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.”
20 years old is an grown man, not a kid.
Hard to imagine I’d not do the same thing if that happened to my house with my family home.
Would you have possibly tried, I dunno, yelling first? Seems like if you’re already armed there wouldn’t be much danger in say “WHAT THE FUCK ARE DOING?”. It says nowhere in this story they actually tried stopping him, just that they phoned the cops, window broke, they shot him.
That’s what I’m thinking. Call the police first?! That’s a normal response. Not reach for a gun and shoot the person to death. And the student didn’t get inside. I thought an intruder who could be killed was someone who made it inside. So anyone outside the door is fair game, even if they’re knocking and banging?
A female resident called 911 as Donofrio kicked the door, while a male resident went to retrieve a firearm elsewhere in the home
They literally did that.
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
Breaking a window and then attempting to open the door is enough to justify killing in self defense under local laws, even if the intruder has not entered the building yet.
The article is specifically written to have a headline that implies someone got away with murder, to get traffic. The point of articles like this is to profit, not to inform.
Man shot while breaking and entering, is a much less profitable headline.
It also doesn’t say if they didn’t. We have no reason to believe that they didn’t yell at him.
But yeah, if someone pounds on my door at 2am, then tries to force the door open, then smashes my window to try and unlock the door, I’m not waiting til they get inside to see if they are peaceful.
Not risking my life or the lives of my wife and kids on wishful thinking. It’s a tragedy that the guy lost his life, it really is. But he didn’t exactly leave a lot of wiggle room for the homeowners in the house he was invading.
So what you’re saying is literally you have a gun drawn down, you are ready to fire, and you still do not attempt yelling first?
What makes you think they didn’t do that? Why is your default assumption that they just started firing?
Maybe the part where I read the article and it says nothing about an attempt to confront before shooting?
