Back on Thursday, October 14th, PennLive reported on an alleged attack that occurred the previous Saturday (10/9).  At approximately 1:30am, a newlywed couple reported that as they were exiting the garage from the fourth floor, ten guys surrounded their car, dragged the 6’3″ 250-pound husband out, beat him senseless, attacked her, and stole exactly nothing.

There were a lot of aspects of the original story that still don’t make sense:

• The attack allegedly happened at 1:30am on a Saturday. The parking garage is FULL of pedestrians at that hour!  And yet, nobody saw anything.
• Even on the fourth level, lots of people would be attempting to drive out of the garage “early” at that hour.  The layout of that garage is such that there’s really only one way out.  Nobody happened to drive past the attack?
• To exit the garage, the victims would have to drive past a cluster of Harrisburg police officers. There are always 3-5 stationed at the island between the entrance and exit ramps.  However, the victims waited until the next morning to report the attack.
• The victims possibly had to drive past Pinnacle Health’s ER — but they didn’t stop (it is possible that they exited the city via another route).
• NOBODY heard any screams.
• NOBODY, except the alleged victims, saw the incident.
• NOBODY reported a suspicious group in the area (surely, other people walked past the group of 10 alleged assailants).
• The victims first stated that nothing was taken, then reported that the man’s wallet was stolen.

Now, I’ve heard of victims not wanting to report a crime out of fear of retaliation.  But that isn’t what happened — the alleged victims reported the incident, then stopped cooperating several weeks later.

Hopefully this will all be cleared up in the next few days.

A woman was mugged in the River Street Garage (the one on Second; no idea why they chose to name it after the small alley that runs behind it rather than the major thoroughfare that runs in front of it, but I digress), a c-store clerk was robbed, a guy was mugged with a brick, a dude was assaulted in a park near Italian Lake, a teen’s laptop was stolen while he was using it, some dude kicked a woman in the face and stole her purse, and a guy was stabbed while walking around.  The “and a half” comes from a Harrisburg guy who was charged with breaking into an apartment in Carlisle.  And again, this was all reported in a 24-hour period.

Naturally, the PennLive West Shore Trolls did not hesitate to blame this on Linda Thompson / Barack Obama / the Democrats / the Liberals / “those people” / people who don’t listen to Glenn Beck.  But the real question remains unanswered — what just happened?

Was this a statistical fluke?  It’s possible, but unlikely.  True flukes don’t happen often, even with as broad a subject as “crime”.  And when they do, they’re often small blips on the radar.  More often than not, there exists an underlying foundation of causes (important distinction:  ”causes”, not “justifications”).  Each cause may only be small — an employer notifying its employees of layoffs, a local bank deciding it can no longer delay foreclosures, perfect weather, a speech, a song, and so on.  If you imagine a scale weighing people’s conscious, moral decision to behave well on the left, and all the factors contributing to bad behavior on the right, and the causes as weights of varying sizes, you can see how a combination of seemingly-unrelated occurrences can impact our daily lives.

Does this represent an editorial shift at the Patriot-News or PennLive?  There have been accusations in the past that the Patriot News and/or PennLive and/or the Mayor’s office fail to report on a lot of significant crimes in the city.  Without only hearsay and anecdotal evidence, I can’t speak to the veracity of those claims.  But if they were true, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a media outlet or political figure has been ensnared in a egregious conflict of interest.  In the old days of print media, there used to be a reasonable explanation for limited crime reporting:  the amount of space on the paper.  Today, you can look at the Harrisburg Police Department’s preliminary reports and see for yourself.

Is regional crime really accelerating this quickly?  Or, more importantly, is Harrisburg accelerating any faster than the surrounding municipalities?  Probably.  It’s a city; comparing it to Camp Hill or Wormleysburg or Linglestown is laughable at best.  Looking at the big picture, violent crime dipped about 5.5% nationwide in 2009, though it’s still a little to early to get a clear picture.  Statistics being what they are, however, we’re still left without any real insight into what — if anything — is happening.

The actual answer lies somewhere in a combination of the above.  Economic and social factors play significant roles in molding the crime rate, while the reporting policies of our media outlets and elected officials deeply affect how much we’re made aware of.  All of this, of course, is a fancy way of saying “I don’t get paid enough to figure this out.”  The only definitive statement I can make is that this is why I went back to renting, rather than purchasing another home in midtown.  The city’s finances — those economic reasons we were just talking about — are going to play a massive role in how the coming years play out.  And until we get those in order, there is absolutely no way I am going to stake a mortgage to any municipality in Dauphin County.

Is Harrisburg a bad place to live?  Not at all.  We have a collection of vibrant neighborhoods in midtown, decent employment opportunities, a location central to larger metropolitan areas AND rural countryside, and enough infrastructure to weather any storm that comes our way.  I will continue to rent in the city until the bullets start flying through my balcony door.  The one true question, then, is as follows:

Is Harrisburg entering the 1970s again?

