Frantic minutes preceded intruder's shooting in Prince George's

[Bill Mattocks]

You know, it really seemed as if the author of this piece was trying to find ANYTHING that would make it appear as if the victim was the bad guy and the bad guy was the victim. Or is that just me?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/02/AR2010070205316.html

By Matt Zapotosky
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 3, 2010

Adrenaline coursing through his body, Benjamin Jackson dropped to his knees and clasped his hands behind his head, forced to watch -- helplessly -- as the masked, armed intruder rummaged through his home.

...
Jackson shot and killed Keith L. Fletcher, 20, a father of two young boys who lived in Southeast Washington and in Oxon Hill with his mother. Law enforcement sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity because police are still looking for other suspects, said he was shot multiple times in the upper body -- but only after he squeezed off a shot at Jackson.

...



Shootings that are both fatal and justifiable are a rarity nationwide, which makes Jackson's case all the more astonishing. In 2008, FBI statistics show, there were 204 justifiable homicides by civilians using firearms. That compares with 9,484 criminal homicides involving firearms.
Fletcher's relatives questioned the preliminary ruling that the shooting was justified. Fletcher mentored youths and enjoyed sports -- and was not someone who was likely to participate in an armed robbery, they said.

...
They also questioned how Jackson was able to retrieve his gun so quickly, if he truly was being held at gunpoint by Fletcher. They said Fletcher was somehow set up by Jackson or others in the apartment building in Forestville.
"He not even that type of person," said Christina Anderson, 21, the mother of one of Fletcher's sons. "He's smart. He liked to work. He liked going out. He [was], like, all about his family. He's not no bad person."

...

Imagine. A man going about his business sees a woman being forced by two men into her apartment at gunpoint. Bravely, he knocks on the door to see if she's alright. He's forced at gunpoint into his own apartment, made to kneel on the floor, while the gunman ransacks his apartment. He retrieves his own pistol, the gunman shoots at him, and he defends himself with lethal force. And HE is the bad guy? The gunman, who has a history of arrest for drug, armed robbery, and weapons charges, is the GOOD GUY?


Somebody's going to have to 'splain that one to me. I must be thick in the head or something.