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Father Who Shot Daughter to Death Claims He Thought She Was an Intruder · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine a quiet suburban street, you know, the kind neat lawns,
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predictable rhythm. It's a four point twenty in the morning,
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December twenty ninth, twenty twenty one, dark, still, We're in
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the Lehman Meadows subdivision, Columbus, Ohio. And then a gunshot,
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just one, a sound that just shatters that domestic piece.
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What came next was this, this raw, agonizing, eight minute,
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nine one one call. It's just frantic, chaotic audio, and
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it tells the whole story, the story of the worst
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possible mistake a parent could make.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredibly difficult listening.
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Speaker 1: In those minutes, a father realizes he shot his own daughter,
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his sixteen year old daughter, Janey Hairston. He thought she
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was an intruder in their own garage.
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Speaker 2: She was a junior in high school. Yeah, a cheerleader.
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Speaker 1: Gone, just like that, pronounced dead shortly after arriving at
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the hospital. Okay, let's try and unpack this, because this
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isn't just some random, terrible accident we can just file away.
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Janny Harriston's story really puts a spotlight, a harsh one,
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on this dangerous intersection right self defense rites this this
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culture of vigilance we have and the lethal risks of
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those quick draw instincts inside our own homes. So our
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mission in this deep dive for you listening is to
1:10
go beyond those initial headlines. We need to understand the
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facts of what happened that night, understand the legal framework
1:16
which is really powerful here, and explore the deeper societal
1:21
and psychological reasons why these intruder mistake shootings keep happening.
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They happen with this grim, heartbreaking regularity.
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Speaker 2: And what the data shows us looking across various sources
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and incidents, is that this scenario, the defensive firearm turning inward,
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it's absolutely not an isolated incident. It's not a one off.
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Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 2: When we connect these dots, a pattern emerges and the
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sheer human cost it forces us to look beyond just
1:46
blaming an individual error. We have to critically examine the laws,
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the cultural norms, how fear gets amplified, and maybe most importantly,
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the training deficiencies that seem to make this type of
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tragedy well almost a possible feature of domestic life, particularly
1:59
in the US.
2:00
Speaker 1: So we need to start right there. Lehman meadows a
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place design for you know, security, normalcy, the Harriston family
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living a pretty standard middle class life, and Janey sixteen
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junior at Canal Winchester High. She was just being a teenager,
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wasn't she?
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Speaker 2: It was win to break right.
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Speaker 1: Police documents confirmed she had slipped out earlier, around two am.
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Sources described it as a common teenage escapade with friends.
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Parents asleep upstairs. They didn't even know.
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Speaker 2: She was gone, And that specific context it's vital because
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it creates this ticking clock scenario, doesn't it. The father
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described as hard working, he's a sleep upstairs, probably sleep
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deprived like most parents, but he's also operating under this
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constant state of let's call it preparedness. The sources highlight
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he kept a handgun readily accessible, which is, you know,
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a common and legally supported practice in Ohio, the state
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where getting a concealed carry permit is fairly straightforward.
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Speaker 1: And home defense is enshrined.
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Speaker 2: In law, exactly the castle doctrine. So that accessibility, that
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readiness meant for protection against an outsider. It became the
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direct tragic instrument of catastrophe when his own daughter returned.
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Speaker 1: So the hours tick by, It gets to around four
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twenty am, and then there's a noise from the garage below.
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Think about that time, four twenty am. It's the dead
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of night, pitch black. Your brain isn't exactly firing on
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all cylinders, no.
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Speaker 2: Not at all. Reaction times are slower, judgment can be impaired.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it was just a tiny creek from the interior
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garage door as Jane tried to slip back in. Maybe
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your backpack rustled against something. But the father living in
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a world where, let's face it, the news constantly highlights violent,
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though rare home invasions, his mind likely jumps straight to
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the worst case scenario.
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Speaker 2: Right that immediate threat perception, and.
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Speaker 1: He didn't turn on a light, he didn't call out,
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He grabbed his firearm, he went down the stairs. His
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response was immediate, and it was lethal.
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Speaker 2: The visual details the investigators pieced together are just chilling,
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but critical for understanding the failure point. So I figure
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a silhouette against this faint maybe bluish glow.
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Speaker 1: From a street lamp filtering through a window, perhaps, or
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a crack in the door.
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Speaker 2: Possibly, But in that moment, low white, high stress, he
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didn't see his daughter. He saw a threat, a formless
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existential threat, And the crucial detail the one investigators really
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zeroed in on later. No warning exactly, no verbal challenge,
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no further verification. Most self defense training, the good training, anyway,
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mandates shouting a warning, stop, who's there something it's meant
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to identify, to deter maybe confirm intent. He bypassed that entirely.
