Craig Sumner Elliott, 68, allegedly shot Antonio Garcia Avalos, 40, in incident in Orange county
A California jogger was charged this week in the killing of a homeless man who was blocking the sidewalk.
Craig Sumner Elliott, 68, was jogging with his two dogs and pushing a cart on 28 September when he came across Antonio Garcia Avalos, 40, who was sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk, prosecutors in Orange county, California, said.
Elliott allegedly tried to wake Avalos by nudging him with the pushcart, whereupon Avalos started yelling at Elliott to leave him alone.
Elliott, who allegedly filmed their encounter, then brought a handgun out of his cart, prosecutors charged, adding that when Avalos stood and threw a shoe at Elliott, he ducked and responded by shooting Avalos three times.
Avalos subsequently died from his injuries. Elliott, who does have an active concealed carry permit issued by the local sheriff’s office, was arrested on 17 November in the incident.
Doesn’t sound like any of those stories involve a sleeping homeless man on public property though.
Public property means we can all use the sidewalk to get from A to B none of us is empowered to make exclusive use of it by blocking it with our tent, body, or homeless shit. It is perfectly justifiable to ask someone to move and it would have been perfectly justifiable to respond to a flying shoe with an ass kicking or better yet pepper spraying. Proportionality is important. Bringing a gun into it is nuts it immediately escalates it even if you don’t intend to fire. You’ve basically decided its going to be a murder or a suicide.
“Elliott allegedly tried to wake Avalos by nudging him with the pushcart”
That’s not asking someone to move, that’s using force to try to get them to move. Although I agree public property means we should all be able to use it and no one should block it, I disagree that any individual is allowed to use force to enforce that law. Report such lawbreaking to the authorities, and then simply walk around them.
After Elliot assaulted Avalos with his cart, Avalos yelled at him. After Avalos yelled at him, Elliot pulled out his gun. After Elliot pulled out his gun, Avalos threw his shoe.
If someone pulled a gun on you after you yelled at them, would you be justified in kicking their ass or pepper spraying them?
After someone pulled a gun on me I would retreat so as not to die. This rather demonstrates the folly of using threats on crazy people as they don’t respond rationally. At least one lesson is don’t use guns as a threat. Retain them as a last resort in case you should actually need to use them and don’t take chances you otherwise wouldn’t.
If the old fellow had figured either of those out we would have one less corpse and one less prisoner.
I don’t believe what the old man did is justifiable merely comprehensible. People trying to turn this into Rittenhouse with depends are reaching. We have a scared old men and a drug addict who woke up angry. The homeless man goes to a grave and the old fellow likely goes to jail.
It’s yet another example of more guns making our whole fucking society worse.
The only thing I understood, based on the murderer’s choices, was that he started a confrontation he could have easily avoided, and then chose to kill someone instead of disengage. I would never kill someone for blocking a sidewalk or even throwing a shoe at me. Neither of those things are life threatening.
Why he decided to assault someone with his pushcart, I also don’t comprehend. Just walk around the person. The only thing that makes sense is this murderer had intent to start trouble. It’s like Markeis McGlockton‘s murderer. Some people go around looking for a fight, it’s bad enough that they get away with this most of the time, it’s worse that they are able to carry around a gun. This guy needs to spend the rest of his life in jail so he doesn’t shoot another person just because he’s pissed off.