Kevin Monahan, 65, shot 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis after a car she was riding in with friends made a wrong turn on his property
A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove up his rural driveway in upstate New York.
A jury found Kevin Monahan, 66, guilty of second-degree murder for shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis on a Saturday night last April after she and her friends pulled into his long, curving driveway near the Vermont border while they were trying to find another house.
The group’s caravan of two cars and a motorcycle began leaving once they realized their mistake. Authorities said Monahan came out to his porch and fired twice from his shotgun, with the second shot hitting Gillis in the neck as she sat in the front passenger seat of an SUV driven by her boyfriend.
Good. What kind of a fucking psychopath sees a car of lost young people and decides, instead of offering directions or at worst leaving them the fuck alone, that they deserve assault with a deadly weapon?
Goddamn deranged.
A Trump voter.
Well that’s one less that can’t vote for him.
Trump wasn’t going to win New York anyways.
Years of “fear the other, they’re coming for you” Fox News.
I have been to that general area. No one choosing to live there is sane.
or even just yelling at kids to get off his driveway
I wrote a post on Nextdoor.com about this sort of situation. “Use of force” laws in my state, with a few easy-to-digest links and quotes.
Post basically said, “Your rights may not be what you think they are, and if you fuck up, you may find yourself in a concrete and steel box for life.”
Nothing combative, controversial, derogatory, political or non-factual. Shot down within 30-minutes for being “insulting”. Yeah. LOL, I even quoted Masad Ayoob, a world-class expert on the subject, and quite conservative if you read between the lines. Not good enough around here.
I’m a LiberalGunNut™ who studies these things. I have guns at the ready, in my home, and sometimes on my person. It behooves me to know the law.
Part of the reason I wrote that post:
A man had been seen on another man’s lot fucking about, trying to get in an empty trailer. A lot next door, not the shooter’s domicile.
Next night, the shooter setup a chair just inside the tree line and hunted. When the other man came back, he popped 5-rounds of 5.56 at him (AR-15). Hit him a time or two, guy lived.
Next day the cops question the shooter. He lies, gets his story mixed up, gets arrested for 2nd-degree attempted murder. Well, fucking obviously!
About 40% of the Nextdoor.com comments defended the shooter. To sum: The homeowner saw a man trying to break into an empty trailer, on the homeowner’s land, hid himself the next evening and decided to execute this man for trespass when he came back. Think on that. Death for breaking into an empty trailer.
I’ll tell you what my conceal-carry instructor told us, a very conservative gun nut. “If you pull your weapon, you’re shooting to kill. Whatever situation you’re trying to stop, be aware, think, is it worth 20-years, maybe life, behind bars? Because that may well be the outcome, not matter how justified you think you are in the moment.”
Honestly I think my biggest frustration with guns in America is the culture around them. When I was a kid learning about guns in scouts you didn’t get to touch one till you’d learned what felt like 12 different times what the rules are and how to be a responsible gun owner and it feels like so many people really needed that handling.
Sorry to hear you live in an area where people’s perspective on guns is that they’re entitled to attempting murder with a deadly weapon if anyone interacts with them in a way they don’t like. That wouldn’t exactly make me very comfortable with the folks I live around
I’ve often said, America doesn’t have a gun problem, America has a culture problem.
I’m 53 for reference. When I was a kid there were guns everywhere, and they were hilariously easier to get. FFS, one of my vintage shotguns was rebranded by Mossberg to be sold in Western Auto Stores. No one would bat at eye at some dude in his pickup with a rack full of long guns in the rear window.
And we didn’t have these problems.
That’s all in the past, I’m afraid.
Dude I just turned 25. If that’s true that makes me so sad… :(
I am certain that there is still firearms training in the Boy Scouts. Sadly, your average leader is probably also a MAGAT so I can’t imagine that they are teaching safety like they used to.
seems like some folks just get really excited about guns and they want a situation to use them in so bad
Nah couldn’t be that simple.
If the problem for you is that you could go to jail, rather than that someone else dies - I don’t know what to tell you.
Deliberately misunderstanding my post? Point being, even in obvious self-defense, it can be a tricky thing. But yeah, there are very certain circumstances where I would take a life. Namely: Home invasion (while someone is home) and attacking myself or my family. I would defend a stranger, but it would have to be a clear case of “stop this or that person dies”.
In no case does property damage of theft justify a shooting.
You’re talking about people without empathy for others and who question what stops an atheist from raping and murdering if not the fear of hell.
I made a post, as a lawyer, about some of the common law rules for self defense, five months ago, and I still get replies from people who don’t like the truth:
Deadly force is never authorized to protect property.
An intruder standing in your living room with no weapon or other outward sign of aggression is not a deadly threat and you will be charged with murder if you kill him.
People cannot handle this.
I had quoted this in my post:
“In the anti-gun Spokane newspaper, internet comments indicated that many people had the clueless idea that Gerlach had shot the man – in the back – to stop the thief from stealing his car. One idiot wrote in defense of doing such, “That ‘inert property’ as you call it represents a significant part of a man’s life. Stealing it is the same as stealing a part of his life. Part of my life is far more important than all of a thief’s life.”