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Speaker 1: And that single shot hit Jane in the chest. The
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chaos that follows is almost impossible to really wrap your
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head around, but it's preserved terrifyingly in those eight minutes
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of the nine one one audio WSYX, the ABC affiliate,
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obtained it.
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Speaker 2: It's brutal to listen to the.
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Speaker 1: Mother, jolted awake by the shot, rushes down, finds Janay
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collapsed on the garage floor. The father, realizing horror, he
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drops the gun. You hear his voice just completely break, crying, frantic,
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trying CPR.
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Speaker 2: Breathe, baby, breathe. You can hear him saying over and over.
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Speaker 1: Pure terror. It's the sound of a man's entire world
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just imploding in real time.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the mother in absolute hysteria. She tells the
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dispatcher the truth right away.
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Speaker 1: My husband made a mistake. He shot her. He thought
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she was an intruder. She was in our garage. Oh
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my god, just pure anguish.
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Speaker 2: Dispatcher's tried coaching them through CPR, guiding the chest compressions,
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but it was it was already too late, wasn't it.
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Speaker 1: The source's note, She'd lost vital signs by the time
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paramedics got there. She was pronounced dead at Nationwide Children's
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Hospital five twenty eight am, just about an hour after
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the shot.
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Speaker 2: The Columbus Police investigation detectives, like Darren Agelhoff, they confirmed
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every piece of that sequence. Janey had snuck out, she
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was trying to get back in quietly.
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Speaker 1: No fourth century, Absolutely none confirm the intruder was their
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own child, and toxicology reports clean ruled out alcohol or
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drugs in the father's system. So this wasn't recklessness fueled
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by impairment. It was, as the investigators concluded, seemingly pure
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fear compounded by haste and the dark.
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Speaker 2: But that missing element, the absence of that clear verbal
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warning that becomes the central failure point. That moment where
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he should have called out, maybe flipped on a light,
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taken even half a second, just didn't happen. In that
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fog of fear, those crucial seconds needed for verification. They
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were replaced by instinctive lethal action.
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Speaker 1: His cognitive focus on the worst possibility, the home invasion
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narrative that's so prevalent, it just completely overrode the absolute
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necessity of confirming his target before pulling the trigger.
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Speaker 2: Which brings us right back to that critical question you
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raised earlier. Is this just a horrible anomaly, a one
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in a million tragedy? And the answer, unfortunately is no,
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not at all. The Harriston shooting is tragically part of
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this grim nationwide pattern, a litany of wrong person fatalities
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involving homeowners with guns. It's a documented pattern of catastrophic
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misidentifiction within the home and.
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Speaker 1: We can literally trace this pattern across the map, can't we?
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Looking at other cases like Nadeja Presley in South Carolina,
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May twenty nineteen.
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Speaker 2: Mm hmm, tell us about that one.
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Speaker 1: You had a forty three year old father, Jermaine Presley,
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fired his gun through his front door at one in.
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Speaker 2: The morning, through the door blindly, yes, and.
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Speaker 1: On the other side his twenty three year old daughter, Nadeja.
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She locked herself out just trying to get back inside,
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quietly died right there at the scene and.
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Speaker 2: Was crucial about the Presley case. The context that the
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investigation later provided adds another layer. Presley was later arrested
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on unrelated drug charges. Authorities found heroin and cocaine in the.
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Speaker 1: Home, right that came out afterwards.
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Speaker 2: Now that detail isn't just background noise. It raises really
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significant questions about his mental state, maybe his level of
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paranoia at the time. Substance abuse can heighten vigilance, distorted perception.
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He could directly contribute to a quick, arguably reckless decision
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to fire through an opaque barrier like a wooden door,
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without identifying the target at all.
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Speaker 1: It changes the calculation, doesn't it. And then look at Tennessee.
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That state seems to have had multiple heartbreaking parallels. It
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just shows how often this specific scenario repeats. To Mia
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Bats August twenty sixteen, an eleven year old girl, Yeah,
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Timothy Batts, twenty nine years old, shot his daughter to Mia.
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It was her first day of sixth grade, and initially
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he lied. He told the police the shooting happened near
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her school bus stop, tried to blame it on some
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external threat, right like street violence, trying to create a
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narrative exactly, But eventually confessed it happened inside their home
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in Hendersonville, said she startled him, and despite neighbors saying
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he was a devoted father, he was charged reckless homicide.
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Speaker 2: And that charge is key in the eyes of the law. There,
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even if malice wasn't the issue, the act of firing
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without properly verifying the target. That meant the standard for
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criminal negligence a failure in the basic duty of care
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when handling a deadly weapon.
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Speaker 1: Fast forward five years, same state, different city. August twenty
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twenty one, Memphis, William Oliver, thirty one, fatally shoots his
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eight year old daughter, Aleila Bassett.
