The homeowner who fatally shot a 20-year-old University of South Carolina student who tried to enter the wrong home on the street he lived on Saturday morning will not face charges because the incident was deemed “a justifiable homicide” under state law, Columbia police announced Wednesday.
Police said the identity of the homeowner who fired the gunshot that killed Nicholas Donofrio shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday will not be released because the police department and the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office determined his actions were justified under the state’s controversial “castle doctrine” law, which holds that people can act in self-defense towards “intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others.”
Goddamn, the United States really is a shithole country, isn’t it? It’s obvious that shooting was the homeowner’s first resort, because this was a drunk guy who thought that it was his own house. Any sign that it was not, like lights going on, or yelling, would have at least made him pause in confusion.
But yeah, Americans be like killing somebody before even issuing a threat is totally justified.
From the article, it’s clear that their first resort was to call the police when he was banging and kicking on the door. The woman was on the phone with the police when he broke the window and attempted to open the door through the broken pane.
While the woman was on the phone with police, Donofrio broke a glass window on the front door “and reached inside to manipulate the doorknob,” at which point the male resident fired the shot through the broken window, striking Donofrio in his upper body, police said.
Hush, your ruining the narrative.
Sounds like a justified shooting. If it were legal where iived I’d shoot at that point.
Drunk guy who broke the window trying to get in. Maybe it wasn’t clear this person was probably harmless and they panicked. Not sure why the people asleep in their home world be expected to flash the lights or whatever you are thinking is a normal middle of the night response to someone breaking into your home.
IDK, I don’t like guns for this exact reason. Too easy to end a life out of panic. But the drunk has the bulk of the responsibility here IMO.
I am sorry but … if I am at home with my wife and kids and drunk stranger aggressively bangs and kicks the door, doesn’t stop when asked, smashes a window and reaches in to get in - I will probably also have my gun ready if the police doesn’t show up fast enough. Some people get super aggressive when drunk - some get confused and silly. There is definitely a difference.
Not American, I live in Europe. No I am not right wing.
None of the articles I’ve seen have said whether the residents said anything before shooting. If they didn’t, they absolutely should have.
I just assumed that’s something a normal person would do after reading they also called 911 already. Might be wrong information tho.
Yeah, because drunk, unarmed people are such a threat, that you have to just shoot him.
As if in every other country we don’t have drunks…
Especially drunk people are mostly no threat. Even my grandma always said “oh, a drunk man has no strength”
It kinda sounds hyped up and hysterical from the outside, to be honest
Edit: ah, missed that you aren’t from the US. but still, you would shoot a drunk guy, just because you feel threatened?
There are so many possibilities to defend yourself, I can’t see a gun to be necessary - or even justifiedAs explained - there ar silly drunks and very aggressive drunks. The chance of this happening here is absolutely non existent and very theoretical. But yes if a very aggressive drunk is forcing his way into my home and not reacting to warnings and I determine him to be a threat to me or my family I totally would shoot him to protect my family - no question. Armed or not - - if he poses a threat the idea is not to be on the same level as him and fight fair …
If it’s just a silly non threatening drunk we can’t even see straight and poses no threat obviously not. This situation is not as easy as my fellow Europeans make it out to be - guess it’s just easier to flame the US.
you would shoot a
drunkguy, just because you feel threatened?ftfu
How am I supposed to know if someone is drunk or not?
Wow. Just wow.
I’d type up something of substance but I know you can’t read so it would clearly be a waste 🤦♂️
You clearly are an idiot. I mean like you have zero understanding of anything other than cyberpunk paid expansions. You are a hate filled individual and you have only been here for 3 weeks? My lord are you alone? scared about who and what you are? A big sad fat turd?
👌👍
Oh shit something very similar to this happened to my mom once. She’s an older woman who lives alone and terrified of everything. Yes, she owns a gun.
One night ~ 2-3 am a man knocked on her door and demanded to be let in. She’s terrified, grabs the gun. He moved around to different doors, knocking and banging and yelling to be let in. He started shaking the door handles. My mom called 911 and was hiding in a bathroom. They asked her to just wait, police were on the way.
Finally she goes out, sees the guy at a window, and pointed the gun at him…but the gun has a laser pointer when you squeeze the handle. So she screamed back that the red dot on his chest was about to be where she was going to shoot him.