Analyze that statement. The world revolves around this speaker so much that a bit of his life spent earning an expensive object is worth “all of (another man’s) life.” Never forget that, in this country, human life is seen by the courts as having a higher value than what those courts call “mere property,” even if you’re shooting the most incorrigible lifelong thief to keep him from stealing the Hope Diamond. A principle of our law is also that the evil man has the same rights as a good man. Here we have yet another case of a person dangerously confusing “how he thinks things ought to be” with “how things actually are.”
As a rule of thumb, American law does not justify the use of deadly force to protect what the courts have called “mere property.” In the rare jurisdiction that does appear to allow this, ask yourself how the following words would resonate with a jury when uttered by plaintiff’s counsel in closing argument: “Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant has admitted that he killed the deceased over property. How much difference is there in your hearts between the man who kills another to steal that man’s property, and one who kills another to maintain possession of his own? Either way, he ended a human life for mere property!”
― Massad Ayoob, Deadly Force - Understanding Your Right To Self Defense"
Yeah, that about sums it up. Think about the optics in front of a jury, your family, and probably your local community newspaper when you have to take the stand and tell the prosecutor and the rest of the court, “yes, I shot that man 7 times in the back, but he was running off with my laptop.”
But muh things!
People who feel out of control of themselves cling to control over their things. Tale as old as time
Deadly force is never authorized to protect property.
Never say never. In Texas there are some specific instances where it is, but they are narrow enough that most people probably can’t cite them offhand and they’re certainly narrower conditions than what those people think.
Texas penal code 9.42:
https://txpenalcode.com/sec-9-42/
Make what you will of “criminal mischief in the nighttime.”
Wow. Seems impossibly narrow and vague.
Can I see that post please?
When people have the wrong idea in their head it’s so exhausting to change their mind. You need to treat them like delicate children. Like I believe you should debate respectfully and not be condescending, but most people are so sensitive you need to bend over backwards to bring up facts in a ridiculously delicate way. Meanwhile they’ll bring up absolute bullshit in the most rude and condescending way possible, often just leaving arguments out completely and just cussing you out. Discourse is completely broken.
I’m an instacart driver and at least a few times a week I get the wrong driveway but then figure it out very quickly. This shit goes through my mind every single time.
That’s just the country I live in. I pulled into the wrong driveway and I instantly wonder idly if this is going to lead to my fucking death.
He claimed the gun just went off when he tripped and fell. Fortunately the jury didn’t buy his defense.
I could not believe that when I read it.
Pathetic, not even capable of accepting responsibility for his own actions.
I would imagine he will not be apologizing to the family either.
lol wtf
So guy claims he felt threatened, didn’t call cops, grabbed gun instead and expects people aren’t just going to assume he’s being a gun nut when he acts exactly like one?
Felt threatened in the time it took them to turn around. Jesus tapdancing christ on a cracker what a fucking snowflake with a hair trigger.
How does somebody like this make it through the day without meds?!?
If only those kids had had enough of their own guns, this tragedy could have been avoided. Somehow. I guess. That’s how it works, right? More guns?
Since the late 1800s, 494 MILLION firearms have been produced and sold in the US. That’s way more than one per person, including babies and toddlers.
when’s it gonna be enough I wonder?
Maybe it really isn’t about more guns, just more profits for the arms dealers? Maybe we could skip the middle-men and dead children murdered in their schools if we just pay off the arms dealers?
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It’s gotten to the point where firearm related murders in the US is practically natural causes, it happens so often… Whoever thought it would be a good idea to flood the country with guns is an absolute moron.
It is natural causes. This is the natural and probable result of giving fragile human beings access to killing machine.
I hope he rots the rest of his life away behind bars.
Such a miserable, worthless excuse for a human being to fucking execute someone for having the wrong directions.
If he had just waited an extra few seconds he would’ve seen them back up and none of this would’ve happened.
Exactly. My dog just barks at people turning around in the driveway. They turn around; my dog thinks he won.
But what if they don’t turn around? Your dog needs a gun.
If they don’t turn around, I’d rather have my dog.
Your dog is smarter.
I hope you tell your dog he’s ALWAYS a winner!
Per the NBC article, it took them an hour to arrest the guy:
When officers arrived at Monahan’s house to investigate the shooting, he refused to come out, Murphy said. Authorities spoke with him through a 911 dispatcher and in person for about an hour before he was taken into custody, according to the sheriff.
How wild is that
That sounds like good police work. They knew where the person was, went to the area, and used their words to resolve the situation. If only all cops could show this kind of restraint and patience when apprehending a suspect…
Execute the motherfucker to show these fucks the barrel points both ways. Set an example. Fucking lunatics.
Oh no he won’t be able to vote for tump
Tump 4 pesident!
Wheel of Fotune
would this be self-defense in Florida?
Depends if the girl was white or not.
Sigh, that’s not even a joke
Might as well laugh while Rome burns.
Yea?
Edit:
Yeah?I’m confused by the point of your comment . You also got circle downvoted.
Happy that there was a conviction but dismayed that it seems normal for this kind of killing happens so frequently.
Well, it’s interesting that a conviction actually happened in a well publicized case like this where it absolutely should happen. I would be horrified but not actually surprised if he had no punishment.