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Speaker 2: Eight years old.
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Speaker 1: Oliver told police he heard a noise in a closet,
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said he saw a shadow while he was sweeping the
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house looking for intruders, and he fired. This whole idea
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of sweeping the house confronting a perceived threat instead of say,
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barricading and calling.
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Speaker 2: Nine to one to one or verifying or verifying.
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Speaker 1: It seems to be a recurring theme in these cases, and.
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Speaker 2: Oliver was also charged with reckless homicide. The legal scrutiny
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was applied pretty quickly there too. The evidence just didn't
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seem to fit a simple accident narrative. The af David
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mentioned inconsistencies in his story and apparently the mother's account
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differed on some key details.
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Speaker 1: So that suggests, at least in Tennessee, a willingness by
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prosecutors to look past the claim of accident when there's
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clear negligence in identifying the target, right.
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Speaker 2: It appears, So there seems to be a threshold where
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the failure to identify becomes legally actionable as recklessness.
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Speaker 1: And it's not always daughters either. We saw that case
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in Cincinnati January twenty sixteen. Father shot his fourteen year
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old son in the neck, mistook him for a prowler
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coming home after curfew. But in that case, unlike Tennessee, Ohio,
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prosecutors declined charges. They cited the father's genuine subjective fear,
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and that decision itself sparked outrage, didn't it. Critics saw
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it as dangerously normalizing hasty, reactive violence over careful thought
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inside the home.
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Speaker 2: And if you track the geography of these cases we're
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mentioning Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina, they do seem to cluster
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heavily in the South and the Midwest. Yeah, you notice
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that these are reasons where gun ownership rates often exceed
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forty percent, significantly higher than the national average. So it
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links this tragic pattern to specific cultural norms, perhaps ideas
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around hypervigilance, self reliance, the perceived need for immediate armed protection.
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It creates an environment where a simple tragic mistake becomes
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statistically more likely and perhaps more lethal.
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Speaker 1: We should probably briefly contrast these awful mens fires with
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what often gets held up as a successful defense, because
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that success story is really powerful in shaping the culture
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we're talking.
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Speaker 2: About, right, the good guy with a gun there is.
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Speaker 1: Exactly like that incident on Father's Day twenty twenty three
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Wilson's Mills, North Carolina. A father fatally shot an intruder
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who was reports say, actively accosting his eleven year old
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daughter inside the.
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Speaker 2: Home, and that was widely reported as heroic protection, justified force.
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No charge is filed, and that success story provides a
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really powerful endorsement for the pro gun argument, doesn't it
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The idea that the arms civilian is the necessary first
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responder and that immediate lethal force is sometimes the only
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justifiable outcome.
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Speaker 1: But the problem is that narrative often completely overshadows or
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even ignores this gream collection of misfires.
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Speaker 2: We're discussing exactly if the whole point of having a
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weapon for home defense is the safety of your family,
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doesn't The sheer volume of these misidentification tragedies suggest that
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the hero narrative might be statistically speaking, weighed by the
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catastrophic internal risk. It raises a fundamental question about risk assessment.
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Speaker 1: That is such a critical point because the legal outcomes
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do vary so wildly, which brings us right to the
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heart of it the legal mechanism often at play the
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castle doctrine. To really get why charges were declined for
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genus father in Ohio, we need to be really specific
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about what this law actually says and allows. What is
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the castle doctor?
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Speaker 2: Okay, So the castle doctrine its roots go way back
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to English common law. The core principle is a man's
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home is his castle. Pretty simple idea.
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Speaker 1: Right, your home is your safe space.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, and in Ohio, like in nearly forty other states,
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this principle is codified into law. It essentially allows a
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homeowner to use deadly force against someone they perceive as
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an intruder without a legal duty to.
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Speaker 1: Retreat, meaning you don't have to try and run away first.
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Speaker 2: Correct, if someone breaks into your house, The law in
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these states generally says you are not legally required to
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try and escape or find an exit before defending yourself.
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You can stand your ground and use lethal force.
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Speaker 1: Okay. But and this feels like a huge But it's
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not just a free pass to shoot anyone who steps
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inside uninvited, right. There has to be more to it.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, there's a massive caveat the law typically requires that
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the homeowner most reasonably believe they are facing an imminent
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threat of death or serious bodily injury. It hinges on
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that word.
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Speaker 1: Reasonably, and that's where the Hairston case outcome turned precisely.
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Speaker 2: Franklin County prosecutors they reviewed the case for months. They
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have the facts, noverable warning the victim was unarmed, clearly
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non threatening in reality, But they also had the father's statement,
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his claim of intense subjective fear in that.
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Speaker 1: Moment, believing it was an intruder posing a lethal threat.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and ultimately they declined to file charges. Their reasoning
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was that there was insufficient evidence to prove criminal intent
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beyond a reasonable doubt. They essentially concluded it was quote
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a tragic accident born of fear.
