to ask your thoughts on this? Fatal shooting during burglary

[itsjustataste]

Happened near me very recently and our community seems very torn with lots of people slinging insults at both sides. Lots of people shouting about playing stupid games, win stupid prizes etc... whilst others calling the shooter a murderer.

I find it very sad that someone so young has ultimately lost their life and has got mixed up in this sort of thing.

BUT that being said, I don't have any ill feeling toward the farmer either and cannot say that I wouldn't do the same if faced with 3 people breaking into my home, especially if I had my children in the house.

The other 2 suspects arrested for aggravated burglary meaning a weapon was involved and there had been a break in at the same home the night previously too.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-68942085.amp

I guess there is a difference between a young person who gets into drugs and sells some as a way of making a bit of cash (drug dealing) and a young person who is actively groomed by organised gangs to distribute drugs and commit other crime for money (groomed for county lines). I don’t know though. Guessing.

Team farmer here, too. We’ve had a spate of burglaries in our tiny village recently, they’ve only been doing cars so far but we are so isolated here that I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried houses soon as nobody has been caught yet. We know they have weapons as the same group of people have been seen on Ring doorbells robbing cars and shooting cats and foxes. They did our car at Christmas and even that felt like such a violation.

If they tried my house in the night and had a weapon, they’d be met with a very unwelcoming dog, closely followed by DP in his pants swinging an axe and probably me with my airsoft gun (legally owned replica, discharges only plastic BBs but I’ve been shot enough times playing airsoft to know that it hurts!)

However, such is the law that if my dog got hold of them in the garden before they could enter the house, he would likely be put down for doing so (not a banned/restricted breed) and we would be prosecuted. If the intruder made it into the house, we’d have to prove that we didn’t ‘set’ the dog on them. It’s very backwards and I think we should absolutely have the means to defend ourselves with whatever is to hand.

We have guns, a police friend also advised not to shoot them while running away.

I wonder if the farmer had the gun by the bed because if we were burgled getting the keys two of them per cabinet which are kept separately, then getting hold of the cartridges which are stored elsewhere for security reasons would be well nigh impossible.

I've donated money to the farmer's gofundme and encourage others to do the same.

Can't believe we already have a poster telling how amazing these burglars are, heart of the community. Bloody farmer must've forced them to break in.

Lovely people surely go around breaking into people's houses. But I'm sure we'll soon get more scums from that community coming here and going to newspapers telling their own stories.

People who think it's okay to break into someone's house are the scums of the Earth. They are the ones who do other things putting lives at risk. I wouldn't trust them not to drink and drive or not to rape etc.

I am sorry for not feeling sorry we have one less criminal in the world now.

Indeed. I was just curious about why farm burglary was rising as the risks seemed higher to me.

I look around our home though and think you’d be lucky to make a couple of hundred.

From a policing perspective it’s the exploitation that’s the focus, rather than the technology. I think the model of forcing vulnerable kids to participate is not necessarily the standard way drug dealing had gone on before, so the name became associated with the exploitation model and because of that had a purpose over and above simply being “drug dealing using a phone” (which you’re right, hardly seems remarkable!).

The second time in 24 hours. No wonder he had enough! This has happened previously a few years ago. It was in the news from another area. The burglar was breaking the law. He probably didn’t mean to kill him. But the burglar shouldn’t have been there. I would be terrified if someone broke into my home.

The reporting of a court case might be sanitised, but the proceedings in court won't be.

Sad but the gang who trained the teen ought to be in court.

I hope whatever the outcome (and I'm team farmer) the families of the scrotes who started this are the ones driven out by locals who are appalled at what their family started.

A lot of farm burglaries are committed because there’s incredibly valuable machinery and electronics stored in the sheds around the farmyard (sometimes the house is right there but sometimes not), and they know that often farmers keep cash in the home, I would say more so than the average town home. GPS units are from tractors specifically targeted at the moment as they are worth good money and are very easy to move on relatively undetected. See also power tools, diesel, quad bikes, even tack for horses. Tractors, trailers and implements are also stolen regularly too but that’s more ‘organised’ shall we say.
Thieving cunts know that the police won’t be there any time soon if they come at all, even if the farmer calls while the thieves are in the act (often it’s not noticed until the morning if they don’t have good security systems or the barns are set away from the farmhouse), and know they can be long gone before anything is ever done about it. And once it’s done, the response you get from the police is ‘oh, well that’s why you have insurance isn’t it?’ they do not care. Farmers are ‘easy targets’ to thieves. Sad but true.

I'm also reasonably local to this and I have zero sympathy for the thriving low-lifes. I've watched our area filled with incoming scrotes over the last 10-15 years. I hope the farmer is soon released without any charges.

I hadn't thought that much about it tbh. Obviously there is a difference when there's grooming involved. But I don't think we have a term for it here. It's honestly just called drug dealing.

My sympathies are with the farmer.

i think it’s sad when a young person wastes their lives like this
No! The farmer did us all a favour. He removed ( just a little bit) of scum from the pond.

Huge sympathy for the farmer being targeted two nights in a row but you cannot shoot at unarmed people, even burglars, knowing full well you might maim and kill and expect no consequences.

If that’s not true the police will easily determine it by seeing there is no weed. That’s the point of an investigation and actually if there is local spexilation and anger and the farmer was acting in genuine self defence then an investigation is important for him too, to clear his name.

I don't know the specifics of the family in this case but it's hardly a stretch to assume they may not be pillars of the community material, you can't apply right thinking value and actions

I'm sorry the burglar died, but I'm with the farmer.

If so you have to accept all the consequences that come with that - accidental shootings (Inc a child killing another child) and mass shootings in schools, malls etc, to name just two.

God this is horrendous - terrifying. Sorry you endured that. Twice!!! I don’t have much sympathy either..

I went through an incredibly traumatic burglary when I was 20. I'd only been living on my own for about 6 months. I moved back home after the burglary and didn't move out again until I was moving in with my now DH. I keep a hammer, picture hanging kit and a picture frame by the bed. I was told once that keeping a weapon for self defence was not allowed but grabbing a weapon in self defence was. No idea how true that is but that's what I do anyway. We have 3 children now and I would absolutely not hesitate to defend them and our home.

Farmer did nothing wrong.

As I’m reading that it’s making me think that it’s a potentially racist and classist concept. When we talk about gangs in cities we talk about it in criminal terms and historically we didn’t focus much on the grooming aspect. But then when it started to happen to ‘nice white kids from villages’ it got a new name and a new focus. Im not sure if that’s what happened but looking back I wonder.

Whereas actually, as DanielGault has said, it’s all the same stuff. Just a different location. Kids have always been groomed and exploited into criminal gangs. It just used to be mainly kids of colour from inner city areas. Just pondering.

So if it is a possibility in this case, as per the PP who mentioned county lines, that the young people involved had been groomed they are both victims and perpetrators.

Young people groomed into these gangs get set tasks to do and often the consequences of not doing it are worse than the consequences of doing it. No way of knowing if this is relevant here though.

I don't think there is a stick of furniture or material possession that is worth a human life. Nor do I think being killed is a proportionate punishment for burglary.

That said, I can only imagine how frightening it must be to discover not one but two intruders in your remote property in the middle of the night. The homeowner will have no idea in that moment whether the intruder is merely (!) there to ransack the place or intends to kill them. And if you wait long enough to find out, well, you may very well end up dead.

So another fence sitter. I feel sorry for all parties involved.

No teams here either I don’t think. Just a label to describe it as far as I know.