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Texas Dad Beats Daughter's Molester to Death: Cops

Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

danarhea said:
That's what I like about this story. The scumbag won't be molesting any more kids, and I am happy that he got killed. However, my feelings kind of fly in the face of the 6th Amendment. And here is my point. Even though the perp is pure scum, what's to stop someone else who, say, hates his neighbor, from killing him and then telling the police that the neighbor he hated was molesting his kids? That's the reason we have courts, and due process. So, while I am pleased as punch that the perp got what was coming to him, this story troubles me. This is not Iran. This is America.
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There is no evidence to show that is the case though.

We aren't talking about a case where the police just believed exactly what the man who killed the other told them. I'm willing to bet they talked to pretty much everyone at that house, including the little girl and found out enough information to determine the facts were a) the "victim" attacked the little girl, b) she screamed, alerting the other people there that she was currently in trouble, c) the father immediately went to see what was wrong, and d) upon finding the guy attacking his daughter, he started beating on him to protect her.

In the scenario you described, with a neighbor just hating the other neighbor and using an attack on one of his children as an excuse to kill him, it would take a lot of extensive planning to prevent some things from not looking as if the murder was planned including hiding any malcontent toward the neighbor from others but especially the neighbor, getting one of his children to lie for him, and likely getting an opportunity to have the neighbor in a room alone with his child but where him and at least one other person is near enough to need to check on the child during that time or if some "strange noise" was heard.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

SheWolf said:
I feel really bad for the little girl. She has to lose her father because of all of this now. I really hope the father gets psychological help as well as the daughter.
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Why would the father need psychological help. The father made the right and insane choice.

Typical how ALL LIBERALSl showing more compassion towards the dispicable child rapist than the actual victim. It's no wonder that ALL LIBERALS are so uncivilized. That's just my FAIR and BALANCED observation.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

danarhea said:
That's what I like about this story. The scumbag won't be molesting any more kids, and I am happy that he got killed. However, my feelings kind of fly in the face of the 6th Amendment. And here is my point. Even though the perp is pure scum, what's to stop someone else who, say, hates his neighbor, from killing him and then telling the police that the neighbor he hated was molesting his kids? That's the reason we have courts, and due process. So, while I am pleased as punch that the perp got what was coming to him, this story troubles me. This is not Iran. This is America.
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The difference being as this was done DURING the act, therefore self-defense of the child was being act upon.

If days later this dad confronted the perp and killed him, I would agree with you, however that is not the case.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

Sparky said:
Why would the father need psychological help. The father made the right and insane choice.

Typical how ALL LIBERALSl showing more compassion towards the dispicable child rapist than the actual victim. It's no wonder that ALL LIBERALS are so uncivilized. That's just my FAIR and BALANCED observation.
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Oh dear god, man. Seriously?
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

Sparky said:
Why would the father need psychological help. The father made the right and insane choice.

Typical how ALL LIBERALSl showing more compassion towards the dispicable child rapist than the actual victim. It's no wonder that ALL LIBERALS are so uncivilized. That's just my FAIR and BALANCED observation.
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Do you really think the father made the right call?

I can absolutely understand him beating the stuffing out of the guy, but NOT beating him to death.

Did the 4 year old witness this?
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

sharon said:
Do you really think the father made the right call?

I can absolutely understand him beating the stuffing out of the guy, but NOT beating him to death.

Did the 4 year old witness this?
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The 4 year old was busy being terrified for being raped. The father asked for medical attention for the child rapist not knowing he was dead. This also indicates that he had had no intention of killing him despite the obvious reason to.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

Republic Now! said:
You cannot assume the man went too far in defense of his daughter.
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I'm not assuming anything. I'm pointing out the possibility.

Republic Now! said:
It's an absurd position. There should be no doubt in the mans mind of his actions defending her.
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What he believed is only one element among many that are relevant to this situation.