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Speaker 1: So call doctrine effectively provided legal cover because the prosecution
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felt they couldn't prove his fear was unreasonable under Ohio law,
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or that he knew it was his daughter.
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Speaker 2: That seems to be the interpretation. The burden was on
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the prosecution to disprove the reasonableness of his fear or
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prove he knew, and they felt they couldn't meet that
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high standard.
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Speaker 1: Wow, that's a huge distinction, especially when you contrast that
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Ohio decision accepting the subjective fear with what happened in
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Tennessee Timothy Bats William Oliver. They did face reckless homicide charges.
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What was the legal difference there?
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Speaker 2: Well? In those Tennessee cases, prosecutors successfully argued that the
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father's actions met the standard for negligence or recklessness. Reckless
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homicide implies a gross deviation from the standard of care expected,
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meaning in those cases, the failure to fulfill the basic
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duty to identify the target before firing was seen as
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inherently reckless. Firing blindly through a door or firing at
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a shadow and a closet without verification, Prosecutors argue that
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behavior itself is reckless regards wardless of the underlying fear.
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Speaker 1: Whereas Ohio prosecutors seemed to focus more narrowly on the intent.
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Did he intend to shoot his daughter and concluded no,
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he intended to shoot a perceived intruder.
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Speaker 2: That appears to be the difference in legal focus and
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interpretation between the states in these specific examples.
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Speaker 1: And we've seen this kind of low threshold for using
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force justified elsewhere too. Right You mentioned Georgia, Yes.
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Speaker 2: The twenty seventeen case with Derek Fulton. He shot a
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seventeen year old boy his daughter had snuck into the
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house under George's expanded standard ground law, which applies similarly
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in Holmes. No charges were filed. Why because the law
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there can permit deadly force if the homeowners simply believe
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an unlawful and forcible entry is happening or has happened.
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The belief itself can be enough justification.
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Speaker 1: It feels like the threshold for action becomes alarmingly low.
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In some places.
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Speaker 2: It does, and that brings us squarely into this psychological
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and legal gray area. The extreme subjectivity of what constitutes
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reasonable fear, especially under duress. Legal experts like Georgetown law
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professor David Cole argue quite powerfully that reasonableness is an
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almost impossible standard to apply accurately and fairly in these
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high stress, low light, split second situations. Your perception itself
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is altered.
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Speaker 1: This is where the biology kicks in, isn't it the
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whole warrior mode phenomenon people.
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Speaker 2: Talk about absolutely When your brain perceives an imminent threat,
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that noise in the dark, that sudden shadow, it doesn't
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necessarily engage the prefronneal cortex, which hannis rational thought, planning, verification,
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fight or flight takes over exactly the amygdala, the brain's
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fear center, hijacks the system agrenline cortisol flood your body.
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It's a primal survival mechanism designed for immediate action, not careful.
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Speaker 1: Analysis, and that has real physiological effects, right, like hearing
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things differently or tunnel vision.
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Speaker 2: Yes, things like auditory exclusion where you literally might not
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hear someone shouting because your focus is so narrow in
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tunnel vision, losing peripheral sight. These chemical changes biologically explain
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why establish protocols shouting or warning can just go out
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the window. Your brain is wired in that moment to
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react and eliminate the perceived threat, not pause and verify
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who or what it is.
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Speaker 1: Okay, wait a minute, though. If the FBI's own training
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data shows that even highly trained officers misidentify threat something
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like twenty percent of the time in realistic simulations, that figure.
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Speaker 2: Is often cited yes in high stress, low light scenarios.
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Speaker 1: Then doesn't that make the legal standard of reasonable fear
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for an untrained civilian woken from sleep fundamentally flawed. If
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even the pros make mistakes that often because of biology
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and stress, how can the law basically absolve a civilian
17:35
homeowner almost automatically based on that same demonstrably fallible subjective fear.
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Speaker 2: That is the core legal and ethical dilemma that these
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cases force us to confront, and the data we have
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only makes it murkier. The Rand Corporation tried to quantify
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this specific issue in a twenty twenty three report.
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Speaker 1: What did they find?
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Speaker 2: They estimated, cautiously, noting data is sparse, that mistaken identity
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might account for up to fifteen percent of all defensive
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gun uses.
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Speaker 1: Fifteen percent. That's not insignificant, not at all.
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Speaker 2: It means potentially, for every ten times the civilian draws
18:08
a gun defensively, maybe one or two times they could
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be aiming at the wrong person, a family member, a
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neighbor having car trouble, an unarmed person in the wrong place.
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It suggests the risk of misidentification is substantial.
