We recently discussed the case of the McCloskeys in St. Louis where they were charged with felony crimes after displaying weapons outside of their home in response to protesters. I have raised serious concerns over the viability of those charges. Now, however, we have a similar case brought against the husband of Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey. The Lacey home has been targeted by Black Lives Matter protesters in what is becoming a common practice. While the first black District Attorney in Los Angeles, Black Lives Matter protesters have been calling for her ouster and said that they would be holding a community meeting in front of her home. Politicians have responded to the BLM protests and some, like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), have rescinded their endorsements of Lacey recently, Lacy’s husband, David Lacey appeared at the door waiving a gun and warning “I will shoot you. Get off of my porch.” What is interesting is the comparison in the charges in the McCloskey and Lacey cases.Lacey, 66, is only facing three misdemeanor charges in Los Angeles Superior Court against David Lacey for assault with a firearm. In St. Louis, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner charged both of the McCloskeys with a felony count of unlawful use of a weapon.
Notably, assault with a deadly weapon is a “wobbler” offense that can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony under California law. As a misdemeanor, it is punishable by six months in the county jail as a the maximum sentence. As a felony, it can go as high as four years.
In the videotape below, the encounter only lasts a few seconds. As a criminal defense attorney, I would view this as a tough case but there are arguments to be made. The protesters certainly appear entirely peaceful, but Lacey specifically states that they are going to call police. He also does say that he will shoot them if they do not get off his porch. He could argue that these words clearly indicate that he is not threatening imminent harm. While he states a threat “if” they do not comply, he also states that he would rely upon the police if they do not comply.
If the multiple charges are derived from the same incident, courts will often issue a sentence to run concurrently rather than consecutively. Notably, Lacey points the gun three times in the short encounter in this videotape:
More on Jackie Lacey. This article was from January 2020, and the harassment had already been going on for some time. BLM activists want cops charged, regardless of the evidence. Lacey won’t do it, so they want someone who will. Gascon is flush with cash from Big Tech.
https://www.lamag.com/mag-features/jackie-lacey-interview/
The Laceys, who are both black, have been under siege by BLM protestors for many weeks. As is typical on the receiving end of Leftist activists, the couple had been harassed at all hours of the night, and received death threats.
This incident happened in the wee hours of the morning. It was still dark outside. I have no idea what was said to bring Mr Lacey to his door with a firearm. It appears that the “protestors” felt entitled to harass this couple to exhaustion, and allegedly threaten them with violence. They are trying to force their views on the Laceys. How tragic, that Democrats still try to force black people to do anything, and punish them severely when they step out of line.
Both the McClosky’s and Mr Lacey were on their property. Both claim that threats had been made against them by trespassers.
Since I do not know what was said, I cannot say if he was justified actually pointing it at anyone. My Daddy always said to keep your finger off the trigger unless you mean to shoot, and to never raise a firearm without the justification to shoot. You don’t make empty threats with guns. Since I don’t know what precipitated this encounter, I can’t say if Mr Lacey felt physically threatened. The McClosky’s claimed the crowd told them they were going to murder them, their dog, and burn their house down around their dead bodies. Really lovely people, BLM protestors.
BLM is way out of line harassing a black couple because they think Jackie Lacey is tougher on crime than they would like. She’s not that hard on crime, really. The man running against her, Gascon, left the San Francisco DA position expressly to ruin, ahem, run for the DA of Los Angeles County. We’ve already got enough homeless and crime. Gascon could just throw gasoline on that fire. Jackie Lacey is a Democrat, but the Left eats their own when they step out of line.
Are these BLM activists trying to throw a Democrat black lady out of the DA job and replace her with a white Democrat man?
Vote responsibly. Don’t reward behavior like laying a DA under siege in her own home because you want criminals to have free rein. Hmm. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Get a bunch of protestors together, dox the people who harassed the Laceys, and then harass them all night, every night, chanting that they are racists trying to replace a black woman with a white Democrat man.
anyhow i would give 10 to 1 odds he gets acquitted by a jury. the people are sick of this.
by the way, massive exlosion in Beiruit, and the crazies are causing trouble on the street again last night in Portland.
