out, then the kid shouldn’t have been charged with anything nor have to go through a second trial.

        • The answer to your question is the term ‘Disparity of Force’.

          It always arises in situations wherein someone uses lethal force by any means in alleged self-defense against an attacker/opponent who has no weapon other than portions of his own body.

          It can also come into play when, for example, a skilled MMA fighter gets in a fight with a ‘regular’ person and stomps his opponent into a mudhole; If the MMA fighter wins, that is ‘disparate force.’ If the novice wins, then everybody cheers. If the novice SHOOTS the MMA fighter, that’s just ‘unfair–he shoulda fought it out in manly fisticuffs! REAL men don’t NEED guns!’

          And so it goes.

          People who have NO idea what a real ‘fight’ is like cannot conceive of the possibility of a single punch or kick to a critical area being lethal, and see someone with a knife or pistol defending himself against an ‘unarmed’ attacker as using force beyond that which is necessary or reasonable, because being ‘armed’ against an ‘unarmed’ man is ‘unfair.’

          This doesn’t arise normally in woman-against-man, or elderly-against-young, as those defenders are seen as being ‘weaker’ and thus more justified in using lethal force when attacked; It doesn’t work that way with ‘real men’, until a good defense attorney can present a proper case to a jury with case histories to back up the necessity of using weapons to fend off a deadly attack by any means.

          Bear this term in mind when making a statement about ‘cops shooting (murdering) unarmed men;’ A majority of the time, things are not that cut-and-dried.

    • Well, your second video, which is murder, proves the first video isn’t. An attack, can be deadly even without “other forms of weapons”. Fists can kill you too. No one knows when a fatal blow can happen in a fight or if a fight escalates to other weapons being introduced. I don’t have to roll on the ground with a person or wait for him to pull out a knife to stab me. If you are being attacked you better defend as if your life depends on it. That definitely goes for this policeman as well. He was attacked and has a human right to defend himself to the fullest to stop the threat. I wish the young man in the second video could have as well….Maybe one day, if aggressive people are stopped dead in their tracks enough, people will eventually learn there are consequences for violently assaulting others and society will become a better place.

      • agree Jimmy. the cop in the first one also tried non lethal first being the tazer and when that did not stop him that is when he drew his gun again.

        • Exactly. Plus the assailant could have knocked him down or out and then taken his weapon to kill the officer and/or other people to boot.

      • Since the citizen in the first video was shot by a government employee, it was clearly murder.
        Government employees must be held to a higher, stricter standard. Most government employees should be barred the use of weapons.
        Government employees are paid to take risks. If they do not want to take risks, then we need to cut pay, end benefits and make sure they can’t touch a penny of pension money until they hit the age of 72.
        Better a cop die or take an ass beating than a citizen be harmed by a cop.

      • So, If someone starts punching me I can shoot him even though I am not an elderly woman? You never know which one of those punches will kill me. I wonder how many people I would have killed already… In that case, I don’t understand why they keep charging people for shooting someone when they get into a brawl outside a bar/club.

        The second video clearly shows the man was unarmed and completely naked. There was no possibility of him pulling out a weapon. Sure, it is possible within the 10-20 seconds before another officer arrived he could have taken a deadly weapon from the professionally trained larger man and used it on him. That being said, “could have” isn’t the same as “would have.”

        I think it simply came down to the overweight cop not wanting to tussle with the more fit man. He probably couldn’t physically handle the situation and it looked like he lacked the skills. In other words, he should have been fired before he killed someone because he isn’t qualified/competent.

        If it’s a bad idea to hire small women (regardless of PC/equality culture) for the police or military due to them not being able to manhandle a man, unfit men should also be put in the same category. Clearly unfit cops can’t handle running or subduing without unnecessary/unreasonable/excessive force. They end up thinking it’s a great idea to assault a fleeing suspect with (what cops and lawyers like to call) a deadly weapon:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXrsPqq3pj8

        • Yes of course some people get charged. It’s the nature of the beast and different jurisdictions (esp run by democrats) would rather an innocent get beat to death than to actually remove a piece of scat from society. It boggles my mind. A bar scene is not a great scenario because alcohol is usually involved and many times the weapon owner is an aggressor or there are multiple circumstances involved.

          There are a boatload of people that have not been charged in defending their life against an unarmed person. (Or found innocent, if charged, in places that are not gun friendly). Situations are different on every case. It is still ridiculous to think a person has to throw blows with another “unarmed” man. No one has to get a brain hemorrhage and die to make people out here feel like it was a fair fight. One phrase…..”I felt like my life was in jeopardy”….end of discussion with the cops and I would like to talk with my attorney to submit a full disclosure to you guys.