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Speaker 1: And this inherent documented risk. This is why groups like
18:23
the ACLU argue these broad self defense laws go too far.
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Speaker 2: Precisely, their contention is that laws like stand your ground
18:30
and permissive castle doctrines lower the threshold for using lethal
18:34
violence too much. They argue, it effectively turns homes the
18:39
supposed sanctuary into potential kill zones, where a few seconds
18:43
of panic and fear can legally outweigh any duty for
18:46
careful identification or responsibility for the outcome.
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Speaker 1: And we should probably note too, even when criminal charges
18:52
aren't filed, like in the Hairston case, that's often not
18:54
the end of the legal road, is it, No? Not?
18:56
Speaker 2: Usually, civil lawsuits are quite common. We know the Harston
18:59
family did a wrongful death claim against the father right
19:02
that was reported, and while the records show that claim
19:05
was eventually settled privately out of court, it illustrates that
19:08
there are still layers of legal and personal accountability that
19:11
persists long after the state decides not to prosecute criminally.
19:15
The father might be legally justified in the eyes of
19:18
the criminal court, but he's still facing profound private consequences
19:22
and accountability for his actions. So if we pull back
19:26
and try to connect all these threads, the individual tragedies,
19:29
the legal frameworks, that's a psychology of fear. We really
19:31
have to ask why why is the default instinct in
19:35
the US so often lethal, especially compared to other developed nations.
19:38
It's a huge question. Well, look at the numbers. The
19:40
US has roughly one hundred and twenty guns per one
19:42
hundred red since that's the highest rate globally by a
19:44
significant margin.
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Speaker 1: Wow, one hundred and twenty one hundred.
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Speaker 2: That sheer volume of easily accessible firearms. It fosters this
19:52
this culture of preparedness that arguably sometimes borders on paranoia.
19:56
The entire domestic environment in many homes is primed for
19:59
an mediate, potentially lethal overreaction to any perceived bump in
20:03
the night.
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Speaker 1: And that baseline level of fear or preparedness it's actively
20:09
stoked by the media, isn't it. The sources definitely point
20:13
to how media amplifies the rare successful home invasion defense stories.
20:17
Speaker 2: They absolutely do we see constant coverage, sometimes even celebration
20:22
of incidents like remember that twenty nineteen case in Scottsdale, Arizona,
20:26
the doctor dad who shot a naked intruder found in
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his daughter's room.
20:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, that got huge attention.
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Speaker 2: It was widely shared on platforms like X formerly Twitter.
20:34
You had figures like at Cara Lake promoting it as
20:37
a triumph of the Second Amendment, a perfect example of
20:39
successful self defense.
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Speaker 1: And those stories feed into something right.
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Speaker 2: They feed directly into what critics often called the action
20:45
hero fantasy, this idea. You see it debated constantly on
20:48
forums like Reddit that portrays the homeowner as this lone
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vigilant defender who must react instantly and lethally to neutralize
20:56
any threat, like something out of a movie kind of,
20:58
and social media just pour rors gas Liane. On both
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sides of this fire, you see that triumphs amplified, but
21:05
also the tragedies. Figures like at Shannon Grawats from Mom's
21:09
Demand Action used X to share that horrifying Ohio nine
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to one to one audio of the hairston call.
21:15
Speaker 1: I remember seeing that circulate, Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Specifically framing it as a failure of the well regulated
21:20
militia concept when it turns inward against the family. Those
21:24
posts got thousands of shares, sparked these incredibly intense debates
21:28
online gun enthusiasts demanding better training versus critics demanding systemic
21:33
changes to the laws themselves. It's a microcosm of the
21:36
larger societal.
21:36
Speaker 1: Divide, and we absolutely cannot ignore the role of just
21:40
normal adolescent behavior, which so tragically often becomes the direct
21:44
flashpoint for these shootings. Teenagers like Janay, they're figuring out
21:48
their independence that often involves testing boundaries like sneaking out,
21:51
coming home late.
21:52
Speaker 2: It's developmentally normal, albeit risky.
21:54
Speaker 1: There was a twenty twenty two study in the journal
21:56
Pediatrics that found something like twenty five percent a quarter
21:59
of high school admit to sneaking out at some point.
22:01
Speaker 2: One in four. That's a lot of potential risk when
22:04
firearms are present.
22:05
Speaker 1: So when you combine that normal teenage behavior testing boundaries,
22:09
maybe being clumsy or quiet trying to get back in
22:11
with parental vigilance often heightened by lack of sleep, plus
22:16
this deep societal fear of outsiders, plus readily available lethal force,
22:21
you've created this perfect storm for collision, haven't you It's.
22:24
Speaker 2: A massive risk convergence, that generational gap in perception and expectation.
22:30
The teen assumes they're safe coming home, the parent assumes
22:34
any noise is a threat. It sets the stage for disaster.