Oh, the second half of this year of the Rat will probably be even worse than the first!
https://www.treehugger.com/thmb/hza_jAB3TTWY41ow1VkYqyt-w8c=/1280×720/filters:fill(auto,1)/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__treehugger__images__2020__01__fruit-bat-quarter-01ba0a8925f2468db33f57b3b74ca4b3.jpg
If a protester showed up on my PORCH and refused to leave, I would shoot him, drag him into the house and THEN call the police.
Come on professor, apples to apples, please. California law is different from Missouri law.
Protesters will dance when they meet Marshal Stockburn & his deputies at the front door
According to the “swift justice” meted out in this scene and under British Law until 1870, Obama would have been Drawn and Quartered for “trespassing on” and challenging the authority of the Sovereign (duly-elected President) through his perpetration of the ongoing Obama Coup D’etat in America.
Remember when Americans made TV and movies staring Americans for Americans to enjoy?
Haven’t these people ever watched a western movie? When a stranger knocks on the door, it’s always opened by a shotgun wielding homeowner.
The proper course of action is to ask them to leave, and if they don’t, then you call the police. Pointing a gun at them (with a finger on the trigger) is very wrong and he should be prosecuted.
Molly, what if the police don’t come? Or if they come and then after they leave, the protestors return? Unless police continually sit outside the home, I don’t see how this will help. These protestors obviously have nothing else to do so can easily wait it out until the police leave (assuming the police come at all).
That is a scenario that did not happen and thus not relevant to the issue as to whether they should be charged.
MollyG – actually, the Laceys have called the police on protestors many times. This harassment has been going on for years.
MollyG – you have 30 people show up on your porch, filming you at 5:30 am. You have no mesh screen door protective door. What is your move?
You close the door, lock it, and call the police.
Molly G – these are people who have burned a Federal Courthouse. How long do you think your door is going to burn before the cops and the fire department get there?
MollyG – I live in CA. This harassment has been going on against the Laceys for years. I have no idea when they last got a full night of sleep. It used to be that they showed up at events, or at the house once a week. It’s really ramped up, including death threats.
False, once someone is violating the law – in this case Tresspassing, particulary after being told to leave, they are a threat to your person and your property.
You have an absolute right to self defense, as well as a narrower right to defense of property.
While Lacy may not shoot – absent an escalation of the threat by the tresspassors, He may threaten – including brandishing a weapon.
If you do not want someone to point a gun at you – do not tresspass on their property.
Your right to free speech does not extent to tresspassing or private property.
When protestors violate the law – they become criminals.
There is no first amendment right to tresspass.
Supreme Court cases say people can walk up and knock and hand out tracts. Jehovah’s witness cases.
Also related case law suggests people can even leave religious or political material on laws, as racists are known to do from time to time, “flyering”
these can’t be prosecuted for tresspass or littering
likewise a person can be on a public right of way– a public street. reporters pull up on streets and harass people like that regularly, within the law
but a mob is a whole other subject
laws have been crafted to restrict private activity like STALKING that gloms together as criminal conduct a pattern of questionable yet legal activities–
in my mind it’s time to have an ANTI-MOB-HARASSMENT law to prevent this kind of thing, and meanwhile, homeowners should get the benefit of the doubt from good prosecutors
this prosecutor is probably not what i would call a good one. maybe one that was bankrolled by Geo soros? He is a RICO operation all in himself.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/money-from-pac-funded-by-george-soros-shakes-up-prosecutors-races-in-northern-virginia/2019/04/23/5c754d14-6513-11e9-a1b6-b29b90efa879_story.html
Being on his porch is very wrong and should be prosecuted. Unacceptable behavior will continue until there are serious consequences.
I don’t think that protests should be allowed at public officials’ homes, period. Perhaps permits should be required of all protests (if not already; I’m not a protestor so have no idea of existing local laws or regulations). And then not allowing protests in front of private homes. Protesting at private homes is intimidation.
Intimidation is the point. The goal is to get the attention of the public officials and the media. As long as they are not violent and not trespassing then protesting at a private home is fair game.
Says Molly, until they’re in front of her home or congregating in her neighborhood. “Fair game,” indeed!
