David Hill grew up in a dangerous area. One night, he ventured deep into enemy-gang turf to buy marijuana. Hill carried an AK-47 for protection.
When a creeping vehicle approached him, he reacted defensively. He turned to see a plain-clothed man getting out of the car holding a gun, and so Hill fired.
“To hesitate, is to die,” Hill’s attorney Sabelli said. “To hesitate as a gang member in the Bayview at night, is to die.”
It turns out the person Hill killed was a cop.
Was this self-defense?
Tuesday, October 24th 2006 at 6:02 pm
Blah Blah Blah. The problem isn’t that abuse is inflicted on the poor of society by the police. Sure take a few select articles from the news about police abuse and compare them to the news you see about the good deeds done and you will see far more bad things. That’s because doing the right thing for the public is a police officers job and that doesn’t make good news. The story of the bad cop or the hero cop who does something extraordinary is good news however. You can blame the media for this concept of the cops not caring about the poor.
On another point. Compare the crime rates in low income, run down areas such as the one in the story and the rates in upper class gated communities. Cops spend far more time fighting crime in the run down areas of a city, but there is just so much crime that does occur in these areas that it seems like the police are doing little. Now, these same people in the run down areas look at the upper class areas of a city and see low crime rates. They immediately start crying that it is unfair and whatnot. The truth is that the upper class areas inherently have less violent crime because of the social level and education of those living there. So, while the cops do basically keep crime in these areas non-existent, they spend less time in these areas.
Enough of the rant. I really doubt the defendant has a proper liscense for his AK-47 and undoubtedly acquired it illegally. Those are really the only two things they can really get him for in court 100%. They might be able to charge him for intent to buy, but that might or might not hold up depending on the jury. Was it self-defence? Not a chance. An AK-47 isn’t really an easily concealed weapon. Chances are the cop wasn’t thinking, ” An AK-47! I should jump out of the car and point my gun at him without saying police first.” More likely occurence of events. Cop sees Hill acting suspiciously and carrying the AK-47, stops a good distace away, steps out and says “police, freeze.” Then Hill reacts by turning and shooting at someone who has identified himself as a cop. And if he did have it concealed under a coat somehow, then it would have taken a decent effort to get the gun out quickly.
And a side note, Hill must have been really stupid to carry a nigh impossible to conceal weapon with him into enemy-gang territory.
Friday, October 20th 2006 at 1:48 pm
When you take in account the level and degree of abuse that police inflict upon the poor of society. I can see how it would be argued that killing a cop is self defense, since they do not serve or protect the poor masses of this or any other country. They serve and protect the minority with wealth and power.
However!!!!
To simply follow logic and what little info was given above. Mr Hill was performing an illegal action in territory that he knew would be hostile to his presence. He could not get drugs in his turf? I believe he was in hostile territory looking for someone to do a drive by on or someone to rob of their drugs. Mr Hill is obviously no saint. He also could use a much better defense attorney if this is the best arguement that he could come up with.