22:38
Speaker 1: We even saw anecdotal stuff suggesting this isn't always unsmoken.
22:41
There was a chilling comment mentioned in the sources from
22:43
Reddit about a stepfather who apparently casually threatened to shoot
22:48
anyone returning late, just flat out set.
22:50
Speaker 2: It, which confirms that this atmosphere of fear, this hair
22:53
trigger hostility, it really does termate some armed households. It's
22:57
not just implicit, and it's really crucial.
22:59
Speaker 1: We touch on the racial dynamics here too, because the
23:01
Harriston family is black, and the sources highlight that many
23:04
of these self defense misfire cases do occur within minority communities.
23:08
Speaker 2: That's an important layer.
23:10
Speaker 1: These communities often experience higher gun saturation rates, right, but
23:14
it's often driven by very legitimate fears of urban crime,
23:17
maybe slower police response times leading to a perceived need
23:21
for self protection.
23:22
Speaker 2: And there's data to back that up. A twenty twenty
23:25
three Urban Institute report noted that black households are nearly
23:28
twice as likely as white households to own guns specifically
23:32
for protection.
23:33
Speaker 1: But here's the terrible irony.
23:34
Speaker 2: The profound irony is that despite owning guns for often
23:38
very justifiable protective reasons, individuals from these communities can face
23:42
disproportionate legal scrutiny and public suspicion when a shooting does occur,
23:46
even if it's genuinely classified as accidental or a mistake,
23:50
like a.
23:50
Speaker 1: Higher burden of proof for their fear being reasonable.
23:53
Speaker 2: It potentially suggests a systemic bias in how media, the public,
23:58
maybe even the legal system judges the reasonableness of fear.
24:01
When the shooter is a person of color. It could
24:03
lead to more intense legal focus, perhaps like we saw
24:05
in those Tennessee cases with reckless homicide charges compared to
24:09
say the Cincinnati case involving a white father, where charges
24:13
were dropped relatively quickly based on subjective fear. It's a
24:17
complex but undeniable factor.
24:19
Speaker 1: Okay, And finally, let's hit that training discrepancy because it
24:21
feels enormous and it directly contradicts the whole narrative of
24:25
the responsible, well regulated civilian gun owner.
24:29
Speaker 2: It really does.
24:30
Speaker 1: You go on forums like Reddit's RCCW, the Concealed Carry
24:33
Community pro Second Amendment voices there constantly stress these crucial
24:37
training principles, don't they.
24:38
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, they hammer at home. Ye'll first light up
24:41
the room, know your target and what's beyond it, know
24:43
your backstop. They preach these steps as absolutely mandatory before
24:47
even thinking about pulling the trigger.
24:49
Speaker 1: Right, identify, verify, then act only if necessary.
24:52
Speaker 2: But the reality on the ground it's starkly different that
24:56
twenty twenty four Pew research survey found that only about
24:59
ten one percent one in ten gun owners actually complete
25:03
formal defense training courses that teach these critical techniques, only
25:06
ten percent, roughly the vast majority of gun owners. It
25:10
seems rely primarily on instinct, maybe informal practice at a range.
25:14
And as we've discussed with the whole warrior mode concept, instinct,
25:19
especially in the dark, under stress, fueled by fear, it's
25:23
chemically designed for air.
25:24
Speaker 1: So that gap between the ideal of the well trained,
25:29
responsible defender and the reality of the average possibly scared,
25:33
probably sleep deprived home owner, it's massive.
25:35
Speaker 2: It's huge, and it directly explains why simple preventable mistakes
25:39
like not turning on a light, not shouting a warning
25:41
tragically turned lethal with such frequency.
25:43
Speaker 1: Let's just linger on those challenge protocols for a second.
25:46
Why is yelling first and hitting the lights so fundamentally critical?
25:49
What do those actions do?
25:50
Speaker 2: Okay? Yelling first, shouting something like stop or who's there?
25:55
It serves two vital functions. First, it might actually deter
25:59
a genuine and truth they know they've been detected. Second,
26:02
and absolutely crucial in these domestic misidentification cases, it gives
26:07
the person making the noise a chance to identify themselves.
26:10
Speaker 1: Verbally, Dad, it's me, exactly.
26:12
Speaker 2: If it's your child, your spouse, even a neighbor in distress,
26:15
they will almost certainly respond immediately lighting up the room. Well,
26:19
that's just mandatory verification. One to one. Shadows deceive. They
26:22
distort size, shape, intent. A shadow can look like anything
26:25
your fear wants it to be. Right, by failing to
26:28
flip that switch, the father and the Hairston case allowed
26:31
his own fear to project the identity of a dangerous
26:34
intruder onto his daughter. A light would have instantly revealed
26:37
the truth. And finally, knowing your backstop. That's about basic
26:41
firearm responsibility, knowing what is behind your target. So if
26:44
you miss or if the bullet passes through, you don't
26:46
inadvertently injure or kill someone else in another room or
26:49
even next door.
