[QUOTE=Graureiter;4752910]
P.P.S. I have 2 6/10 Greyhounds. Two retired racers and six Italian Greyhounds. :)[/QUOTE]
Totally off topic, but aren’t Italian Greyhounds the best? I have only one, but six would be fantastic.
So. It is not a crime to deliberately start the blades when an unarmed man is standing in the path of the blades. If that is true then it will now be open season on buzzing those on horseback and there’s probably no way they would be held responsible for the children, adults and horses that they kill & injure by doing that.
Sickening :mad:
[QUOTE=Mudroom;4753628]
So. It is not a crime to deliberately start the blades when an unarmed man is standing in the path of the blades. If that is true then it will now be open season on buzzing those on horseback and there’s probably no way they would be held responsible for the children, adults and horses that they kill & injure by doing that.[/QUOTE]
No, the pilot would lose his license in a heartbeat if caught “buzzing” a hunt. Even more so in Britain, where they tightly regulate EVERYTHING.
Oh, the gyrocopter was definitely shadowing and videotaping the hunt, but there is NOTHING illegal about that. No one has any right to stand in front of an operating aircraft engaged in lawful activity, just as NO ONE has a right to block a hunt followers car engaged in lawful activity.
I too am very happy to have laws in the states against interfering with legitimate hunting activities. Pity Britain doesn’t have the same. It will get interesting if hunts start running over sabs.
To quote Admiral Josh Painter in Red October: “This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.”
He was already under investigation for “buzzing” the hunt before the incident, which makes this verdict even more nonsensical.
“Longstanding and often bitter differences between the two sides underlay the confrontation, but hunt master Anthony Spencer told the jury that “buzzing” by the aircraft had frightened the hounds and was a safety hazard. The hunt’s complaint to the Civil Aviation Authority on these grounds had prompted an investigation, which began the day before 48-year-old Morse was killed.”
All I know about this is from reading the article, but it looks like there had been threats to shoot down the copter, the man who arrived to keep the copter from taking off didn’t own the land or have any right to delay the copter, the man interfering with the take off was seen by non-involved parties as being very aggressive and threatening, the man interfering with the take off was calling other people to come over as well, the groups have had exchanges of violence in the past, the man interfering with the take off was calling in other people to converge as a gang on the private property, the man trying to interfere with the flight was asked to leave multiple times, including by third parties.
I don’t know the ins and outs, but I can certainly see how a jury would decide that the pilot might have been in fear and trying to flee.
I think if you go onto property you don’t own and try to interfere with people on that property and then add in that you are calling others to come too, and when there’s no good reason other than violence to try to detain the pilot for the others to arrive - a lot of people are going to see that as a situation where a lot of reasonable people would want to flee and if there were multiple warnings given, I don’t think the verdict is hard to understand.
I do think it’s a horrible thing to have had happen and has to have been a terrible shock for everyone involved. Very sad - horrific, really.
With all of that,
There was nothing preventing him from running away. In fact he could probably have driven away with the guy who brought him the fuel. This was a derelict, unused WWII airfield and as such is publicly owned property. There is no doubt that he DECIDED to start the gyro and move towards his victim, rather than remove his person from harm.
[QUOTE=gypsymare;4752056]
Not really… there are very specific rules about who and when you can shoot. Pretty much they have to be in your house and dead. ie, unable to testify against you.
The “tresspassers will be shot” signs are a load of hooey. You can’t shoot someone if they are on your property even if they are being aggressive. They have to physically enter your home. I’ve been advised by a cop that if I ever shoot an intruder on my doorstep, #1 make sure he’s dead, and #2, make sure he falls inside the house and not outside 
The only exception is if you shoot in self defense to literally save your own life.[/QUOTE]
Except in Kentucky. Happened a couple of years ago. Neighbor banged on another neighbor’s door (drunk and went to the wrong house). Was shot through the door. Self defense. At least according to the jury or the prosecutor, can’t remember which.
[quote=gypsymare;4752056]
Not really… there are very specific rules about who and when you can shoot. Pretty much they have to be in your house and dead. ie, unable to testify against you.
The “tresspassers will be shot” signs are a load of hooey. You can’t shoot someone if they are on your property even if they are being aggressive. They have to physically enter your home. I’ve been advised by a cop that if I ever shoot an intruder on my doorstep, #1 make sure he’s dead, and #2, make sure he falls inside the house and not outside
Sure you can shoot them, just stick a pack of matches and a gas can in his hand. He told you he was going to burn your house down with your family in it…JUSTIFIED. Or maybe we just do things a little different in these here hills of Kentucky!! :yes:
[QUOTE=LauraKY;4754622]
Except in Kentucky. Happened a couple of years ago. Neighbor banged on another neighbor’s door (drunk and went to the wrong house). Was shot through the door. Self defense. At least according to the jury or the prosecutor, can’t remember which.[/QUOTE]
Exactly, self defense is the exception everywhere.
Not passing judgement, just stating a few observations:
As far as being run over by they gyrocopter, note the position of the propeller. It is behind the pilot. So Mr. Morse would have had to have been very close (within about arms’ length) and next to the pilot to be hit when the aircraft pulled forward. Not that it changes much, but he wasn’t steered into and run over. He was behind and to the side when hit.
Without looking at the tape we don’t know just how violent he was and if Mr. Griffiths did have reason to fear for his well-being. Considering that he thought he’d already been shot at several times I can see how this could go both ways completely dependent on that video footage.