          In addition, gov employees do not owe their lives because they chose a particular job. This instance is totally different than the coward sheriff down in Florida. He never attempted to do his job, which is taking on the risk it brings, by going in and stopping the threat. That was pathetic. This policeman engage the threat, even tried to stop him with less lethal force, then when he felt he was in trouble he ended the threat. Btw, running away and then being shot down is not the same as being attacked and fearing for your life. Very few times have criminals been shot down while running away. They are usually dispatched while in the act of attacking law enforcement or others.

          One very simple solution to all these criminals, and that is what they are, that end up on the business end of a weapon. Stop your abnormal societal behavior and it will never ever happen to you. Period. Blame the criminals for their actions because that’s where it belongs. 99% of the time.

          You are never gonna stop the less than 1% of incidents that a cop does the wrong thing or went to far. That’s life in a split second decision. However, it seems that all people want to do is always defend a low life piece of garbage, that is until that piece of human excrement hits home with their family.

          Again, attacking vs running away are two totally different scenarios. Huge difference and when the violent members of our society meet their demise….well good riddance. There are people that don’t belong and I for one do not want a child or even another adult to be their next victim. They are the ones that need to pay the price, not someone else.

        • Btw, thanks for the convo CZJay. Good discussion… There will always be a fine line when using deadly force, and people are lined up on both sides of the viewpoint. For me, I have always felt like a violent person has put themselves in a position for bad things to happen and I would rather have the harm come to them than their intended victim. Later..

        • Here is a good little read that shows what I’m talking about. Florida alone had over 200 cases, let alone the entire country. Many of the cases didn’t even involve being attacked which would give even more credibility to a case. Some are stretching the limits like the drug deal shooting while driving off, but in general it shows that people do shoot to stop people regularly and are not convicted. Rightfully so in vast majority of cases. So it does happen a fair amount. It also says over 70% walk away from the incident scot free.

          https://www.propublica.org/article/five-stand-your-ground-cases-you-should-know-about

        • So any cop that ends up overweight and not fit(this does happen as we get older) as he was when he was a rookie should be fired? All we want from them is the best 8-15 years of their adult lives? What are they supposed to do then? There is only so many places for desk jobs for cops, so those should be let go?
          Give me a break. Every day, very fit cops come in contact with citizens who could best them in a fight, even with the martial arts training LEOs receive. Many of these super fit people are NOT LEO quality, so we can not hire them. Where will we get LEOs then?

  5. quote———————–The fraternity members then chased him. Jones ran to his car and retrieved a legally owned and transported GLOCK pistol. When another drunk fraternity member came at him, he fired, killing him and wounding two others.—————–quote

    I am really surprised the Jury did not convict him in the first trial. Once he was in his car he could have sped away and then if they tried to stop him he would not have been responsible if he ran over them. But retrieving a hand gun and going after them turns him into the aggressor pure and simple no ifs ands or buts.

    • It sounds like his friends were still under assault. If so, the attackers were still the aggressors and force was justified.

      • i would tend to agree with you Vic on this one. in this case i would give the benefit of the doubt.

      • Except that his friends have both testified that they never felt their lives were in danger. It’s interesting to me how many people have an opinion on what the media can spin and yet no one takes the time to research anything. Jones wasn’t chased and could have driven away from the scene. AZ self-defense law states “A.R.S. 13-405 describes the use of deadly force in the same circumstances, and says that a person is justified in using deadly force if the criteria of A.R.S. 13-404 are met and the person believes the deadly force to be necessary, or if retreat from the situation isn’t possible”… retreat was possible. Jones chose not to.

    • It does not say that at all. He did not “get his gun and go after them” therefore becoming the aggressor. It clearly states “he retrieved his legally owned gun and when the drunk frat member CAME AT HIM, he fired killing him and wounding two others”…. that’s no ifs ands or buts lol.

      • I’m not spending a lot of time researching, but of the three articles I read, one did say he “retrieved his gun and went back” or words to that effect. The other two articles didn’t say much to either support or refute that statement.

        • That would definitely make it a more slippery slope. He would have to argue that he “felt” his friends lives were in danger too or something. Thanks.

    • Not so, it sounds like he came back to help the other people he was with. If that is not the case, you could be right………

      • If he grabbed his gun, ran back towards the melee and started shooting, maybe.

        But if he grabbed his gun, ran back, told them to stop beating his friends, then only shot when attacked- different story.

        Small difference, but important. The use of force in the former is not as defensive by the law while the second is much more so.

  6. The real question hovering in this discussion has not been stated:

    Can POG get a fair trial anyplace controlled by democrats (communists, marxists,….)?

    One lesson is, don’t go there, don’t live there.

    Be Prepared !

    • If we banned socialism, communism and fascism( they are one and the same) we could get a fair hearing.

      • Communism and all of it’s unholy spawn(Marxism/socialism/progressivism), are flavors of the same authoritarian collective that completely denies individual freedom, personal liberty and the sanctity of personal property.