26:50
Speaker 1: And the fact that, according to Pugh, maybe ninety percent
26:53
of gun owners haven't had formal training covering these absolute.
26:57
Speaker 2: Fundamental it means the vast majority are potentially skipping their
27:01
very steps specifically designed to prevent the exact kind of
27:04
tragedy that took Jenna Harston's life. It's a systemic vulnerability.
27:09
Speaker 1: So we've laid out the sequence of events, the psychology,
27:12
the legal context, the societal factors. But ultimately, what does
27:16
all this mean for the families who are left shattered?
27:19
The human toll of these intruder mistake shootings. It's just staggering,
27:24
isn't it. It creates this vortex of grief that doesn't
27:27
just disappear when the news cycle moves on.
27:29
Speaker 2: No, it lingers indefinitely for the Harriston family. The sources
27:32
describe the aftermath as just profound, long term trauma. The
27:36
mother spoke to reporters about sleepless nights being haunted by
27:39
the specific sounds on that nine to eleven recording.
27:41
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't even imagine, she.
27:42
Speaker 2: Recounted quote, I hear her gasping, and it breaks me
27:45
every time, just relentless auditory flashbacks. And the father, the
27:51
legally cleared of criminal charges, obviously racked by this unbearable,
27:55
debilitating guild sources concerned he sought counseling, trying to hope
28:00
with the crushing reality of his fatal mistake, struggling immensely and.
28:04
Speaker 1: The trauma ripples out were doesn't it to siblings other
28:07
family members.
28:08
Speaker 2: Absolutely siblings grappling with survivor's guilt, the sudden, violent loss
28:12
of their sister at the hands of their own parent.
28:15
The family home, which should be a sanctuary, it reportedly
28:18
became this permanent, painful shrine to Janey. Her cheer uniform
28:22
left out your book, photos everywhere, a constant, unavoidable reminder
28:26
of the loss that was inflicted from within.
28:28
Speaker 1: And the community reaction you mentioned it was divided earlier.
28:30
Speaker 2: Duply divided. It really reflected those larger societal fault lines
28:34
we talked about. Vigils were held, of course, honoring Janey's memory,
28:37
celebrating our life, but underneath whispers of blame, heated debates.
28:41
It fractured the neighborhood to some extent, you heard both
28:44
sides exactly. You had some neighbors expressing empathy, saying things
28:48
like he was just scared, trying to understand the father's perspective,
28:52
but others retorted with anger, you know, scared enough to
28:56
kill his own kid. It highlighted that real lack of
28:59
middle ground America when it comes to self defense, fear, responsibility,
29:04
and accountability within the home.
29:06
Speaker 1: Did these kinds of tragedies spur any broader changes institutionally?
29:10
Speaker 2: Yes, on several levels. Locally, schools in Columbus reportedly increased
29:14
mental health resources, specifically to help Jane's grieving peers cope
29:19
with such a uniquely traumatic event, A class made killed
29:22
by her own parent.
29:23
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
29:23
Speaker 2: And at the municipal level, the police department apparently mandated
29:27
enhanced de escalation training for officers responding to domestic calls
29:32
and acknowledgment perhaps of the high stakes and the explosive
29:35
potential of fear within the home environment itself.
29:38
Speaker 1: And nationally, did cases like this have any impact on
29:41
policy discussions?
29:42
Speaker 2: They certainly contributed momentum to broader reform efforts. Cases like
29:46
the Harriston tragedy were part of the backdrop for discussions
29:50
leading to things like the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of
29:54
twenty twenty.
29:55
Speaker 1: Two, right that passed Congress.
29:57
Speaker 2: Yes. Now, while it was primarily focus on other aspects
30:00
of gun violence, it did include provisions aimed at enhancing
30:04
red flag laws. Those are the laws that theoretically allow
30:08
for the temporary removal of firearms from individuals legally deemed
30:12
a danger to themselves.
30:14
Speaker 1: Or others, though implementing those has been inconsistent.
30:17
Speaker 2: Very inconsistent, state by state. But the political pressure for
30:20
measures like red flag laws is definitely linked in part
30:23
to the devastating consequences we see when domestic gun violence
30:26
and fear turn inward, like in these mistaken identity cases.
30:30
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's focus squarely on prevention now, because that
30:32
feels like the most critical takeaway, doesn't it? Preventing the
30:35
next tragedy like this has to hinge on changing that
30:38
immediate instinctive response protocol we keep coming back to.
30:41
Speaker 2: It absolutely does, and firearm instructors the good ones strongly
30:45
advocate for implementing clear practice challenge.