He ran off. Police show up, say they found the kid - 20 - drunkenly stumbling around the neighborhood. The bar had just closed and he thought he was at his friend’s house. A week later he sent her a $20 gift card to a local restaurant with a note that said “Thank you for not shooting me.”
The cops said if she had shot him, she would have been legally within her rights.
Agree or disagree with any or all of this, I’m sorry for the family of the person who was killed. It’s just a terrible situation all around.
While the woman was on the phone with police, Donofrio broke a glass window on the front door “and reached inside to manipulate the doorknob,” at which point the male resident fired the shot through the broken window, striking Donofrio in his upper body, police said.
The headline made me instantly rage (as intended). Reading the article made me reconsider. The real answer is to not have guns in the hands of the public. But then only criminals will have guns. Stfu.
If the public wasn’t allowed to have guns and this guy did turn out to be a home invader, what would you say then?
I remember reading that statistically it isuch more likely that you kill a friend or family member with a gun than a home invader while trying to defend you’re home. Instead of worrying about hypothetical ‘what ifs’ that are very unlikely to happen maybe we should stay anchored in reality.
No wonder Americans are so infatuated with the second amendment!
Any other developed country and there wouldnt be a death involved.
I’m in a developing country and such things don’t happen here. Some months back an upstairs neighbour of mine tried to enter into my house when i was inside. He was trying his key and then rang the doorbell and i opened it and he was very confused. Then he looked at my house and realised he was on the wrong floor, said sorry and went away. These things happen if all the apartments look the same. No one needs to die for such small blunders. What’s more disturbing is the amount of people here justifying shooting the kid because he broke a window and was forcing his way inside. They don’t realise they wouldn’t have to fear other people so much if there were no guns available in the first place. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of replies that gangsters don’t obey rules and what not but isn’t that the same in every other country without guns? Maybe Americans like to kill people a lot. No wonder their entire country runs off war and destruction.
People are so damned anxious to use their damned guns
They are. The amount of people who confidently say they’d shoot before attempting to communicate has me terrified; like they want a reason to escalate the situation.
Genuinely curious if you had someone smashing your window and trying to enter your house forcefully what your response would be.
Well where I live there aren’t nearly as many guns so the person breaking in would be less likely to have a deadly weapon and it would be a bit less risky to just call the police and hide, or comply with the (assumed) robber, or I’d feel like I’d have a better chance with using a blunt weapon like a bat to protect myself and drive them off, which would be less likely to kill someone. But where I live there are also a lot less robberies in general.
Doesn’t guarantee nobody would have died if the same thing happened in a place with less gun violence, but it might have reduced the chances. Even if people get into the same kinds of confrontations, if there aren’t guns involved the chances of everyone surviving a violent encounter goes up by a significant percentage. Less guns in a country over-all means less chances for a conflict to have a gun involved.
I mean if I take a swing at someone’s head with a baseball bat I’m probably just as likely to kill as I would be by shooting them. I will say baseball bat to the head probably hits less since it would probably render you unconscious immediately.
I mean if I take a swing at someone’s head with a baseball bat I’m probably just as likely to kill as I would be by shooting them.
You’d be surprised. While one hit can kill, concussion/brain injury without death is generally more common from a single hit. Usually it takes multiple hits to guarantee killing someone, and it’s harder to aim if you’re not like, a baseball player, than most people expect. You’re more likely to get a glancing blow, even assuming you catch the other person by surprise. The type of bat can make a difference in how likely it is to kill from a first hit as well.
Yeah I guess that’s all true. Either way I personally would prefer a gun to a baseball bat for self defense for the simple fact that it puts me in less danger than attacking my attacker with a melee weapon. There admittedly isn’t much in my house that is worth my life but apparently the person breaking in values my things more than their own life.
Yeah, the states has the same accidents as anywhere else in the world, but they sprinkle a little gun into the mix.
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Well, I guess South Carolina is going on my list of places that are too dangerous to ever visit.
Probably a good idea if you tend to drunkenly break into homes in the middle of the night
I don’t, but I also don’t want people to think they can just shoot me with no repercussions.
No one does. There’s some relevant context here that you seem to be ignoring.
I don’t think it’s nearly as relevant as you seem to think it is.