Republic Now! said:
In a scenario like this, if there is no way to prove he went too far, assume he didn't.
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Sure there is: testimony, forensic evidence, etc, etc.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

The pervert's pants were down and his genitals exposed. In flagrante delicto.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

nota bene said:
The pervert's pants were down and his genitals exposed. In flagrante delicto.
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I'd have punched him in the dick.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Well, we don't really know what happened. There are people who fall, bump there head on a wood floor in just the right place, and just die. For all we know the guy just landed a strong enough blow in the right place. Or, possibly, he beat the piss out of the guy for an hour. That's an option too.
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True, and both of those situations might be murder, or more likely manslaughter, depending on the circumstances.

SmokeAndMirrors said:
But either way, there's a problem with siding with the technical wording of the law here. In the moment, when someone is raping your daughter, or your partner, or you, or trying to kill you, or whatever else, when the hell do you know they're no longer a threat? When do you know someone capable of that much evil is no longer a threat?
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There's quite a lot of precedent on this issue, but obviously it's hard to know where the line is in the heat of the moment.


SmokeAndMirrors said:
As far as I'm concerned, I'm not willing to take that chance until they're no longer showing any ability to move. And I think anyone with an intact sense of fight or flight would think the same. In reality, the "no longer able to move" standard is where a lot of people stop, because it's the only time it makes sense to stop.
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Not necessarily.

SmokeAndMirrors said:
All this legalise is great in the theoretical, but in real life, how do you say to someone who's just been violently attacked, or watched someone they love who is defenseless get attacked, "you really should have stopped once he was no longer actively raping her?"
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Because the law cannot, and does not support revenge. Self defense, and defense of another is all well and good, but once you've stopped the danger, and continue to attack, you are an aggressor, and have started to engage in the same range of behaviors you initially had the right to defend yourself against in the first place.

SmokeAndMirrors said:
You don't, because that's insane. If someone like that is still standing, or in any way capable of standing or even crawling, they're still a threat to anyone with half an ounce of sense in their head. He could have attacked the father. He could have taken the girl hostage. These are all things he could still do when he was no longer actively raping her, and therefore "not an immediate threat."
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It's probably not a good idea to assume that "not actively raping" = "not an immediate threat"

That would be ridiculous.

SmokeAndMirrors said:
You can say that doesn't hold up in law, and maybe in a technical sense that's true, but in reality people frequently face no charges for doing something that's technically illegal because the law frankly makes no sense in the real world, with the way real people are wired to behave in these situations, with the way predators are in the real world.
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The law does its best with the messiness of reality. This is the problem with living in a civilized society. The alternatives are worse.

SmokeAndMirrors said:
Someone who is capable of raping a 4-year-old is capable of just about anything, and you'd have to be an idiot or just as big of a psycho yourself to stop short of "no longer capable of moving." People know that, even if the law doesn't.
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The law has a great deal more experience with situations like this than any one person. It has been built upon hundreds of years of messy, chaotic, thoroughly ****ed up situations. It has established standards based on all of that experience. Once again, its not perfect, but what you are doing right now - framing a legal standard based on one especially awful occurrence - is a thoroughly bad idea. In the real world, things are a lot more complicated than the facts of any one case. What sounds like a reasonable standard to you, in this situation, may not be in many, many other situations in which it might need to be applied.


SmokeAndMirrors said:
Telling someone they should stop shy of well and truly laying someone out is telling them that they should sacrifice their own safety or those of their loved ones in order to mitigate the risk of harm to a violent predator. Talk about having ones priorities mixed up.
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Again, you're making bad assumptions. I'm not remotely suggesting that anyone should sacrifice their own safety.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

Sparky said:
Why would the father need psychological help. The father made the right and insane choice.

Typical how ALL LIBERALSl showing more compassion towards the dispicable child rapist than the actual victim. It's no wonder that ALL LIBERALS are so uncivilized. That's just my FAIR and BALANCED observation.
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I think counseling for an ordinary man who just (rightfully) beat another man to death is quite wise.

sharon said:
Do you really think the father made the right call?

I can absolutely understand him beating the stuffing out of the guy, but NOT beating him to death.

Did the 4 year old witness this?
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How naive.

Physically defending your child, as a father, is not something you will do carefully. The man was absolutely right to respond with extreme force targeted at COMPLETELY subduing the molester. The fact that this ended the life of the molester is not something fully under the control of the father. The child MAY suffer because of the violence needed to stop her attacker. But this is on the attacker, not the child or her father.