        There has never been an example where these belief systems do not ultimately lead to massive blood baths, chaos, starvation and tyranny. Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Cambodia and now Venezuela are recent examples.

        But even the west, Western Europe and the US with thier communist/ progressive leanings have this tendency for massive blood being spilt with the embracing of government democide of over 50 million babies murdered in the US alone before they even have a chance to be born.

        • To Thomas R

          Communism, Socialism and Capitalism are economic systems not political ones. Case in point. There have been and still are South American Countries that are purely Capatilistic but run by rabid murderous Dictators. So do we blame Capitalism for the Dictators behavior.

          Communism had been dead for years as an economic system because a state planned economy just did not work but it did spawn Socialism and it is the dominate form of Government among all the advanced civilized nations and has been for well over 75 years and most of the Western European Nations are all democracies enjoying, most of the time, true democracy, not a fake one like we have which is not a democracy at all but a Representative Government founded by the original Swamp Rats the founding Fathers who wanted to represent themselves not the people and it resulted in a Government that caters to the upper 1 per cent and subjugates the other 99 per cent of the people.

          As far as your crack about abortion I always get a great kick out of Right Wingers screaming about unwanted children not being born but it is they that refuse to fund birth control for the poor, refuse to adopt all the unwanted children (that would cost the cheap skates money) and do not realized that unwanted children born in poverty and having no Socialistic programs to care for them and give them a decent education results in more crime and more incarceration which causes the skin flint Right Wingers to call for more prisons which cost every one billions of dollars. In short the Right Winger is always his own worst enemy.

          The Far Right has no right to force his religion on others and has no right to make decisions for other people as to whether they are going to go through with an unwanted pregnancy. In other words its none of his damn business yet it is the Right Wing Fanatic that is always screaming about his personal rights and that the government should stay out of his life yet he supports that very governmental invasion of privacy when it is directed at other people and not himself.

          Yes the Right Winger’s prerequisite for becoming a Right Winger its based on nothing but pure hypocrisy and blasphemy of his own Religion when it comes to discrimination and hatred of minorities and immigrants and desperate Refugees. A complete mockery of his own bible But when did a Right Winger ever follow the teachings of his own bible unless he happened to agree on a few of them but never the majority of them. Again what hypocrisy.

        • I might add that Capitalism was far more inhumane than Communism ever was when comparing the two economic systems. In England the orphanages used to sell children to greed monger businessmen who used orphans as chimney sweeps because of their small size and they died within a short period of time all in the name of blind greed Capitalism .

          In the U.S. child labor was once rampant with children being sent down into mines and other children forced to retrieve things under running dangerous machines. Even adults under the U.S. Capitalist system often lost eyes, arms and l legs because the greed monger Capitalists would not even buy basic safety equipment or install safety devices on running machinery. It took Socialistic workers Unions to put a stop to that but not with out actually shooting wars which took place in West Virginia where the Sheriff actually executed the head of the Mine Workers Union as he walked up the steps with his wife in broad daylight. Capitalism at its most pure form, the incarnation of pure evil.

          Today even the former king country of greed monger Capitalism which is the U.S. is actually now Socialistic, its just that the U.S. still has a long way to go compared to the civilized countries of Western Europe as we still let 5 million people last year go bankrupt because of our shameful treatment of the American People while last year in Western Europe exactly ZERO people went bankrupt there because of lack of health care where greed for profit health care has long ago been outlawed as completely uncivilized.

        • I believe in mandiory abortions post birth. I’ll start with old me and prove that program can make the world a better place.

        • Cisco Kid. Communism was more Humane than capitalism? Are you insane? Communism under Stalin murdered 50 million of his own people. Stalin starved to death millions of ukrainians in his attempt to collectivize their Farms. He had to build a wall to keep people in, and It was a death penalty to try to leave Russia during the “Golden Age” of communism.

          Capitalism, with the respect for individual liberty, and private property, created the wealthiest country in the world. To the point where we have to build a wall to try to keep people out trying to come here illegally.

          And your silly Trope that says the Republicans hate immigrants and minorities is simply a baseless lie. Republicans and conservatives respect people who come here to make a better life for themselves, they just want them to do so without having to depend on the government for all of their needs. If America was such a racist country, why do so many minorities keep trying to come to our country? Because they know that they can come here and make a better life for themselves than from the native country they came from. Republicans/conservatives simply want people to come here legally.

          Socialism in Western Europe, with its generous unemployment benefits and state-supported Health Care and high personal taxation rates is showing itself to also to be a complete failure. This is why the people in these Western European countries are voting for more conservative candidates and cutting back these generous benefits because they’re running out of other people’s money and they’re finding that they can’t support the debts that are being created.