1. Amy Turner and Jeffery Harless entered a beer distributor when they weren’t supposed to be there.
2. The alarm sounded
3. The owner responded to the alarm and confronted Harless
4. Harless charged the owner with something held over his head (police later found a hammer)
5. The owner shot and killed Harless
6. Harless is now dead and Turner is in custody as an accomplice

There’s been a lot of furious arguing in the always troll-tastic PennLive comment section.  Some people argue that the owner had no right to shoot the intruder.  They say he should have waited for the police to respond.  Others argue that the owner was fully correct because, as revealed in today’s story, Harless charged the owner holding something over his head.  And the remaining 95% of the comments are along the lines of “LOL U SUCK” and “BUSH RULES”.

I am not a lawyer, but our gun laws are very easy to understand.  The Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act says the following about the use of deadly force:

The use of force upon or toward another person is justifiable when the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of unlawful force by such other person on the present occasion.

Put very simply, the law states that you can use deadly force to protect yourself or someone in your care against an imminent threat of death, severe bodily harm, kidnapping, or sexual assault.  There are exceptions, of course:

The use of force is not justifiable under this section if … the actor, with the intent of causing death or serious bodily injury, provoked the use of force against himself in the same encounter; or … the actor knows that he can avoid the necessity of using such force with complete safety by retreating … except that … the actor is not obliged to retreat from his dwelling or place of work, unless he was the initial aggressor or is assailed in his place of work by another person whose place of work the actor knows it to be.

That’s a bit wordy, but not difficult to understand.  You may NOT use deadly force if you provoked the situation.  For example, if you stab someone walking down Third Street and they retaliate by drawing their gun, you can’t pull out your gun and shoot them claiming self-defense.

Unfortunately, this observation is going to disappoint about 33% of the PennLive crowd.

You may NOT use deadly force if you can get away SAFELY.  If you’re walking late at night at 13th and Derry and someone from a block away pulls out a gun and shoots in your direction, you run.  You don’t kneel down and return fire.

Unfortunately, this observation will disappoint another 33% of the PennLive crowd.

However, there’s an exception to this rule:  If the incident happens in your home, you have no duty to retreat — with exceptions made for things like police officers and repo men.

There’s another exception to the “get away safely” clause, and this one is directly relevant to the story at hand.  If the incident happens in your place of work, and the other party does not also work there, you have no duty to retreat.  But this exception has its own exception, and that is that you must not be the one who provoked the situation.

Let’s modify the story slightly and see what happens.  The owner of the beer distributor is doing a late-night inventory after closing time.  He looks up and sees Harless coming at him with a hammer over his head.  The owner draws his handgun and shoots once, killing Harless.  For the sake of clarity, assume there are no mitigating factors.  In this case, it would appear to me that the owner would be completely justified in his use of deadly force.

But this story isn’t exactly what happened.

The owner received a call (presumably from his alarm company) that his burglar alarm was going off.  He went to the store looking for any sign of trouble.  He found it.  The video depicts both Harless and the owner being startled upon seeing each other.  The video then depicts Harless raising something (presumably the hammer that was later found at the scene) over his head and charging the owner.  The owner fired his handgun once, striking Harless in the chest and killing him.

There are two issues here.  First, did the owner “provoke” the situation by going to the store?  I know if my burglar alarm goes off while I’m away, I’m going to head home and wait — at a distance — for the police to arrive.  I’m sure my 40SW would give a burglar something to think about, but I’m not going to voluntarily put myself in the position of having to make that decision.  And since I’m not willing to put myself in that position over my home, I’m sure as hell not going to put myself in that position over a store — that’s what insurance is for.

Second, even if the owner is cleared of criminal charges, Harless’s family may pursue civil action against the owner.  Unfortunately, I think it would be very easy to convince a jury that Harless would still be alive if the owner had remained at home.  While logic dictates that Harless would be alive if Harless had also chosen to stay home, juries don’t always work that way.  A lawyer will undoubtedly paint a picture of Harless as a “troubled young man” whose life might have been changed by this “one incident”, but has now been “snuffed out” by “some renegade vigilante who was too impatient to for the police to arrive”.

Personally?  I don’t think the owner should face criminal charges.  I think he’s an idiot for going to the store, and I think he’s extremely lucky that Harless didn’t have a gun instead.  I also think the ultimate responsibility here lies with Harless.  It was Harless’s decision to burglarize the store that set this entire chain of events in motion.  And while I don’t have the video surveillance to prove as much, I’m willing to bet my next paycheck that nobody held a gun to Harless’s head and forced him to burglarize the store.

But it’s not for me to decide.  District Attorney Charles Chenot has that ball in his court.  Our criminal justice system is not always perfect, but it demands that all available facts of a matter be considered before a decision is rendered.  Unfortunately, this observation will disappoint another 33% of the PennLive crowd.

That leaves 1% remaining.

That 1% can be identified by things like “using one punctuation mark after each sentence”, “using sentences”, “not using ALL CAPS”, and “not posting like some 12-year-old who just got his first AOL account”.  The observations I’ve made above have already been brought up in the comments, but they’re usually buried by flamewars involving people blaming Obama for the burglary and people blaming Thompson for the burglary.

I eagerly await the DA’s decision.  And I’m curious to know how many lawyers have already contacted Harless’s family.