You missed the part about them trespassing. They were on his porch. The moment they refuse to leave when asked to leave, they then become trespassers.
I think it would have been better for him to call 911 and then pull the gun, but I don’t see that as being a legal requirement.
If you are on someone else’s property – you are trespassing, If you are on their porch – you are trespassing.
No protesting at a private home is NOT ever fair game. That would be disturbing the peace.
However a homeowner may not use force to defend the peace – that is the function of law enforcement,
atleast until law enforcement fails to do so.
You are entitled to the full protection of the law, and if the police fail to enforce the law – then you are free to do so.
You may always defend your person or property
There is no right to disturb people in their homes.
There is no right to violate the law to get the attention of the media.
You are free to petition government – at the institutions of government – such as the court house or the DA’s office.
They are not trespassing until asked to leave, otherwise people/friends knocking on your door would always be trespassing.
You can use force to remove them from the property, but not deadly force unless they threaten you first.
In this case, if there really were 30 people on or around the porch hitting the doorbell at 5:30 am. I think flashing a piece is quite appropriate.
Lorenzo – you do not have to be present, and ask someone to leave, for them to be trespassing. For instance, if your security camera catches someone jumping the fence into your backyard, and you aren’t home, they are trespassing on your property.
“Trespass is defined by the act of knowingly entering another person’s property without permission.
Overview
For the definition of trespass, the “knowingly entering” requirement refers to the actor’s knowledge of the literal act of entering property. It does not matter whether the actor actually knows the property belongs to someone else.
Trespass exists in both tort law and criminal law.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/trespass
It is irrelevant whether these are public officials.
This was private property, they were trespassing.
They are no longer protestors by criminals once they violate the law.
Further they were asked to leave – the distiction between misdemeanor trespass and felony trespass is refusing to leave.
So these people are now dangerous fellons.
This is no different from shooting a KKK member who tries to place a burning cross on your lawn.
Do not trespass.
Once you are warned and fail to leave you are considered dangerous and you may be forceably removed.
“I will shoot you. Get off of my porch.”
*******************
A classic defense of curtilage. Let my people go!
prosecutors have been paid off by the Geo Soros RICO operations in advance of this planned destabilization campaign
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/money-from-pac-funded-by-george-soros-shakes-up-prosecutors-races-in-northern-virginia/2019/04/23/5c754d14-6513-11e9-a1b6-b29b90efa879_story.html
“I will shoot you. Get off of my porch.”
Beautiful. Let’s see more of this. The woke-tard pols insist the police abdicate in front of their antifa bully boys, it’s time for the normal people to engage in radical self-help.
The police and prosecutor should be sued an n 42 U.S.C Section 2982 , 1985 1988.
Conspiring with others to deprive plaintiffs home owners of privacy and to threaten them. Time of day was enought. On the porch. Mass of them. Next time shoot first.
Just so everyone is clear.
The reason that he wants them to get off the porch is because they keep ringing the doorbell.
If he doesn’t display this force, then the ringing will never stop.
The fact that the incident happened at 5:30 am shows that they were there before that.
He was in an agitated state probably from being awoken.
Who knows how long they were there? It could have been all night.
Show up on Turley’s porch at 5:30, and he’ll have a column by 6.
30 “peaceful” protesters on the front porch at 5:30 a.m. We’re surprised he answered the door with a gun?
I appreciate the argument his response was not justified for one person ringing the doorbell at 1 in the afternoon. But 30 protesters at 5:30 in the morning? Who wouldn’t bring a gun?
Yes I am surprised. You should only display your gun if absolutely necessary, and there is even a higher bar to point it at someone. You only put your finger on the trigger if you want to shoot it. He was in the wrong.
Joe Biden: “No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? C’mon man. That’s like saying you, before you got in this program, if you take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not, what do you think huh? Are you a junkie?”
Anonymous – it is the first and the last 5 questions that are going to sink his boat.
“C’mon man.” Joe said he is “forward looking” to the debates with Trump.
wow, i thought you made that up. lol
It’s his eyes. Joe Biden’s eyes are an enormous give away of his cognitive decline.
Especially when he squeezes them shut in an effort to correct his verbal fumbling.
