Previous Post
Next Post

Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 8.11.12 AM

Let’s say you’re a NBA player. While you weren’t drafted out of college and you’re way down on the league salary scale, you’ve finally made the big show and you’re pulling in nice bank by any reasonable standard. And now that you’ve made the big time, you have to keep up appearances by fathering at least one child with someone to whom you’re not married…let alone living. Now it’s your daughter’s first birthday and you decide to fly into Dallas for the event. But her mother pisses you off somehow and you decide to straighten her out, making an un-announced visit to her new apartment. Unfortunately (for you) you’ve never been there before . . .

New Orleans Pelicans guard Bryce Dejean-Jones went to the wrong apartment unit, forced his way in and approached the bedroom yelling for his girlfriend . . .

Since it was well after midnight, someone was home in the apartment Dejean-Jones mistakenly broke into.

A Dallas resident told police he heard someone enter his apartment by kicking open the front door, police spokesman DeMarquis Black said in a statement. The resident said “he called out to the individual, but was not answered,” and when the resident’s bedroom door was kicked open . . .

Also unfortunate for Mr. Dejean-Jones was the fact that his baby momma lived Texas, a state where millions of people own guns for personal defense. So here’s a question: if you’re laying in your bed in the middle of the night and a screaming stranger first kicks in your front door, then your bedroom door, what would you do?

(The resident) stated he called out to the individual, but was not answered. As the individual kicked the bedroom door, the resident fired his gun. The individual left the apartment and collapsed in the breezeway.

Dejean-Jones died after being transported to a local hospital.

There’s not much ambiguity here really. Dejean-Jones seemed bent on assaulting the mother of his daughter to the point of kicking in her front door. Fortunately for her, he picked the wrong door. The innocent apartment dweller, sleeping in his bed, defended himself against a violent stranger using a firearm in a manner no one could find fault with.

Well, almost no one. In a section of its report titled Changes Coming?, CNN implies that supposedly lax Texas gun laws are to blame for the consequences of the NBA player’s violence and stupidity.

Police have not said whether any charges will be filed against the shooter.

But Texas is one of many of states that justifies the use of deadly force in certain cases when someone feels threatened in their home.

In recent years, some states — including Texas — have expanded that protection to any place a person “has the right to be.”

Texas and 21 other states have also removed a stipulation that a person has the “duty to retreat” before resorting to force against an attacker, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

CNN scribes Ralph Ellis and Vivian Kuo clearly think “castle laws” are dangerous. There’s an unmistakable, sotto voce disapproval of laws designed to allow individuals to protect themselves from violent attackers in their own homes. Strangely, they don’t specify exactly where they would have the unidentified resident — lying in his own bed — retreat in this particular situation. Only that Dejean-Jones’ death is, in the words of NBA commissioner Adam Silver, a “tragic loss”.

Here’s hoping the resident isn’t seriously traumatized by the ordeal and recovers quickly.

Previous Post
Next Post

115 COMMENTS

  1. I still want to hear a reasonable defense of the idea of “duty to retreat.”

    Driveway? Living room? Bedroom? Second story?

    Where, exactly, would these clowns draw the line and say defense is ok?

    • To use pepper spray after you’ve called police several times, but got an automated message that “all their lines are busy” and to “please wait.”

      • No no no. Assault pepper spray is much too dangerous and violent for civilians to own. You’re supposed to blow your rape whistle and wait for help to arrive….

    • CNN and all the piss poor traditional media believes they have no duty to do any research before they put pen to paper. They all have an agenda and bias and clicks to feed.

      Looking at gun hell MA, In person in MA can be criminally charged if they injure or kill an intruder — which is crap! The law also states “There shall be no duty on said occupant to retreat from such person unlawfully in said dwelling”

      For this particular incident, if you anywhere other than the first floor, there is no place to go and the elevator will not get you out harms way quick enough. You are in fact in a box.

      The CNN reporters are simply pushing an anti-gun agenda. I would love to ask them what they would have done since they are so smart?

