Man Shoots Up a Taco Bell Because It Was Closed

This happend in January but while the story is somewhat funny, it is another exapmple of why we have more crime.

https://wrif.com/2023/01/11/man-shoots-up-a-taco-bell-because-it-was-closed/

According to reports the man pulled up to the drive thru window around 2am while employees were closing up. They told him they where closed and he got incredibly upset and began banging on the glass threatening to break in. He eventually left and parked nearby.
One of the employees was leaving when they heard a gun shot. They called 911 to report the man had shot at them. Police arrived and he was hit with multiple charges, including DUI.

Then they let him go! They said that they dropped the charges because "the actions did not appear to constitute a felony."

He shot into the building where people were working. Not a felony.

Inside of the truck police say they found a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol with a loaded magazine and bullet chambered in the center console, a loaded .22 pistol in a pocket just behind the driver's seat, and a Glock 9mm pistol with an empty magazine on the rear passenger seat underneath an assortment of clothing.

Police say they found 2 spent 9mm casings on the front windshield and multiple shell casings or live bullets rounds in the center console.

Officers investigated the Taco Bell store and say they found a bullet hole in the building as well as a second grazing round on an exterior wall. They also found a spent 9mm shell casing on the ground near where the pickup was parked.

Hey, no threat there. Let the poor guy go

 

In the US shooting around a gun is clearly no big deal.

 

You meant to say liberal cities and states. You also left out Mexico and the well armed Taliban thanks to Biden. When they don’t blast people they use machetes.

 

It's amazing how entitled some people feel when it comes to fast food.

Man was probably very hungry and his animal instincts took over.

 

To be fair, I find the treatment of this situation extremely libertarian and in defiance of those with anti-gun attitudes, although that was probably not the motivating factor. This was in a Democrat area.
And you know what's kind of interesting? many minorities, even though they vote for Democrats and the Left, really don't like being told what to do and have an inner urge for more freedom, less strictness and control.
So in their minds, shoot up a Taco Bell, as long as no one was actually targeted, not really that big of a deal.

As a Libertarian, I half give sympathy to how police handled this situation.

The incident happened in Yakima, WA, and I can tell you that area is very liberal and progressive. Huge numbers of migrant Hispanic agricultural workers there. And Eastern WA is interesting because it's kind of Leftist but still has a Wild West mentality like "don't tell me what to do". That sort of area is where people feel they have the right to both smoke weed and own guns.

 

I don’t see a name, a city, a state….is this even real?

 

You obviously did not bother to read the link. So we can assume that any of your other comments on this thread will amount to uninformed comments.

 

And yet it's the red states that want to put a gun in every hand. Fascinating.

 

Would you care to post any evidence to support that statement?

 

I did, didn’t see that info. Even clicked the link they referenced but was over with pop ups that wouldn’t close on my phone. If I missed it, please inform me.

 

God, Steve, it's going to get so that no one even considers your arguments, if you keep on making such utterly false contentions. This took place in YAKIMA, WASHINGTON. That is absolutely NOT, a liberal place. Yakima is not Seattle.

Coincidentally, I just now, finished watching a documentary by an NYU film student, about Yakima, which I'd taped (from Public T.V.), called A Valley Divided. That area is a farming community, with 49% of the population being Latino, who do all of the farm labor. Their city had yet, in 45 years, never before elected a single Latino to its city council. This is because of the way they counted votes, in Yakima, was not district by district, but by using the city's overall total, which left the half of the population who were immigrants, essentially unrepresented. On top of this, the council had changed their monthly meeting schedule, to move them from the evenings & instead, hold them in the mornings, when all the Latinos were working in the fields, to further exclude them from having any voice in the governing process.

Recently, though, they were sued to change their system, which they fought against, for 3 years, before finally settling. Then the city council finally got 3 Latino women. After that, there was a similar suit, against the entire COUNTY, which used the same sort of election system, with the same type of result.

In short, this is very much an area in which the political leadership is dominated by Republicans. In fact, this may be the part of Washington that I think I've seen threads on PF about their voting to separate from the rest of their state, and maybe join Idaho. Regardless, this is NOT an area with Blue/Democratic political leadership-- sorry, that doesn't work with the fantasy narrative, you're pushing. The political power center in them parts, appears to be the good ol' boy, Right wing, MAGA racist type; so those are the ones whose attitudes about guns, apply for this story. As if, it was at all likely, that a Democrat-led city, was lax about people shooting at buildings. LOL. If you're going to make stuff up, one would think you'd put more effort into making it believable. But I guess with the example of Trump and Santos, it must not seem worth the effort, anymore, for the new Right wingers to take pride in finely crafting your snow jobs.

