Man with autism dies days after apparent home invasion....

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OK,let me get this straight

the officially correct procedure if someone you do not know who enters your house uninvited,who for all you know may be there to rob,rape,kidnapp or murder you is:

let them have there way with you and do not resist; then, "if" your still alive when the intruder leaves call 911 and wait for the police to come

By the same token, I should be able to murder the postal carrier, the gas- and water-meter reader, the UPS courier and the milkman because they are hovering around my back door?

They have permission to be there in the capacity of their service.

I wouldn't know that by the lack of any uniform or identification (at least with the meter readers, and several or the UPS couriers).

Getting back to the Utah statute that would govern any criminal or civil complaint, what about it wouldn't apply in this case?

NO not even close.
1.a person knocking on your door to offers services is not breaking and entering,any person is allowed to knock another persons door for any purpose

mail or package
milk or food delivery
religous pamphlets
political petitions
neighbors who just want to say hi and chat
door to door salesman
press or newsman


or anyone else who want to contact you in person
if there is a suspicious person on your property,lock all doors and call 911


we are talking about breaking and entering which is a felony, where someone breaks in or sneaks into a house without permission.defending yourself then has nothing to do with castle laws.
castle or stand your ground laws mean that if a criminal is running away from your house or a crime scene you may use deadly force to retrieve stolen property or hold suspect untill the police arrives.

if a criminal breaks into your house and does not run away after seeing the house is occupied,if your backed into a corner even in massachusetts you may then defend your self.and how you defend yourself must be purportionate to the threat.


comparing what the home owner did to castle laws some states have is absolutley rediculous and comparing a felonious burgler to the milkman,fed ex guy,oil delivery man or jehovah's witnesses is even more rediculous

any person may approach anothers property unless there is a visable no tresspassing sign,no person needs a professional reason to be on your property.unless there is already a no tresspassing sign clear and visable the only thing a home owner,property owner or the policecan do is ask the tresspasser to leave.


it becomes a different ball game when ones home or property is breached because of breaking in,that is then a felony

This is a typical comment from someone who seems to have never had anyone attack him at his own home. Its as ignorant and utterly stupid as those who claim police should 'shoot the arms or legs' of unarmed people who are trying to attack the police officer.

When you have someone you do not know suddenly attack you, you have NO time to think 'oh he only has a vhs tape..why he might be autistic or drunk.. heck it might be one of those prank tv shows!' or even prepare a non-lethal/injury-prone response. You do whatever you need to do to defend yourself.

That the homeowner got this guy on a chokehold is impressive restraint to begin with. I would have beaten the s**t of whoever it was until they stopped moving. You just do not know if that person is alone or has friends that will come in and jump you.

And yes, I have had someone trying to break into my house. At 2am banging my door and ripping the mosquito nets off all my windows and trying to break them. My .45 was aimed at wherever the banging was coming from..the moment the glass or the door broke I wouldve fired half the clip blindly into the break-in location. Luckily the glass and door held and it turned out to be a 19 year old girl, alone and drunk out of her mind thinking my house was her sister's home (who didnt even live in my neighborhood) and she just wanted to get inside to sleep. She was very lucky she begun to yell at my door and then went to sit in my front lawn crying... i had the chance to open the door come out carefully... she was so out of it she didnt even flinch at seeing a man with a gun approach her. She just came very chatty and snuggly once I brought her inside and put blankets on her (it was 30F and she had a tank top shirt and short shorts...she was cold to the touch and near hypothermia) and drank the warm glasses of water I gave her. I couldn't find a cellphone on her and she had lots of fake IDs..and she was giving no coherent answers. Once she warmed up I called the police to take her home.

Days later I learned she and other girls had been drinking at a bar 4 very long blocks away from my house..one of the girls was in the hospital with hypothermia having walked in the opposite direction from the girl that ended up at my door...and the rest of them had gone into a dunkin donuts, puked and passed out on their floor.

That was the first time I've had to point my weapon at someone... and she and I were lucky nothing tragic happened. Since then I do have much better preparations should someone with bad intentions try to get into my home... put cameras out there and got a prepaid cellphone I keep just to call 911 next to the pistol so I can grab both at once (that night I couldnt find my normal cellphone in the rush to get the pistol) among other 'lessons learned' from that night so I may have a better response time.

I have been a gay activist for the last 33 years. I have founded several LGBT groups including one LGBT firearm group that has worked with and been recognized by the NRA and other Second Amendment groups.

I have had many threats and assaults carried out in my life including one such threat in the 1990s by a nationally known white-supremacy group that a senior Utah Department of Public Safety officer warned me was "in transit" from a neighboring city while I was speaking to a fledgling LGBT group in southern Utah. He told me that the threats were known to be armed and called for additional undercover and uniformed officers. The threats had been trailed by marked vehicles and stomped their wittle feets and squawked, but, in the face of some shiny badges, turned tail and ran. The various officers escorted us to our cars and then to the nearest Interstate freeway entrance for our safety.

I was a presidential candidates' security officer for a Democratic National Committee meeting in Los Angeles, and appointed a hate-crimes adviser in 1997 through 2001 by the U.S. Office of the Attorney for the District of Utah. I have worked with national anti-violence groups and law-enforcement for years. I have instructed and helped instruct crime-prevention classes with law-enforcement groups. I have lobbied for and helped write hate-crime legislation as well as legislation to liberalize and expand right-to-keep-and-bear-arms laws. I have carried one or more of my firearms at protests for these reasons as well as my self defense.