      This person was already angry or drunk or high, and then hearing another man’s voice, is probably thinking his baby momma is cheating on him, there is no stopping this guy.

      CNN and most of the traditional media simply sucks! Even FOX News, in the reporting of the Houston incident kept using the phrase “high powered AR-15”

      This is why traditional media has low ratings. They cannot just report the who, what, why and where and leave opinion to themselves. I will even say, there is no more journalism, it is ONLY opinion.

    • God, I hope hilary trys to kill me in the middle of the night. Then America can have a little less policial correctness these next 8. If a cop woke me in the middle of the night and did not say police, he would be a dead cop! Was this Twitter implied is, if you have lots of money, you don’t have to suffer consequences, or in some way your life is more valued.

    • In this particular shooting, duty to retreat is not even a remote possibility to be considered by police, prosecutors, or the courts to determine if the use of deadly force in defense of a person was justified under Texas Penal Code Section 9,32 ( http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/SOTWDocs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm ). Anyone suggesting otherwise is either misinformed or injecting it into the discussion to deceive or mislead.

      The pertinent subsections of the Texas statute which eliminates duty to retreat from any intelligent discussion or legal determination about the lawful use of deadly force which ended the young life of future Darwin Award nominee Bryce Dejean-Jones are as follows:

      (c) A person who has a right to be present at the location where the deadly force is used, who has not provoked the person against whom the deadly force is used, and who is not engaged in criminal activity at the time the deadly force is used is not required to retreat before using deadly force as described by this section.

      (d) For purposes of Subsection (a)(2) , in determining whether an actor described by Subsection (c) reasonably believed that the use of deadly force was necessary, a finder of fact may not consider whether the actor failed to retreat.

  2. Tragic loss, somebody who violently invades apartment gets what’s coming to him…
    Yep, it’s just a tragedy that he didn’t get to assault anybody before he died…

    • Precisely – The definition of tragedy is an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe.

      This was a case of a hot-headed professional thug being stopped cold before he could actually create a tragedy.

  3. The shooter would probably have been “Tragically beaten to death in a case of mistaken identity” has they not been armed.

    I wonder what the tox report will reveal.

  4. The picture perfect use for a shotgun. Bedroom door gets kicked in, thug gets hammered.

    PS, I thought there was supposed to be a fix in for this site?

  5. “Police have not said whether any charges will be filed against the shooter.”

    Identify him as the “shooter ” and not as a victim. Anti-gun journalism 101.

    • Ding, ding! This is why CNN got rid of their Disqus commenting system 4 years ago. CNN would get roasted for hit pieces like this, then their moderators would try and delete all the anti CNN and anti narrative comments; then all those that had their comments deleted would return and repost their original critiques, plus an additional jab on censorship/propaganda. This would go round and round for days until CNN just stopped allowing open comments on their sites.

      • Well, I guess that’s one way to ensure you don’t waste any time on the opinions of the public you’re supposedly serving with your journalism. 😉

  6. It is a tragedy the home owner will have to live with shooting someone. They should put a suit in against his estate for emotional damage.

    CNN can piss up a rope where was this person supposed to retreat to. He played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.

        • That’s after it spends a few weeks or months in the evidence locker. And people wonder why we “need” more than one gun…

        • So true!

          And since i can’t reply directly to Stu, I will agree with him here about why we need more than one gun. Always have a BUG . . and then a BUG for the BUG.

          Besides, it’s a good excuse to buy the next gun you can’t live without.

    • At the very least I hope the landlord gets the cost of the door, carpet and wall (if it penetrated) out of them.

  7. This type of shooting isn’t legal in all 50 states?

    What states would this be illegal in, assuming it happened exactly as reported here?

  8. Another “Stand Your Ground” Tragedy – 23 year old child gunned down by vigilante near SMU campus.

    Fixed it for you. Not enough drama and trigger words in headline

    • Yup, maybe after the playoffs are over the rest of the low intelligent players in the league along with Al Sharpton can stir up the masses and make Dallas another Ferguson or Baltimore.