How irate do you have to be to play chicken with a guy holding the brakes on a spinning propeller 12 inches from your shoulder?
I guess it’s the old Marine infantry in me, but I’m intrigued by the notion that this pilot was brave enough to buzz and harrass the hunt from the safety of his cockpit, but when confronted with a real person looking him in the eye, he went into panic.
I wonder what becomes of the coward now that he’s cleared of charges. Has he returned to the sab side? Does he feel he’s done enough now to cut back on the number of hunters? Does he have any remorse at all for having murdered a man?
From the court report;
"Mr Morse drove the hunt’s blue Land Rover along winding lanes. She admitted fearing “trouble” when the 6ft 2ins man got out, lit a cigarette and stood within touching distance of the nose. As he took photographs with a camera in one hand and his mobile phone pressed to his ear in the other, he summoned Mr Spencer. …
Mr Griffiths said he was too scared to fill the 40-litre tank and managed to put in only 10 litres before clambering into the cockpit to prepare for take-off.After the trial, Mr Tipping said: “The pilot told me that he thought there was a gang coming. He was rushing around, desperate to get away. He started to look really nervous. Mr Morse stood right in front of the gyrocopter. Then the pilot announced in a loud voice, ‘Keep clear of propeller’.”
How - would you think - could somebody believe that they had “been shot at” whilst sitting with an engine right behind their head and two propellers running. (remembering of course that hand guns are not available to the general public in the UK)This idiot must have magical bullet seeing powers.
[QUOTE=gypsymare;4752056]
Not really… there are very specific rules about who and when you can shoot. Pretty much they have to be in your house and dead. ie, unable to testify against you.
The “tresspassers will be shot” signs are a load of hooey. You can’t shoot someone if they are on your property even if they are being aggressive. They have to physically enter your home. I’ve been advised by a cop that if I ever shoot an intruder on my doorstep, #1 make sure he’s dead, and #2, make sure he falls inside the house and not outside
The only exception is if you shoot in self defense to literally save your own life.[/QUOTE]Not always-in Texas you can defend your property.
From the linked article:
The Times can reveal today that Mr Griffiths’s passenger was a convicted animal rights extremist. The jury was not told that John Curtin, 49 had been jailed for two years for planning to dig up the remains of the 10th Duke of Beaufort and send the head to the Princess Royal. His part in the 1980s plot was intended, he said, to give fox hunters, whom he called “blood junkies”, a “taste of their own violent medicine”.
. . .
Mr Curtin, who had led the campaigns at Huntingdon Life Sciences’ laboratories and was questioned by police in connection with robbing the grave of Gladys Hammond, a relative of owners of a farm breeding guinea-pigs for experiments, was the first to volunteer to sit in the back of the gyrocopter. A few months later the two took to the air together, dividing their time between the Warwickshire and neighbouring Haythrop hunts.
Yeah. Somehow I’m not buying that this pair were so terrified of one unarmed man that they believed they had no choice but to mow him down like wheat.
Disgusting.
Wow that makes me mad. The man should have been charged with manslaughter. How can you not know what the consequences are of starting a helicopter and flying it past someone??? It’s like warning someone standing in front of my car to move or else! “Oh but judge, he was threatening me and I just took my foot off the gas, it really isn’t my fault he didn’t move!”. Right…
This guy KNEW what he was doing wasn’t right and KNEW that he had been caught, no wonder he was panicking. I don’t buy that they were “threatened” or worried because they thought they had been shot at. They knew darn well that they were about to be confronted for their hugely ignorant & intrusive actions. And the passenger? What a nutjob, he was going to dig up a grave and send the head to the PR as a message? Sick. How is this guy not in a mental hospital??? It’s really too bad they didn’t get hauled out of that helicopter and pummelled.
I think the hunt club should file a law suit against him for negligence causing injury for any riders that were thrown from their horses due to the presence of that helicopter.
I feel so sorry for the family and friends of the man who was killed.
Not quite the topic but…
Except in Kentucky. Happened a couple of years ago. Neighbor banged on another neighbor’s door (drunk and went to the wrong house). Was shot through the door. Self defense. At least according to the jury or the prosecutor, can’t remember which.
I remember that case. Not quite so cut and dry. The “witness” who was with the man who was shot claimed they had been drinking and went to the wrong house but the people who did the shooting claimed he had threatened them before. Apparently there was enough there to convince the jury.
Another thought I just had on this… So the pilot had enough time to pour 10 litres of fuel into the helicopter and was “panicked” yet he didn’t have time to grab his cell phone or have the whackjob with him call the police for help???
Gee… by lopping off a man’s head, the life of one fox may have been saved. I’m touched… :mad:
All the more reason we here in the US must not be complacent about the animal rights nuts. They are devious, sneaky, self-righteous and dangerous. All sportsmen - hunters (fox and otherwise), fishermen, etc. must band together to keep this sort of situation from happening here.
Interesting point from Brigit–what if it HAD been a car and they’d knocked him down with it? In most US states, at any rate, it doesn’t matter if the car has right of way–if someone steps in front of you, you have time and distance to stop, EVEN IF YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT you CANNOT run them over unless they are doing something like pointing a gun at you.
Also, in a US court, I think a prosecuting attorney could have made a VERY strong argument that the identity and violent history of the passenger was relevant.
