“A homeowner who grabbed a rifle from his house and fired warning shots in a confrontation with a group of men on his lawn faces criminal charges,
myfoxny.com reports. “But his family said he was defending his home from a threatening mass of strangers.” Right from the start, this supposed story of self-defense raises the red flag. WTH is a “threatening mass of strangers?” Is that like a murder of crows? Or . . . a gang bent on retribution against one of its members for an unspecified transgression? So many questions, so little actual reporting . . .
George Grier, 30, fired rounds into the ground and air from an assault-style rifle after arguing with a large group of men gathered outside his Long Island home Sunday evening, Nassau County police said Monday. No one was hurt . . .
“They were swarming on the property,” so he got a hunting rifle he had bought at a sporting-goods store, she said. “He felt like: ‘I have to protect my family.'”
Was it an “assault-style rifle” or a“hunting rifle”? Perhaps reporter Jennifer Peltz should have used TTAG’s abandoned terminology: modern home defense sporting rifle. But never mind the details, it’s time to play the race card. Talk about a die-gression . . .
The encounter stirred memories of the case of John White, a black Long Island homeowner who shot a white teenager in his driveway in 2006. White had confronted a group of teens who were spewing racial epithets and feuding with his son. White said his pistol went off accidentally. It happened in Riverhead, about 55 miles east of Uniondale.
White said he brandished the weapon because he feared a Ku Klux Klan-style attack on the family; an appeals court upheld his manslaughter conviction, saying he should have called police instead of getting a gun. White was sentenced to two to four years in prison.
Interesting, but there’s nothing to indicate that this case was a race-hate crime. A fact (or lack thereof) that might have occurred to Peltz’ editor. Oh wait, it did.
Grier is black; the men on his lawn were Hispanic, according to police and his sister, who said members of their family had demonstrated in support of White.
You wanna bet? It sounds to me like there’s some serious spin control going on here.
A FedEx worker, Grier is the grandson of a local minister and is a church deacon himself, his sister said. He and his wife have two daughters, 2 and 1.
“This is blowing our minds, that he’s being arrested for this,” Rines said. “You’re talking about a family that are believers, and we believe we have the right to bear arms.”
He bought the rifle for self-defense amid concern about recent shootings in the area, she said.
So 20 men decided to attack an upstanding citizen in his own home in Uniondale, NY simply because he was black? And the media doesn’t think to even suggest that there’s more to the story than meets the eye? Another day, another lazy journalist.
The correct action to take is lock your doors, get your gun, put your family in a locked room and call the police. He is clearly in the wrong for exiting his "castle" and confronting the group. Also, one gun vs 20 people is stupidly out numbered. He's lucky any one of them didn't return fire or provoke him to murder.
It might help to understand the neighborhood a bit better. I live not far from this incident. Uniondale is a mostly Black/Hispanic lower economic area. The MS13 gang has serious numbers of members operating in this area. Every other block is "tagged" with their gang markings to claim the turf. The altercation was with a group of MS13 dudes. Unlike what you might want to say, savage gangs calling you out on your own front lawn threatening to kill you and your children isn't something where you negotiate and observe the niceties of etiquette. Yes the guy is in trouble but if I am called on his jury then he walks. Oh and yes there really are lots of good working class folks trapped in these shitty neighborhoods.
No one's saying he shouldn't have defended himself. The question is, what happened to trigger this incident? What could he have done that might have been more effective? Was the gun legal? It's the kind fo thing reporters are supposed to ask right from the git-go.
It doesn’t matter if they were a gang or girls scouts, if he felt threatened he should have assumed a defensive position (in his house) and called the police.
“savage gangs calling you out on your own front lawn threatening to kill you and your children isn’t something where you negotiate and observe the niceties of etiquette.”
If this is truly the scenario and he knew they were gang members, his actions were utter suicide…walking out to confront these people, leaving his family behind. He survived his stupidity in the moment, but now the gang knows his house as a threat. In so many countless ways, he has made himself, his family and home potential targets.
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