      Thing is, I don’t think the people in Dallas, Texas will put up with the burning buildings like what happened in Missouri and Maryland.

      • Agreed.

        I live in Virginia (where we are still relatively free) but right next to Maryland. I make trips into Texas, and I don’t think that kind of crap would go over well in Texas. In truth, it wouldn’t go over well in Virginia either.

        • Yeah, but in Virginia you have a turncoat Governor who would take the marching orders from President Racebaiter and not deploy the National Guard, but they’d sure send in the SWAT team with repainted and “repurposed” MRAP’s from Iraq to get a shopkeeper who shot a rioter that was trying to light his building on fire.

  9. The tragedy is the literal baller wasn’t worth the value of the round used to stop his violence.

    On a serious note, it’s too bad he made such poor decisions in his life that ultimately resulted in him forfeiting it and the trama he placed on the resident.

    I agree that this event was tragic; it’s tragic that this nba player didn’t respect his girlfriend or others, and attempted to devalue her life and freedom, and it’s a tragedy that he threw away his life and a tragedy that the random resident had to take another life, but it’s a miracle that the thug got the wrong apartment where someone was armed and ready to safe a life. It’s a miracle that no one innocent was harmed (hoping the resident has no trauma from the scare or struggle with taking a life even with just cause).

    Glad to see this story had the best ending possible under the circumstances and no one else was hurt as a result of his poor choices.

  10. The original headline yesterday was “NBA player tragically killed when he inadvertently accessed the wrong apartment”. I kid you not. It was beyond vomitous, I do hope everyone who uses such media blows up the Twitter feeds of all the disgusting NBA a-holes who were all “crushed by the tragic loss” of this piece of garbage.

    Especially the commissioner.

    • Wow. I… They really… Holy…

      That makes it sound like he fell down some steps he didn’t expect to be there or something. That’s going full Couric.

      • I momentarily shared your incredulousness. Then I remembered the narrative, and like Winston Smith, I felt the long-hoped-for-bullet enter my brain…

  11. Now the baby momma, who was at least saved from a beating if not worse will sue the innocent victim who was forced to shoot the dummie.

    Somebodies got to pay for raising that baby.

    • Nah. The kid gets to inherit from its daddy, so whatever daddy had, kid gets. Assuming he hadn’t blown it all on drugs. partying, and fancy cars..

  12. At 6’5″ kicking down doors is probably very easy. Unfortunately Stupid doesn’t care how much you bank. Neither does Self-defense.

  13. Am I the only one not being allowed to comment on the memorial day edition? likely not as it has zero comments.

  14. Tragic loss?

    The team will find another athletically gifted but morally stunted individual to fill his position easily enough.

    Real tragedies here?

    The man whose home he invaded will have to deal with this for the rest of his life.

    His daughter will grow up without her father in her life … but odds are she would have anyway.

    His parents will mourn the death of their child, having to recognize (at some level) that it was his own fault and they raised him that way. Oh wait, is that tragedy or something else?

  15. The death of a thug who was in the midst of committing a First Degree Felony is no tragedy. Neither is it a great loss to society. The only tragedy here is the trauma that the homeowner suffered and the predictably insane response from the liberal media.

  16. Not to defend the guy, but how do you know he was trying to assault someone? For all we know his intentions were anywhere from delivering free money to trying to steal her soul.

    • I don’t care why he was there. You break into my house in the middle of the night, I’m not gonna engage you in polite conversation.

    • (kicks door down) “Lucy, I’m home!”

      Was the resident awake, and the intruder didn’t knock, or did the resident not wake up until the intruder got tired of politely knocking and broke the door down?

      That last part is about the prettiest face that I can put on Mr NBA’s actions.

    • Hmmm. How do we know what he intended?

      Well, I’m going to go with “kicking in someone’s door at 3AM usually is interpreted as a hostile act.”

      • Generally I assume they’re there for either the 12 gauge Mossberg with bayonet or Glock 20 with night sights demos I offer.during those hours. (No appointment necessary.)