You need to realize this is not a scene in a movie. The man who molested the little girl was risking his life the moment he began.
 
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Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

Understandable actions, but still not acceptable. We do not use vigilante justice in the US.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

RadicalModerate said:
Understandable actions, but still not acceptable. We do not use vigilante justice in the US.
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It wasn't vigilante justice, it was proxy self defense, which is perfectly legal.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

RadicalModerate said:
Understandable actions, but still not acceptable. We do not use vigilante justice in the US.
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What exactly would have been "acceptable" ?

"Please sir, release my daughter and sit still while I call 911 and have the police come arrest you for raping my child."
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

I read a few pages of posts, not all and I am late coming into this.
I saw a couple of posts citing Texas Law, but the ones I saw left
out what applies in this case, at least as far as what I know about it.
I believe the rancher stated he didn't intend to kill the offender. That
is important. A lot of laws for Texas were written long ago, when getting
help from LE may be a day or two ride on horseback, one way. Current
law states one may use deadly force to prevent sexual assault upon a
third person. I dont know but I dont think your required to ask an offender
to stop an assault in progress and wait for action. The scenario is, the
rancher would have been justified under the law in shooting the offender,
probably stabbing him, whacking him in the head with a hammer etc.
This would have been unquestionably using deadly force. From what I've
heard, the rancher struck the offender only a couple of times so use of
excessive force by beating is questionable. My opinion which means nothing
of course is a grand jury will not indict. This is the law:
PC §9.32. DEADLY FORCE IN DEFENSE OF PERSON. (a) A person is justified in using deadly force against another:
(1) if the actor would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.31; and
(2) when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:
(A) to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force; or
(B) to prevent the other's imminent commission of aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery.
(b) The actor's belief under Subsection (a)(2) that the deadly force was immediately necessary as described by that subdivision is presumed to be reasonable if the actor:
(1) knew or had reason to believe that the person against whom the deadly force was used:
(A) unlawfully and with force entered, or was attempting to enter unlawfully and with force, the actor's occupied habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment;
(B) unlawfully and with force removed, or was attempting to remove unlawfully and with force, the actor from the actor's habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment; or
(C) was committing or attempting to commit an offense described by Subsection (a)(2)(B);
(2) did not provoke the person against whom the force was used; and
(3) was not otherwise engaged in criminal activity, other than a Class C misdemeanor that is a violation of a law or ordinance regulating traffic at the time the force was used.
(c) A person who has a right to be present at the location where the deadly force is used, who has not provoked the person against whom the deadly force is used, and who is not engaged in criminal activity at the time the deadly force is used is not required to retreat before using deadly force as described by this section.
(d) For purposes of Subsection (a)(2), in determining whether an actor described by Subsection (c) reasonably believed that the use of
deadly force was necessary, a finder of fact may not consider whether the actor failed to retreat.
PC §9.33. DEFENSE OF THIRD PERSON. A person is justified in using force or deadly force against another to protect a third person if:
(1) under the circumstances as the actor reasonably believes them to be, the actor would be justified under Section 9.31 or 9.32 in using force or deadly force to protect himself against the unlawful force or unlawful deadly force he reasonably believes to be threatening the third person he seeks to protect; and
(2) the actor reasonably believes that his intervention is immediately necessary to protect the third person.

So when looking at what may justify deadly force of a person, and then of a third person, we see sexual assault is a justified reason to use deadly force in terms of the prevention of, or we could say stopping a sexual assault in progress. Then under the third person statute, it states one only needs to reasonably believe his intervention is immediately necessary.
We also see the Texas version of "stand your ground" law here, whereas the ability to retreat cannot be considered.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

RadicalModerate said:
Understandable actions, but still not acceptable. We do not use vigilante justice in the US.
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Vigilantism is extra-judicial force carried out after the fact in a premeditated fashion.

This incident was deadly force used to stop sexual assault of a child.

The second is legal in Texas.

Apples and oranges are more alike than these two concepts. This is more like apples and sourdough bread.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

Dragonfly said:
What exactly would have been "acceptable" ?