It’s not a hard case at all if common sense applies.
It’s his porch. He is outnumbered by uninvited trespassers. He perceives he is in danger. He shows them the gun as a defensive measure. He gives them notice that if they don’t leave he will defend what’s his and call the police.
In a sane world, this man would not be charged for defending his person, his family, and his property.
He should have closed the door and called the police. And he did not “show them the gun”, he pointed it at them with a finger on the trigger.
You are biased by the fact that he was not harmed. The reality is that he was a frightened, frail old man vastly outnumbered by a gang of unlawful trespassers banging on his door at an unreasonable hour.
He – you and everybody else – has an absolute, natural right to defend his life and his property against unlawful aggressors.
BTW, he showed them the gun. Bertrand Russell observed how emotions are altered by word choices that seemingly have the same meaning. It’s called the “Russell conjugation”. Your side are masters at it.
Your side spouts utter absurdities as part of its ideology. For example, you want everyone to pretend that men who like playing dress up to deceive others about their gender are “women”; that abortion is “women’s health”; that laws to restrict gun rights are “gun safety”; that the slight, imperceptible 1C degree warming over the past 150 years – a time in which crop yields set new records almost every year and in which humanity has flourished as never before in history – is a “climate crisis”.
You have no leg to stand on when you whine about semantics and word choices.
i have worked on a case like this. Democrat prosecutors are notorious for bullying homeowners who stand up to trespassers.
Vote Democrat if you want to embolden mobs and bullies.
Vote Democrat if you want to take away the rights of homeowners
It’s perhaps a revealing irony if these homeowners were Democrats themselves– even family of a prosecutor.
Its actually super thick with ironies, hence a good article
Your preferences for his behavior are irrelevant.
If you are on the property of another and you refuse to leave, you are trespassing, you have violated the law and you are legitimately assumed to be dangerous.
“he pointed it at them with a finger on the trigger.”
And had one of them stepped forward rather than backward, he would have been justified in shooting them.
I have a friend who is a shooting instructor.
He had some difficulty with the IRS.
An agent pounded on his door at 5am.
He answered with a Gun
she called the police,.
The officer told her, that if she did not want to be confronted with a gun she should not pound on peoples doors at 5am.
And that she should ask for a police officer if she wanted to come to his home again
Your analysis is too complex.
It is his porch
They are trespassing
They refused to leave.
That is all that is nescary to point a gun at them.
This is in that gray area where if one only ‘felt’ threatened one could ‘protect’ one’s castle. Waving guns around is on the edge. In these circumstances, in this period of chaos and demonstrations where force is met with more chaos, people, as well as the police have a responsibility to pull back from the edge. There should be some sort of legal reprimand to establish boundaries at least. Allowing the waving of guns is just over the line. Regarding the protesters invading the private lives of officials, they should be arrested where possible and charged with trespass. The protests and demonstrations should be confined to public areas. If the home owner had filmed the confrontation then the police could arrest and charge the trespassers. Waving a gun around is too close to shooting, which is way over the line and unnecessary.
how do you know waving it is unnecessary? you don’t. you only know the outcome based on waving the gun. had he not waved the gun, we do not know the outcome.
now, we can speculate what might have happened had he not pointed the gun at them.
1) nothing different might have happened – that’s a possibility
2) the crowd might have become increasingly agitated and dangerous.
we all hope that people will choose door #1, but we have a criminal justice system because they don’t.
“Waving a gun around is too close to shooting, which is way over the line and unnecessary.”
********************
You’re such a beta male, but isn’t all the Left?
This is not close to “on the edge”.
If you are on anothers property, and you are asked to leave and you refuse to do so, you are a threat, and the owner may point a gun at you, that is a legitimate response to threat, it is a warning that if you advance you could be shot.
If they are on his porch they are trespassing. Trespassers will be persecuted. These charges are bogus.
If the protesters are on the porch and refuse to leave, how are they being “peaceful” ???
Uhh because “refusing to leave” is not a violent act. Annoying, of course, trespassing, quite possibly, violent, not at all.
So what?
Refusing to leave private property when asked is a violent act.
Trespassing is the next step below burglary in seriousness.