The homeowner who fatally shot 20-year-old Nicholas Donofrio will not face charges due to the state's "castle doctrine" law, Columbia Police announced Wednesday.

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.”

  • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
    871·
    10 months ago

    Oh shit something very similar to this happened to my mom once. She’s an older woman who lives alone and terrified of everything. Yes, she owns a gun.

    One night ~ 2-3 am a man knocked on her door and demanded to be let in. She’s terrified, grabs the gun. He moved around to different doors, knocking and banging and yelling to be let in. He started shaking the door handles. My mom called 911 and was hiding in a bathroom. They asked her to just wait, police were on the way.

    Finally she goes out, sees the guy at a window, and pointed the gun at him…but the gun has a laser pointer when you squeeze the handle. So she screamed back that the red dot on his chest was about to be where she was going to shoot him.

    He ran off. Police show up, say they found the kid - 20 - drunkenly stumbling around the neighborhood. The bar had just closed and he thought he was at his friend’s house. A week later he sent her a $20 gift card to a local restaurant with a note that said “Thank you for not shooting me.”

    The cops said if she had shot him, she would have been legally within her rights.

    Agree or disagree with any or all of this, I’m sorry for the family of the person who was killed. It’s just a terrible situation all around.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
      248·
      10 months ago

      While the woman was on the phone with police, Donofrio broke a glass window on the front door “and reached inside to manipulate the doorknob,” at which point the male resident fired the shot through the broken window, striking Donofrio in his upper body, police said.

      The headline made me instantly rage (as intended). Reading the article made me reconsider. The real answer is to not have guns in the hands of the public. But then only criminals will have guns. Stfu.