You’re missing punctuation after the word think.
If someone is breaking into your home, you should defend yourself and your family with whatever means is available. The amount of people here saying you should have a polite conversation or comply with the robber’s demands (even if that demand is to harm you) is bizarre.
No one was actually breaking into their home though. Literally nothing would have happened to that home owner if he had been less trigger-happy and tried to comminucate with the kid.The problem is you can’t judge people’s actions on what we know after the fact, you have to look at what the person knew in the moment, and for the residents, it sure seemed like someone was breaking into their house, and it’s not reasonable to expect to have a dialogue with a burglar.
Donofrio repeatedly knocked, banged and kicked on the front door “while manipulating the door handle” while trying to enter the home.
Donofrio broke a glass window on the front door “and reached inside to manipulate the doorknob”
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That is completely incorrect and shows you didn’t read the article. The guy physically was breaking the door open.
I love how “self” defense extends to whatever people want it to mean. “Self” yeah, meaning they were on the planet I currently reside on.
In this case dude tried to kick the door in, then he broke a window, reached in and started trying to unlock the door. What would you have done?
I can see both sides to this, and bottom line it is tragic. And I worry about stupid drunk college kids making this kind of fatal mistake. Terrible.
I don’t think I could ever get drunk enough to break a fucking window, that’s insane. I don’t understand people’s excuses for degenerate criminal behavior while drunk, I’d pass the fuck out before I got to this point.
I’ve been that drunk. I didn’t manage to kill myself or induce anyone else to kill me, but it’s really just sheer good fortune that it worked out that way.
for all the non-Americans, here are the things you don’t understand about why we say it was justified.
Mental illness is rampant here. The high productivity expectations have a serious toll on people. There aren’t enough doctors to be even close to handle the scope of it. Many doctors offices are getting bought up by large companies who can and do pick the most lucrative clients.
Our justice system releases mentally ill people who are clearly dangerous because they haven’t committed a big enough crime YET.
And people don’t look out for one another much anymore. Combined with a misguided sense of independence, drunks are left to do things that friends in other countries would put a stop to.
This is why we fear random people, this is why drunk people manage to get into circumstances uncommon elsewhere. This is why we say the shooting was justified. We all think about how badly it could have gone if he didn’t shoot, and it wasn’t just a drunk guy at the wrong house.
As an American I’m thoroughly unconvinced
Same, this sounds like what the homeowner/killer is going to be telling himself the next day to rationalize it (if he even thinks about it that deeply).
what in all of this makes you think the homeowner is a cold blooded killer who doesn’t give a second thought about killing. Like where does that even come from. I mean its possible, but seems pretty unlikely.
America is a big place. Maybe your area is better. Or maybe you aren’t aware of it in your area. But the number of neighbors in my area who have had mentally ill people (probably homeless) come to thier door sayimg they live there or what not is pretty high. And I am out in the suburbs. Combine that with the yearly stories of a mentally ill person with a history of random violence arrests who kills someone and it’s no suprise people fear. A large part of the population lives in areas like this or in cities. But not everyone for sure.
Mental illness is rampant here.
All the more reason why you guys shouldn’t have so many guns.
true, but that ship has sailed.
If enough people want it changed, it can be changed, right?
have you seen American politics? Having the majority vote doesn’t even win the presidency. And all these anti abortion laws recently… all the polls show a majority don’t want them. The government works for business, not the people. If enough corporations want it to change, then it can be changed.
We can agree that it’s not going to change soon, yeah
Good - one less idiot walking the earth.
While the woman was on the phone with police, Donofrio broke a glass window on the front door “and reached inside to manipulate the doorknob,” at which point the male resident fired the shot through the broken window that struck Donofrio in his upper body, according to police.
He wasn’t “trying to enter” he was literally breaking into the home.
I would’ve let off more than one shot at that point.
So you wouldn’t have tried talking first? Like they didn’t either? Seems nuts to me
Good - one less idiot walking the earth.
A college student gets drunk and makes a mistake, and you gleefully execute him for being an “idiot”. He doesn’t get a trial by a jury of his peers. He doesn’t get to explain his story. A frightened home-owner hopped up on adrenaline and his righteous belief he can blow away anyone who scares him just executes him on the spot. That’s a terrible system of justice.
Americans are nuts.