          As for Pure capitalistic countries in Central and South America that were run by dictators? You mean Chile, after Pinochet overthrew the socialistic Allende? And after they moved towards a free market capitalistic economy, they now have some of the highest GDP, and with some of the highest level of personal income, especially when compared to other countries in the area? Then we compare to other Central/South American countries that are socialistic and run by dictators, like Venezuela, where the citizens are needing to wait hours in long bread lines and are eating rats, dogs and cats to try to stop from starving to death.

          Chile, now a democratic republic capitalist Utopia, at least compared to Venezuela, a dictator run socialist hell hole.

          And still, with example, after example, after example of capitalism, when tried, is an unqualified success, and socialism, when tried, is shown itself to be nothing but failure, death, starvation and tyranny, socialists/progressives simply will not accept this basic truth.

        • Absolutely ThomasR. You hit it on the head. The sad thing is not only do they refuse to accept it, they absolutely refuse to even listen lol. 🙉

        • So much Cisco Kid to reply to. Of course socialism / communism / capitalism is a political system as well an economic one.

          Capitalism is based on the idea of individuals being important and private property being important. Whereas, socialism/communism is based on the idea the individuals are only part of a collective, and private property is to be used by the state for the collective good. Which is why, when a socialist/communist is in power, they have no problem with Mass Slaughter of individuals, if it serves the collective good of the state.

          This is also why socialists/Communists have no problem with the mass slaughter of the unborn and denigrates the traditional nuclear family because it pushes women into the workplace, creating greater wealth to be used by the state and it destroys families, which ends up creating a greater dependence on the state.

          The great outcome of the western Enlightenment combined with Christianity has been the honoring of individual liberty and private property. Socialism / communism is a direct direct attack against these fundamental principles of the West and returning it to in an essentially feudalistic social system with an elite few at the top controlling the vast amount of property and the vast amount of the “unwashed” masses.

          This is why the progressives emphasize conditioning and control in schools nowadays and not real education and logical thought and nastery of reading, writing, arithmetic. This makes the masses easier to control.
          It really was and it is beautifully done; individuals clamoring to become enslaved to give up their individual unique beings to become a monolithic collective of some type of hive mind controlled by a very few elite. As it has been said, only the enslaved can choose to be free and only the free can choose to become enslaved. To choose to become enslaved, with a master telling you how you should think and live is a choice you make when you choose to be is socialist / Progressive.

        • There have been, and still are, examples of communistic societies that work very well.
          Granted, most are religious orders, where the members enter knowing full well the system they are entering, and see the communism as reducing the outside influences of the greater society they have to live in.
          This shows that communism can indeed work, but it only does so when the individuals willingly gives up their rights for what they see as a greater good. When communism/socialism is imposed by the political leadership upon an unwilling people, the result is a totalitarian state that must use force to enforce compliance. We have seen this time and again, but there are always people too uneducated to understand that.
          We are seeing these people here in the US who want socialism (I’m looking directly at you, Bernie Sanders), but willfully ignore what history teaches about it.

  7. “Notice the Arizona Daily Sun claims the students shot by Jones are victims.”

    Yeah.

    I recall a case where a 17 year-old was just walking down a street minding his own business when he was shot down in cold blood by a ‘White Hispanic’…

    • The students were “victims” of their own stupididty . The defense costs should come out of the D A”s budget.

  8. “The video was initially withheld from the jury because it was “prejudicial.”” That right there should be declared unconstitutional. It’s simple justice that ALL evidence in the case be presented to the jury to make up their own minds as to the guilt or innocents of the accused. By withholding it the justice system puts it’s thumb on the scales.

    • There is a limit. Some things really are unfairly prejudicial. If someone was shot in the face with a shotgun and died, the jury doesn’t need to see the grisly photos of the victim’s face to determine guilt or innocence. That would be unfairly prejudicial, as the photos are not necessary to prove the victim is dead, and since it would elicit a gut-level reaction in most people, that might sway them to make sure that “somebody” pays.

  9. That right there is the main reason I am apprehensive when pulling down on someone. THE ONLY PEOPLE ALLOWED TO SHOOT PEOPLE ARE COPS, blam, two week paid vacation

    • Two week paid vacation is what you get for a good shoot.

      A bad shoot is worth 1-5 years of bonus vacation time, with retroactive promotions when you go back to work. Some punishment for murder in the second degree, eh?

  10. The LEO did tell the kid “DON’T TALK TO ME STEVEN” The officer was trying to prevent Steven from admitting anything which could be used prior having his rights read to him. The officer knew at that point he did fire the weapon. My read was he felt it was a DGU and didn’t want the “kid” hanging himself on the bodycam. As for the DA office, well they had the tree, horse, rope picked out from the start.

  11. AZ has a law that allows civilians return fire on police in justified self defense iirc.

  12. Meanwhile the admitted sucker puncher has still never been charged. Tells us all we need to know.

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