    • ” ‘da ho dint’ ansr, so it aint be his fault”
      My god, why is this even a story beyond “Resident Defends Himself by Shooting a Violent Intruder (Who Happens to be an NBA Player with $700k/Year Contract)

  17. No coach there to X O for him, not the sharpest intellect off the B court. And just how much would it cost a NBA player for child support? A lot less than being dead.

    I suppose I’m a racist for binary smarty phonin that. Oh well, have to relax on a porch in Northern GA, sipping white privilege bourbon, watching Confederate flags roll by in the back of pickem up trucks and motorsickles.

  18. This is why the NBA is anti-gun, too many of their players get shot, and anything that makes it easier for people to defend themselves from one of their thugs is a bad thing in their book. With enough money and lawyers they can get a player out of jail, but getting him out of a casket, not so much!

  19. Clearly, this troubled teen didn’t have access to midnight basketball games. We need more money for those programs. Letting our children fall into the hands of sleeping, terrified bigots is never the answer!

  20. I love how all media outlets who have taken this story are reporting things as if kicking in two doors (exterior and the bedroom) would have somehow been a completely acceptable course of action for being locked out and that somehow the only mistake was that he went to the wrong apartment.

    This shooter likely saved his own life and probably the life of the baby mama as well, because presumably you don’t just give a hug and a kiss and say evening prayers with the person you just kicked down two doors to get to.

    • I was also thinking that. It is like there is another set of rules for NBA Players to follower and this is normal behavior

  21. Castle laws are dangerous. To those that want to break into my castle. So, don’t break into my castle.

    • Very well said!

      Essentially, and using the vernacular of the guy who was doing the breaking in, . . ‘Don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin!”

      Getting me not to hurt people is really easy . . don’t threaten my loved ones, don’t threaten with me, and don’t try kicking my door down in the night, or any other time of the day.

      How much easier could it be?

    • Not quite. This piece of garbage had already procreated. His genes live on, so he got one past Darwin. Hopefully hearing the story of why her dumbass father is dead will provide the “nurture” part of the equation and keep the child from growing up a moron, too.

      • Stinkeye gets it.

        You only win a Darwin if the idiot never got the chance to pass the genes along to subsequent generations.

        (At least, according to the alt.tasteless rules for the annual winner of the “A.T. Darwin of the Year” award, voted on by the chimps in alt.tasteless. They set a higher standard than other, *cough*, internet denizens.)

        • maybe? he “only thought” or was told it was his kid.
          then “Darwin able

          Hmmmm, who should I say is baby’s dad, the Real (loser) or that NBA guy I sleep with.

  22. Hmmm… what if there were some sort of program, maybe called something like “Never Be Arrested (NBA),” whereby at-risk athletic youths (minimum 6’4″, high vertical leap, etc.) could receive funding (starting at a token minimum of perhaps $525,093/yr) to help build their self-esteem and overcome their lack of privilege. Think of the tragedies that could be averted! For the children!

    Nah. It’d never happen.

  23. Sounds like this guy would have made a good cop. They can’t seem to get addresses correct either. Except that if he WAS a LEO, the innocent victim would likely be in jail charged with murdering a police officer now.

  24. I have this thought in my head of a guy collapsing in the breezeway thinking “Damn, I should have double checked to make sure it was 1B.”

  25. Castle doctrine? Sorry, 95% of the master bedrooms in America do not afford you the opportunity to retreat safely in the amount of time one of these events unfolds. Besides, leaving your safe room (master bedroom?) before backup (police?) arrive is a tactical blunder.

    • In this particular shooting, duty to retreat is not even a remote possibility to be considered by police, prosecutors, or the courts to determine if the use of deadly force in defense of a person was justified under Texas Penal Code Section 9,32 ( http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/SOTWDocs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm ). Anyone suggesting otherwise is either misinformed or injecting it into the discussion to deceive or mislead.

