The land-owner could have just blocked the gate and called the cops without initiating any contact with the kids at all. This could indicate that, in the beginning, angry old white guy quite possibly would have settled for them turning off their motors, yelling at them for a few minutes, then (hopefully) accepting an apology. That would have been a nice, and restrained, thing to do, not causing the kids any legal issues. But they decided to try running away, damaging his vehicle in the process. Highly unlikely that the old guy hit the U-Haul pickup on purpose, but anger and adrenaline do have a tendency to cause misjudgements and accidents. Fortunate for all that he missed them.
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There’s a perception that “undeveloped, unmarked land without any fences” means that it is open access to all. Irresponsible riders (dirtbike, ATV, snowmobile) on private property without permission gives legitimate riders fewer opportunities and areas to ride.
Don’t get me started about these riders on public streets – trailer your shit there and back.
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Dude. These bikers are ass hats. Trespassing on private property and damaging other people’s shit, then they act like the old guy was wrong? Where does this sense of entitlement come from?
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100% agreed. Those bikers are entitled pricks.
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I love this place. Some dude comes in to be all, “You can’t, like, own property, maaaan!” and gets beaten savagely with his own ignorance. And then continues to be oblivious to his ongoing internal bleeding. Glorious.
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That’s a reasonable sounding assumption but it’s not on which is informed by reality. The problem is that this has been tested in Texas courts many times and not only could he have shot them and walked, he could have done so even if it wasn’t his property as long as the property owner asked him to watch over the property. When you mention the limitations on the use of deadly force you seem to be under the assumption that sec 9.42 is an exhaustive list of defenses but our courts have allowed deadly force under many more circumstances.
I saw you say trespassing. You were able to go on at such length about what the guy did I was wondering if you had such a detailed workup of the kids poor behavior choices. As said above, you don’t seem to, and I heard you repeatedly on the trespassing (and apparently nothing else poorly/wrong). Am I driving trollies you or do I have difficulty comprehending… is a very interesting question. Bless your heart.
I finally had my wife watch the video, which I showed her without commenting. She also saw it as a couple of self-important guys who knew that they were trespassing on a construction site, and apparently cannot comprehend that they were in the wrong.
A couple of further points: [quote=“Blaze_Curry, post:4, topic:98291”]
there’s a pit filled with large round rocks in the shadow of an earth mound
[/quote]
SteampunkBanana pointed out correctly that it was a feature of the drainage system. A trap would be a wire across the trail, not permitted and engineered grading and drainage systems.
Who rents a truck to take their bikes to trespass on private property? If they ride regularly, it would be sensible to have a trailer. Everyone else in the video seems to have trucks. They probably have reasons, but it seems odd to me.
I think the property owner overreacted, but it is entirely likely that he has dealt with this before. The riders were also rude and profane. What they should have done when first confronted was apologize, say that they did not know that riding was not allowed there, and at least pretend to be respectful. Just being polite will get you out of all kinds of situations.
Hitting their truck was a bad move. Breaking his mirror was also a bad move. It is hard to tell from the edit, but it does not look like they left immediately after being confronted.
As for blocking them in, I see that as having two sides. When we have trespassers, usually we send someone to block the gate, in case they are stealing tools or something like that. It is not really about keeping them from leaving, but blocking their vehicle from leaving, especially if they might be carrying a load of my stuff. I would not physically detain someone, unless they did something terrible. I don’t see that I have any particular responsibility to keep my driveways and gates clear for the convenience of burglars and poachers.
[quote=“OrangeTide, post:115, topic:98291”]
You don’t get to start a high speed chase
[/quote]Inagree with what you are saying, but there was absolutely zero high speed chases involved. In fact at no point are they being in a vehicular chase whatsoever.
Dirt bike drive off, truck cuts them off at the gate when they get lost, bikes squeeze by the truck to get to theirs, the bikers get rammed while loading their parked truck.
IMO a car is at least as dangerous as a gun, and you do not get Mulligans when you use either in anger regardless of the consequences. AOG was trying to hurt those stupid kids. In my perfect world, the kids would have to pay for the damage they caused to AOG’s property, and AOG would have lost his license to drive.
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I agree with all you say except for one part; I believe that damaging the U-Haul was accidental and he was not purposefully trying to hurt the kids. But if he had accidentally hit one of them, his intent would NOT have been a justifiable excuse.
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Not sure how they managed to get charged with trespassing, while the property owner was able to purposefully hit their vehicle without being ticketed himself. Two wrongs and all that.
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