The homeowner who fatally shot a 20-year-old University of South Carolina student who tried to enter the wrong home on the street he lived on Saturday morning will not face charges because the incident was deemed “a justifiable homicide” under state law, Columbia police announced Wednesday.
Police said the identity of the homeowner who fired the gunshot that killed Nicholas Donofrio shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday will not be released because the police department and the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office determined his actions were justified under the state’s controversial “castle doctrine” law, which holds that people can act in self-defense towards “intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others.”
I can see both sides to this, and bottom line it is tragic. And I worry about stupid drunk college kids making this kind of fatal mistake. Terrible.
I don’t think I could ever get drunk enough to break a fucking window, that’s insane. I don’t understand people’s excuses for degenerate criminal behavior while drunk, I’d pass the fuck out before I got to this point.
Eh, I could see someone getting drunk enough to get into the headspace to do that. You’re drunk, you’re at what you think is your house, but you can’t get your key to open the door, so you just decide to break a window and deal with the fallout in the morning.
I’ve been that drunk. I didn’t manage to kill myself or induce anyone else to kill me, but it’s really just sheer good fortune that it worked out that way.