Hung jury in Rite Aid deadly shooting trial

[SecularMotion]

The jury was trying to decide whether or not Bernell Benn was guilty of voluntary manslaughter for the shooting death of 42-year-old Ramon Colorado inside the drug store at Tidewater Drive and Cromwell Road in August 2012.

Benn claimed self-defense. Both men had guns.

After continuing deliberations, the jury came back and said they couldn’t come to a consensus. A new court date has not been set.

“Talk to my lawyer, everything’s good,” Benn told WAVY.com after the mistrial was declared. “Talk to my lawyer. God bless you.”

http://wavy.com/2014/02/27/jury-deliberates-rite-aid-deadly-shooting-case/

[yeoman6987]

1. “Talk to my lawyer, everything’s good,”

Everything's good? My gosh he still killed a person.

[customerserviceguy]

3. The other person had a weapon, too

He kept himself from being killed. Now, he just needs to have the legal system exonerate him for defending himself. What's so difficult to understand about that?

[exboyfil]

4. He had two weapons

The pepper spray which he first used. Then his gun. He chased the suspect with the pepper spray. If he did not also have a gun I would be more inclined to convict, but Colorado escalated it tremendously with the pepper spray. He even chased the other man around the store with it. I can't tell who drew first, but Benn is the only one lawfully carrying a gun.

Benn is an idiot as well, but his idiocy does not rise nearly to the level of Colorado. Pulling your gun when under an aggressive pepper spray attack seems reasonable. Once Colorado pulls his gun (if he even pulled it second) then Benn has even more reason to shot.

[yeoman6987]

5. What is wrong with that?

I don't want him jail, but his wording is concerning.

[SecularMotion]

6. It's whoever draws the quickest, just like the Wild West.

[gejohnston]

7. B westerns are not documentries

and since SYG didn't exist until about 1895 starting in California, duty to retreat was the rule of the day.

[spin]

10. Wrong. It wasn't the fastest on the draw but the individual who hit his opponent.

Old West Myths..

"The most important lesson I learned...was that the winner of a gunplay usually was the one who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting--grandstand play--as I would poison...In all my life as a frontier peace officer, I did not know a really proficient gunfighter who had anything but contempt for the gun-fanner, or the man who literally shot from the hip."
Wyatt Earp (as quoted in Bill O'Neal's book -- see reference at end of story)

Stories about the old west often contain errors or exaggerations. Different books may report different versions of the same events, each implying truth was being told. Many western movies and TV shows are especially inaccurate in showing guns used by gunslingers and lawmen which weren't even produced until long after the story time of the movie. (Clint Eastwood and Tom Selleck were two actors who promoted the period accuracy of guns used in their western movies.) And did you ever wonder about characters in a western movie or TV show firing 20-30 bullets from their "six-guns" without re-loading?

The gunfight duels popular in movies, TV westerns, and pulp fiction with quick draw shooting from the hip were rare by most historical accounts. Shooting accurately usually required a slow aim down the barrel of the gun. In his book on gunslingers, O'Neal struggled with the definition of a gunfight. If a gunfight was defined as a fast-draw, showdown duel only a handful of the 587 gunfights described in his book by over 30 different gunfighters would fit into that definition. Some gunmen could shoot accurately from the hip--most couldn't or wouldn't as indicated by the quote by Wyatt Earp at the beginning of this story.
http://shotdoc.com/myths.asp

A miss from a .44 magnum does not equal a solid hit from a .22 long rifle no matter how fast it is fired.

[gejohnston]

11. there is only one recorded duel in Wyoming

Between two drunk railroad workers in Cheyenne. They got in an argument in the bar, stepped out in the street and sent a cylinder full in each other's general direction, missing anything living. Since it was a tie, the two drunks holstered their guns and went back to (almost literally) pissing away their pay check.

[spin]

12. People watch far too many movies and feel they have learned history from them. ...

At the time the Old West was more peaceful than New York City.

Dispelling the myth of 'The Wild West'
February 17, 2009

***snip***

In his book, Frontier Violence: Another Look, author W. Eugene Hollon, provides us with these astonishing facts:

In Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and
Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides. This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year.
In Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest of the cow towns, not a single person was killed in 1869 or 1870.
http://www.examiner.com/article/dispelling-the-myth-of-the-wild-west

[ileus]

2. Let's hope things continue to go good for him.

[NYC_SKP]

8. I was relieved to learn that the aggressor is the one who perished.

One less bad guy with a can of mace.

I also hope his life can go on, but I guess there will be a retrial.

[Eleanors38]

9. What she said.

[ManiacJoe]

13. The store video paints neither man in good light.

It is hard to see how either man would be able to claim self defense there. The guy with the pepper spray uses it under questionable circumstances. Then he pursues when he should not. When sprayer attempts to run away, the sprayed man pursues when he should not. Why any of this escalated to lethal force is not clear from the video.