Sheriff Judd isn’t a perfect Sheriff, but he’s pretty darn close<\/p>\n
Sheriff defends Stand Your Ground law following arrests<\/a><\/p>\n Florida\u2019s Stand Your Ground law has been met with controversy for quite some time. A lot of people don\u2019t really understand what\u2019s covered under the law and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n The problem is that a lot of those who don\u2019t understand it like to talk about the law as if they do. That leads to a lot of confusion.<\/p>\n And I can\u2019t help but think that\u2019s\u00a0part of what happened in this case<\/a>:<\/p>\n A Florida sheriff is justifying his encouragement of residents to shoot intruders \u201clike grated cheese\u201d after two men were charged with opening fire at a woman who they thought was trying to burglarize their home.<\/p>\n Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in an interview with the\u00a0The Orlando Sentinel<\/em>\u00a0published Tuesday that he stood by urging his constituents to use lethal force to defend their homes\u00a0in the wake of Hurricane Ian<\/a>. Other Florida officials have offered similar advice to residents. But Judd said two of his constituents took it too far…<\/p>\n Two weeks later, Judd announced at\u00a0an October 17 news conference<\/a> that Winter Haven resident Gino\u00a0 Colonacosta, 73, and his 15-year-old son Rocky Colonacosta had been charged with attempted murder, accused of firing seven times at a woman parked outside their home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sheriff Judd went on to explain that the two didn\u2019t understand the Stand Your Ground law, which is completely accurate.<\/strong><\/p>\n The law in question makes it so you don\u2019t have to retreat if faced with a threat to your life. What it doesn\u2019t do is allow you to shoot someone who is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time but no threat to you.<\/p>\n This whole thing started because some medication was misdelivered. The two accused then reportedly freaked because their Ring doorbell told them someone was there, so they started hunting the intruder, then saw the victim sitting in her car and opened fire.\u00a0Thankfully, they missed her.<\/p>\n Look, people, here\u2019s how it goes. If someone illegally enters your home when you\u2019re there, that\u2019s usually a safe use of the Stand Your Ground law. If someone threatens you with a weapon, that falls under it, too.<\/p>\n What doesn\u2019t, however, is freaking out because your doorbell tells you someone is outside, so you start blasting the first person you see.<\/p>\n Further, someone sitting in their car and doing nothing is. Not. A. Threat.<\/p>\n If they\u2019re trying to run over you? Sure. If they\u2019re just sitting there? Nope.<\/p>\n Can it be suspicious? Absolutely, especially if they just sit there. After all, they might be casing your house or another for robbery. If they\u2019re just hanging there, call the police and let them investigate.<\/p>\n But they could also be a private investigator checking out one of your neighbors. They could be stopped to make a phone call or check their phone for something. They might be waiting for someone and just got the address wrong.<\/p>\n There are a thousand good, lawful reasons to sit in your car outside of a home. None of them warrant shooting at the driver and trying to use a Stand Your Ground defense.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m scared\u201d or, \u201cI thought they were up to no good\u201d isn\u2019t covered under the law. It\u2019s not about your impressions of the situation so much as what any reasonable person would believe.<\/p>\n No one is going to look at this situation and assume that the person in the car means anyone harm based on the facts as we know them.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s Stand Your Ground law isn\u2019t to blame for this. People not understanding the law is, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sheriff Judd isn’t a perfect Sheriff, but he’s pretty darn close Sheriff defends Stand Your Ground law following arrests Florida\u2019s Stand Your Ground law has been met with controversy for quite some time. A lot of people don\u2019t really understand what\u2019s covered under the law and what isn\u2019t. The problem is that a lot of … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-order","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87311,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87310\/revisions\/87311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}