My various life, legislative, crime-prevention and Second Amendment experiences have taught me that the homeowner's behavior was, at least, questionable. We are talking about Utah law about which I happen to know quite intimately and professionally. It might not comport with your local laws or sense of right and wrong, but it is what is in play at this point with this matter.

The first thing taught to new gun owners is that Utah law does NOT allow for deadly force unless deadly force has been exhibited by the perpetrator. In this case, we have assault with a videocassette; hardly the kind of attack to justify deadly force under Utah law.

Last edited by AspieUtah on 15 Feb 2015, 12:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.

No because you know who those people are, you are expecting them, you know they are there to deliver. This autistic man was a stranger so the owner didn't know who he was. That is comparing apples and oranges here. They are not the same. I am sure if I walked into someone's house, I would get whacked over the head with something because they don't know who I am, I just walked through their door uninvited and they have never even met me. How do they know I don't have a weapon on me? How do they know I am harmless? It would be self defense.

There isn't enough information here for me to form an opinion. If the homeowner reasonably feared for his safety, you can't expect him to be thoroughly trained in how to properly incapacitate an intruder.

even the autistic had yet to commit a crime untill he breached the inside of the home,if any person is on someone elses private property all even the police can do is tell them to leave.

someone brought up fed ex and the milkman to somehow imply that validating what the home owner did was akin to shooting the mailman.it was a distraction and perversion of context


the issue is not who you should expect to be on your property.the local homeless crackhead can sit on your lawn and smoke a cigarette untill you or the police ask him to leave.if he comes back he can be arrested for tresspasing.


even in states like texas that have so called "castle laws" deadly force is never an option untill the security of your dwelling has been breached.once a burglery has happened different states have different laws on how these felons can be dealt with.

second point,castle laws dont appy in this case because 1. the autistic man assaulted the home owner and 2nd,the home owner did not use deadly force,he could not have forseen the man he knew nothing about having a seizure.his response to the intruder is perfectly legal in Massachusetts.

castle laws mean you can kill someone who is running away with your property.stand your ground laws mean you can fight an attacker without first trying to flee.in massachusetts one would have to try to get away from an attacker before engaging conflict.in this case the home owner was ambushed and had no time to think and even massachusetts police would have validated his reaction.


the person who brought castle and stand your ground laws into this discussion was perverting context and is ignorant of the law

No, no they're not. They're definitely illegal in most places, and not something that's acceptable to use, and for good reason. A chokehold is indeed lethal, it's intended use is to cause asphyxia as quickly as possible, it's where the bar of your arm is placed across the throat, in order to crush the windpipe, to block, and/or restrict air flow, ultimately causing suffocation. If used correctly, the target can perish within 30 seconds.




That depends on how much of a threat he was.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with this fundamentally, I'm all for the killing of those that threaten your life, regardless of whether it's at your home or not. But, we don't know if he truly was a threat to his life. It also sounds incredibly unlikely that he was a threat.

This is what he threw at the guy:

While it would probably hurt quite a lot having that flung at you, it certainly isn't life threatening.

There's a much more likely scenario to the story here:
His fear of people that are very different to himself (AS people), allowed him to overreact and justify killing him.

I missed the part about the guy flinging the VHS tape. I tend to think this was a reaction to the homeowner acting aggressively rather than the reverse. I could be mistaken. In any case, I don't think death is something that should be taken lightly.

I remember watching an episode of outrageous 911 calls or whatever. Homeless guy decides he really needs a shower. Breaks in, takes a shower. The homeowner comes in and the intruder calls 911 afraid that the homeowner will kill him. The sad part about it was on the show, the commentators kept making fun of the guy, when he actually made a very smart, honest move to call 911.... it's just stuff like this that gets to me.

I have actually heard you call 911 if you hear someone breaking into your house or hear someone in your home. Stay hidden and call 911. But some people would rather attack the intruder simply because they are afraid of their stuff getting taken and depending on what state you're in, this is actually legal. If they saw you and started running out of the house, then that law may not apply anymore where you are allowed to attack or shoot them. Instead you get in trouble if you kill them when they were running. But I can't believe people would make fun of someone for calling them because they didn't attack their intruder.

YES.the law in most states says just that.if you think you hear an intruder you should first call police if you can safely get to a phone,then hide.if the intruder realizes your home and flees you may not follow him.

but if your backed into a corner you may defend yourself

This happened back when I was in high school or so in the early 2000's. When I lived in Montana, there was a man in Missoula who woke up in the middle of the night and heard something outside. He looked out the window and caught a teen trying to steal the radio from his car so he screamed at him and the kid took off running, the man grabs a gun and shoots him in the back. He went to prison. I am sure this man was innocent but he didn't know his laws well so he thought he had the right to shoot because he was on his property but the man's life was no way threatened and the kid was running. He should have gone outside and lock his car or call the police. But what would they do? He would have already been gone. I remember hearing in school lot of states allow people to shoot you if you are on their property. That sounds insane because what if someone is standing on your lawn or walks up to your front door to sell something or just to ask something. This kid was on his property so he shot him and got in trouble for it, go figure. Maybe that teacher was full of it or was misinforming the information and wasn't clear in what she was telling her students. But man someone could take that literal and shoot someone and go to prison for it because they were on their property.