"Please sir, release my daughter and sit still while I call 911 and have the police come arrest you for raping my child."
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Kicking him in the face to stop the action and then sitting on him while someone else at the party call 911? Tackle him and hog tie him? Pimp slap him and lock him in the bathroom? THere are countless option that don't include beating someone to death, you want all of them?

I doubt the molester would've kept going once the father entered the room. Molestations are terrible, terrible things but frankly, they generally do not put the child in IMMEDIATE danger of serious bodily harm or death. Beating a man to death is just getting immediate revenge, IMO.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

RadicalModerate said:
Right, right, I forgot. All self-defense claims HAVE to result in the death of another.
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The death was not intended. Beating the phucker off his daughter and protecting her was the intent.

Even if the father had grabbed a baseball bat and used the attackers head as a target I don't see why it'd be an issue.
The father's daughter was being raped.
Any use of any force to immediately STOP that attack is/was warranted.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

Dragonfly said:
The death was not intended. Beating the phucker off his daughter and protecting her was the intent.

Even if the father had grabbed a baseball bat and used the attackers head as a target I don't see why it'd be an issue.
The father's daughter was being raped.
Any use of any force to immediately STOP that attack is/was warranted.
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Was it actually RAPE? Actual penile insertion? Molestation is different from rape...
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

RadicalModerate said:
Kicking him in the face to stop the action and then sitting on him while someone else at the party call 911? Tackle him and hog tie him? Pimp slap him and lock him in the bathroom? THere are countless option that don't include beating someone to death, you want all of them?

I doubt the molester would've kept going once the father entered the room. Molestations are terrible, terrible things but frankly, they generally do not put the child in IMMEDIATE danger of serious bodily harm or death. Beating a man to death is just getting immediate revenge, IMO.
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You're assuming reasoning when reacting was what was going on . (And I'm guessing that you aren't a parent yet. Correct?) The father's intent was not to beat the pervert to death; in fact, he didn't even know the guy was dead until he was told.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

RadicalModerate said:
Was it actually RAPE? Actual penile insertion? Molestation is different from rape...
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You're frightening.

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A grand jury next week will consider whether to file charges against a Texas father who said he beat to death a man who was attempting to sexually assault his 5-year-old daughter, the district attorney for Lavaca County said on Friday.

A witness saw Jesus Flores, 47, "forcibly" carrying the girl to a secluded location and notified her 23-year-old father, who was attending a barbecue at the family's ranch outside Shiner, Texas, last Saturday, District Attorney Heather McMinn said.

The father, whose name has not been released because he has not been charged with a crime, heard his daughter's screams and ran to a secluded area, where he "removed Flores from on top of his child and, in the process, inflicted several blows to the man's head and neck area," McMinn said.

The father admitted to Lavaca County Sheriff Micah Harmon and a Texas Ranger investigating the case that he beat Flores to death in an effort to protect his child.
In court papers, Harmon said evidence found at the scene appeared to substantiate the father's account.

"The man's pants and underwear were down and his genitals were exposed," Harmon said. "In addition, all of the physical evidence and several detailed witness statements corroborated the father's statement."

McMinn said she determined on Friday that the case should be reviewed by a grand jury.

"Sheriff Harmon made the right decision in not arresting the father at the time of the incident," she said.

McMinn said the father was "very remorseful and did not intend to kill Jesus Flores."

Harmon said Flores had been hired by the family to groom horses and perform other chores.
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A kick to the face could easily be deadly.

For god's sakes....how horrific would that rape/sexual assault/attack have needed to be before you'd think the father's actions were justified?
 
Perhaps I should have read the article, lol.

I had the wrong impression of the story. While I certainly don't think what he did was right in terms of how we deal with criminals, his remorse and the scenario was different from what I had in mind, so I'll change my opinion to wrong but unintended.
 
Re: Sheriff: Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

nota bene said:
You're assuming reasoning when reacting was what was going on . (And I'm guessing that you aren't a parent yet. Correct?) The father's intent was not to beat the pervert to death; in fact, he didn't even know the guy was dead until he was told.
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I hadn't realized that. I thought it was an intentional beating death, per the thread title. I was wrong.
 
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