 

It begins with a man from Washington..... Further reading of the article even gives the city. Kazenatsu has already spoke of it right in this thread.

 

Hey, as a "responsible" gun owner, he was just making good use of his second amendment right.

 

To be fair, I could see this being more a case of poor reporting creating a certain perception, be that intentionally or just out of ignorance.

For a start, the full article does state that he could still be charged in district or municipal court, so it isn't a simple case of him being "let go" or automatically getting away with it.

I'd also question the interpretation of any court documents as stating someone isn't being charged because the actions weren't a felony. I could believe specific charges being dropped because it wouldn't be viable to prove guilt in court beyond reasonable doubt. All the evidence appears to be circumstantial, with the employees just hearing a gun shot and bullet holes being found. While it is logical to suspect that he did indeed shoot at the building, proving that, along with the necessarily intent, wouldn't necessarily be straight forwards.

It seems fairly clear on the face of it that he should be charged with something (DUI should be something of a slam-dunk, as could the concealed weapon charges) and, as I said, he can still be charged for those. If he is, I suspect that wouldn't be reported as prominently either, especially if he pled guilty, feeding the general public perception of people entirely getting away with things.

 

Actually, at least on paper, it is. But the theme since the 2020 pandemic, riots, defund the police movement, summer of riots, the left's demand of elimination of bail, mass resignations of law enforcement for not wanting the jab and getting tired of civilians in their face constantly with cameras, harassing them for doing what we want them to do, and more, crime is on an upswing, and unless you literally kill someone, your chances of getting away with almost anything anymore have increased dramatically. And the criminal element is well aware of that.

In CA, it is all but legal to steal anything worth $950 or less, as such crimes are not investigated or prosecuted, so we have many systemic issues with our system just giving up on trying to control crime, unless of course you say something perceived as racist, sexist, or fascist sounding, like for example saying we should balance our federal budget, cut spending, and shrink government giveaway programs.

All that said, and it was a mouthful to be sure, in every jurisdiction where I know the laws, intentionally firing into an occupied building is a felony that used to get you serious time.

I get that you like many other Aussies don't like the fact that we have guns and you're trying to make hay about that as it relates to this story, but that's only tangentially related, and has little to do with our birthright of owning tools to defend ourselves with.

But never let a crisis go to waste, amirite?

 

In my vision of a proper libertarian society, which the US was essentially designed to be, save for the fact it was not labeled as such, smoking weed and owning guns are both fundamental rights that a person is born with, at least once adulthood is reached. But shooting into an occupied building that is not a firing range, and not in the direction the range is designed to be fired into, does not fall under that same vision of a proper society.

Shooting a gun is a separate thing from simply owning it, and should not be done while under the influence without some sort of legal reprisal, unless it can be demonstrated that it was done in a completely safe manner (e.g., shooting at a target on your own property, without putting others in any jeopardy, even if only hypothetical), or is for legit life or death purposes.

 

Responsible gun owners don't shoot in the direction of people who are not an imminent threat to themselves or others. Do I really need to say that??

 

For such an academic sort, I wouldn't think that you would resort to such false and emotionally driven hyperbole.

If you have a real argument to make try doing so.

 

Good to know the cops let him go, totally NO way he comes back at does something like that again ever...

 

agreed. He was caught at the location, with all the evidence needed. It's been two months since the incident. What more do you suppose they need in order to charge him that they didn't have at the time of arrest?

 

From the full article.

"Sharp is facing charges of Drive-by shooting, DUI, Harassment, Malicious Mischief, and violation of a Concealed Pistol License."

Trying to figure out how that translates to "they let him go".

 

Guess that's what I get for reading only a few sentences and not the entire thing. Whoops

 

Well, that's the last sentence of the KOMONews article link to the OP link, who the heck's gonna read that....

 

Happened in Yakima, Washington but IIRC they eliminated cash bail in that state too.

 

It's mostly off-topic to this discussion, but the state of Colorado had an interesting approach where it forced people to choose between the right to smoke weed and the right to own a gun, you could have one or the other, but not both. It does seem like a pragmatic approach to me (at least in theory).