      The pertinent subsections of the Texas statute which eliminates duty to retreat from any intelligent discussion or legal determination about the lawful use of deadly force which ended the young life of future Darwin Award nominee Bryce Dejean-Jones are as follows:

      (c) A person who has a right to be present at the location where the deadly force is used, who has not provoked the person against whom the deadly force is used, and who is not engaged in criminal activity at the time the deadly force is used is not required to retreat before using deadly force as described by this section.

      (d) For purposes of Subsection (a)(2) , in determining whether an actor described by Subsection (c) reasonably believed that the use of deadly force was necessary, a finder of fact may not consider whether the actor failed to retreat.

  26. Wow, Israelite madness; This is insane. A young brotha makes it to the NBA, and still can’t escape the curses.
    How foolish can you be, kicking down any one’s door let on an innocent person. The parents like many of my people; and other people too; are in denial, reflecting on how such a nice person he was. Well although he is not a thug believe you me I know what a thug is; he is anything but nice; nice people don’t go around kicking down doors to potentially assault women; or at the least mentally abuse them. This young ach had a problem with controlling his anger, and it cost him, and unfortunately his daughter.

  27. He could’ve turned his life around after this incident, but now we’ll never know…
    Oh wait, he was a friggin professional athlete making millions of dollars. This guy didn’t just want a TV or a laptop like most thug-apologists like to claim. This 6’5″, 200 lb man wanted to hurt someone. Kudos to the Dallas PD for not revealing the identity of the victim. Surely some reporter will though, and then we can read about another person on the Black Panthers’ bounty list.

  28. This morning on the news, headline said “he walked into the wrong apartment”
    Not that he broke down a door and violently entered someone’s living space with intent to do great harm.
    News is useless.

  29. NBA and NFL discriminating against white players through culture Marxism and setting the bar twice as high for whites has turned the game into a bunch of thugs, killers, rapists, and woman-beaters. People of other races should have a little pride and watch something less subversive and discriminatory.

  30. Left-wing statist CNN obviously believes the interests of ghetto thug home invaders outweigh the rights of decent people. Maybe they can get Shady Katie Couric to do another fake documentary, this time against shooting home invaders. She’ll need the work.

  31. THIS is why the NBA is anti-gun … because people with firearms cause injuries that end the careers of NBA assets (players). Think about it from the NBA’s perspective: the NBA invested tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars to recruit, sign, and train Mr. Dejean-Jones. Of course the life of the victim who defended him or herself in the apartment means nothing to the NBA outside of a few hundred dollars in potential ticket sales over their lifetime. Were it not for guns, in the tiny brains of NBA bigwigs, they would not have lost their several thousand dollar asset. Of course, were it not for guns, Mr. Dejean-Jones may have killed or caused severe permanent injuries to the victim, but that is of no concern to the NBA.

    • Now, Mr. uncommon_sense, you’re being awfully insensitive of that nice young man’s culture.

      (Cripes, I can’t finish that, I’m laughing so hard…)

  32. The victum needs to sue the estate for damages and emotional trauma from the assult. Arn’t there any lawers out there?

  33. Don’t you just love the NBA? Lots of nasty, over-paid, drugged-out cultural Neanderthals and baby daddies playing out their AAU “game.”

  34. In a just universe, womens’ rights activists would be lining up to pin a medal on the victim/survivor of the break-in.

    • 3rd wave feminists believe whole-heartedly whatever Mrs. Clinton tells them, even though she stuck with the man who cheated on her. And he lied about it. And allegedly did it many times, including rape, while she helped cover it up.
      We need a new feminist leader who recognizes the benefits of allowing women the means to defend themselves.

      • “And allegedly did it many times, including rape, while she helped cover it up.”

        *Helped* cover it up?

        Cripes, she was the one personally running the smear job from INSIDE the White House!

        It’s going to be loads of fun watching Trump use her as his personal punch-toy when he brutalizes the HildaBeast relentlessly as to how she enabled Bill Clinton’s serial female predation…

  35. Interestingly enough, progressive California does not have a Castle Doctrine per se–but it does have a presumption affecting the burden of proof that anyone breaking into your home (other than a resident of the house, of course) is there with intent to do harm. Which means that if you kill an intruder in your home, it is presumed that you were acting in self defense, and to bring charges, the DA has to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were NOT acting in self defense. Of consequence (except for one particularly egregious overreach by the anti-gun Marin County DA), charges are very rarely brought against a resident.

