Got Violence? Part Two
UPDATE: See the Press Democrats version here.
Last fall, a Laytonville woman shot and killed a young man who was part of a home invasion robbery at her house. I wrote about it in a piece called Got Violence?. The Anderson Valley Advertiser has a reporter in the court room who has been collecting the details of the incident. He does an excellent job. Here are a few paragraphs but you should read the whole story.
It was about 5am that morning when the three would-be pot bandits burst into Ms. Cahill’s sleepy Steele Lane home.
Ernie Sanders was up, though, loading cordwood into the woodstove, but Kathleen Stippinoff was sleeping on the couch when the home invaders hit.
Sanders and Ms. Stippinoff were visiting their friend Jill Cahill for a couple of days. Ms. Cahill, it seems, was at odds with her significant other, David Loggins, who was sofa-surfing at a nearby neighbor’s house.
Jill Cahill had been up all night working on legal papers having to do with the couple’s impending breakup. She’d just stretched out to rest when she heard the door burst open and a commotion that included the sound of gunfire. Jill grabbed a 357 handgun and stepped out of her room. She saw Ernie Sanders on the floor by the stove in the fetal position and two armed men wear ing hoods and masks standing near him. The room was dark and smoky and full of Mace and/or pepper spray but, as best she could, Jill aimed the heavy Blackhawk revolver and fired at the hoodies.
Jill had never handled a gun before in her life, she said. She had just borrowed “the infernal damn thing” from a neighbor “for protection.” Maybe she felt threat ened by her ex, maybe it was because the end of October is the time of year in outback Mendocino County when home invaders are on the prowl, looking to steal the fruit of other people’s marijuana labor.
One of Jill’s wild shots hit one of the bandits.
The young man who was hit died. He was described in the comments to this post as a father of two and as “Not an angel, but GOOD.”
Stories like this make me sad…Boys playing bad and getting dead. The father of one of the boys allegedly put them up to it.
Anybody else think this world is getting too crazy?
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Photo from the AVA article
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As the everyday needs or wants of people are harder to obtain, even the so called (Good) boys will resort to vilance. Desperate people do Desperate things. You say no, charlie your all wrong. We’ll see when Good ole boys get Desperate. Ask anyone broke and hungry.
There are a growing number of people who are and will resort to thievery, home invasion, and murder to obtain the property of others. I find it strange that a generation of mostly young people have absolutely no ability or effort to obtain honest employment. It is causing the rest of us to be armed and distrustful of others. I can recall having a paper delivery route at 12 years old and waking up at 5 a.m. to ride my bike and throw the papers, then go to school. I can recall working a number of other jobs as well after that and working my way through college. I never thought to steal, rob or kill. This current dangerous generation, has seemingly lost a work ehtic and wants to take from others. This added to the belief that cannabis is an invitation to rob, steal, and kill is the problem. We are in the second Great Depression and things seem to be hanging by a thread. The violence is increasing and the bell will toll for the innocent as this violent wave has not crested yet.
Word is getting around that the american dream is just a dream, and the proof is only becoming more obvious. Young people have always been prime target market for the moneymakers of the older generations, and the cycle only gets worse as it repeats itself. No longer are twenty 12-year-olds delivering newspapers, but one lone parent in a truck covering whole neighborhoods. If you’re blaming the youngun’s, look at your own peers and what they’ve done to the world, and how your elders betrayed you just the same.