30:48
Speaker 1: Protocols, those steps we talked about before.
30:50
Speaker 2: Exactly the very first layer of defense must be non
30:54
lethal verification. That means shouting a vobeal warning loudly, turning
30:58
on lights instantly to the target. Is it human? Is
31:01
it not? Who is it? And using physical barriers like
31:05
keeping your bedroom door closed and locked, using that as
31:08
cover before lethal force is even considered as an option.
31:12
Speaker 1: The goal is to buy time right to break that panic.
31:14
Speaker 2: Cycle precisely, introduce just enough time, even a second or two,
31:18
to bypass that reflexive emotional warrior mode response and allow
31:22
the rational brain, the prefrontal cortex, to engage and assess accurately.
31:27
Speaker 1: And technology offers tools now, doesn't it, Tools that weren't
31:29
as common maybe ten twenty years ago.
31:31
Speaker 2: Huge difference smart home technology simple things like motion sensor
31:36
floodlights outside or even inside the garage, doorbell cameras with
31:40
alerts internal cameras. These offer homeowners a way to identify
31:43
a potential threat or confirm the lack of one, without
31:46
requiring them to immediately descend into the dark weapon drawn
31:49
operating purely on.
31:50
Speaker 1: Fear, it gives you data information, not just shadows exactly.
31:54
Speaker 2: It provides those crucial seconds of vital information needed to
31:58
confirm who is where and what is actually happening before making.
32:01
Speaker 1: A life or death decision, and maybe the lowest text
32:04
solution is still the most important.
32:06
Speaker 2: Arguably, Yes, experts consistently stress the absolute necessity of simple
32:10
family dialogue. Parents cannot just operate on this assumption of
32:14
constant external threat while ignoring the potential internal risks. Talk
32:18
to your kids, open conversations between parents and teenagers about curfews,
32:24
about house rules, about parental fears and anxieties, and crucially
32:28
communicating a clear, agreed upon re entry protocol. And maybe
32:31
it's a specific knock, a code word texted beforehand, something,
32:35
anything to bridge that generational gap and expectations and prevent
32:39
the very situation Jane Harriston found herself in trying to
32:42
sneak back into our own home, unnoticed, into an environment
32:45
primed for lethal defense.
32:47
Speaker 1: The central cautionary tale here is just It's undeniable, isn't it.
32:53
Janny Harston's death isn't just another statistic in a report.
32:56
It's this profound, gut wrenching lesson in how love the
33:00
fear is instinct to protect your family. When it gets
33:02
twisted by paralyzing fear and unchecked haste, it can turn
33:05
violently inward. Her father's mistake. It just underscores that universal
33:10
truth in the dark shadows, instinct is fallible. Fear can
33:15
make monsters out of loved ones. Her memory. It's now
33:18
honored through scholarships at her high school, Canal Winchester High,
33:21
which itself represents this push hopefully toward safer training, safer practices,
33:26
safer homes, and.
33:27
Speaker 2: The sources collectively make it undeniably clear that instinct to
33:31
protect this maybe the most powerful human drive we have.
33:34
But when you mix that powerful primal instinct with readily
33:37
accessible lethal force, and you embed it within a culture
33:39
that often amplifies paranoia and fear, that protective instinct can
33:43
tragically annihilate the very people we cherish most. In a
33:46
nation that is frankly armed to the teeth compared to
33:49
anywhere else. The fundamental question we have to keep asking
33:52
isn't just about how we prevent external threats from getting in.
33:56
It's also about how we manage the internal threat of paranoia, haste,
34:00
and misidentification that our laws and cultures sometimes seem to
34:03
actively feed.
34:04
Speaker 1: We saw it so clearly in this case, the absence
34:07
of a simple verbal warning, the failure to just flip
34:10
on a light switch, that was the specific point of
34:13
catastrophic failure in the chaos of that night. So if
34:18
preventing the next Jenny Harriston demands multifaceted action like you know,
34:22
better training, maybe mandated safety protocols, smarter laws that actually
34:26
acknowledge human fallibility under extreme stress, What would it really take?
34:31
What would it take for the average gun owning household
34:33
to genuinely view a flashlight and a loud challenge, not
34:36
a trigger pull, as the primary immediate default act of
34:39
home defense.
34:40
Speaker 2: It's a fundamental shift in mindset, isn't it.
34:42
Speaker 1: It feels like it. The legal system might often forgive
34:45
the tragic outcome based on subjective fear, But the physiology,
34:49
the psychology, the cultural factors that drove that father to
34:51
shoot into the darkness. They strongly suggest that maybe, just maybe,
34:56
the most dangerous intruder in these situations isn't always the
34:59
one you imagine out, but the unchecked, panicked certainty of
35:02
fear itself