    • “…charges are very rarely brought against a resident.”

      Just when you think California is a lost cause, completely devoid of sanity, there lies the one tiny, slender thread of rationality in the concept of self-defense for the good people of that embattled, feckless state…

    • We can even take a gun into the street in order to protect another person under threat. Sans permits, etc.

      • Now why in the blazing copulation can’t the Kalifornia Kudzu that spreads to other states bring THAT law with them?

    • …the actual wording:

      California Penal Code 198.5

      “Any person using force intended or likely to cause death or great bodily injury within his or her residence shall be presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily injury to self, family, or a member of the household when that force is used against another person, not a member of the family or household, who unlawfully and forcibly enters or has unlawfully and forcibly entered the residence and the person using the force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry occurred.
      As used in this section, great bodily injury means a significant or substantial physical injury.”

  36. Here’s the nub: How much risk am I required to assume, before some bonehead may experience some consequences from his / her / their f***nuttery?

    Until the bear actually clamps down, you don’t know for sure you’re gonna be bit? Hey, it’s just a flesh wound, so no biggie?

    Humans have protocols for what’s OK and not to signal what they intend, or what may happen next. Kicking in a closed door that isn’t yours? Pretty explicit signaling. Quietly sleeping in a space that’s only yours, with doors that you keep shut? Pretty explicit signaling.

  37. “He was a great player and an even better person. It’s unfortunate because he was just turning a corner in his career.” – OF COURSE he was just about to turn it all around, right after beating the snot out of his baby momma.

  38. Maybe CNN ought to bemoan America’s lax parenting laws that allow anyone to conceive at random without background checks or any demonstration of proficiency at parenting?

    Oh? Would that violate people’s civil rights? Interesting.

  39. That sounded like a domestic assault in the making anyway. If he’d have picked the right apartment we would be reading this under the “It Should Have Been a Defensive Gun Use” column.

  40. The NBA would very much like us to believe that their logo’s letters stand for “No Bad Apples”…but it has been obvious for too many years that they would be equally successful recruiting and drafting players from our penal institutions rather than our so-called institutions of higher learning.

    In fact, then actual students might be able to fill the vacated seats that they are currently deprived of.

  41. The cause of death for Dejean-Jones is a variation of what the media refers to as “suicide by cop” and could accurately be described as “suicide by lawfully armed citizen”, or maybe “suicide by kicking in the wrong damn door” (aka felony dumbass).

    While identical circumstances in most liberal anti-gun states would at a minimum result in the victim being put through the ringer by the criminal justice system and very possibly felony charges, the unidentified Dallas resident faces no legal repercussions or hassle from DPD or the DA, and any future grand jury referral will be no different than when investigation results of even the most righteously justified LEO shootings are routinely presented to the grand jury to conclusively establish that the use of deadly force was justified.

    The Dejean-Jones death demonstrates why few predators in the Lone Star State select home invasion as their preferred crime because criminals know that breaking to an occupied Texas residence is good way to wind up dead.

  42. Just out of curiosity, what’s the thug percentage for the other professional sports? Which one is best renamed “Thugball?”

  43. The victim (the deceased) was aggressively delivering bibles! Democrats are outraged over this senseless killing since the victim was allegedly unarmed.

  44. Seems to me that the apartment owner/renter (?) had, by the nature of his being in bed in his own premises, already retreated. I personally, as a concealed-carry holder, do believe that it is a matter of honor and simple human concern that an armed person has a personal code-of-honor duty to retreat in the face of a threatening presence, but not in his own home. Because someone is foolish enough to be hot-headed and non thinking does not make that a crime punishable by death, so I would move away from the threatening presence, but I would not move very far and I cannot move very quickly. I am just unwilling to condemn a person to a possible death sentence because he temporarily loses control, unless I have no choice.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here