Man fires handgun at teens who said they mistakenly pulled in his Va. driveway: Deputies

[whitehall]

It depends on the angle of the story. It's possible that the teens did not end up in his driveway by accident. Do they have a criminal record? Does anyone care? Unless they find bullet holes in the car, it's likely that the man didn't fire the weapon at the teens.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

It depends on the angle of the story. It's possible that the teens did not end up in his driveway by accident. Do they have a criminal record? Does anyone care? Unless they find bullet holes in the car, it's likely that the man didn't fire the weapon at the teens.

From the OP:

The 17-year-old driver was startled and quickly attempted to drive away, deputies said. According to the report, Alford fired one round from his handgun into the back of the vehicle, hitting the trunk.

 

[Circe]

Link:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/man-fires-handgun-at-teens-who-said-they-mistakenly-pulled-in-his-va-driveway-deputies/ar-AAYXE0K?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2f5ae99e9b0f40e99094b68f895f80fd

From the Article:

"A Spotsylvania County man is facing charges after deputies said he fired a gun into a vehicle occupied by three teens who said they wound up in his driveway by accident.

Spotsylvania County deputies were called to the 6300 block of Grace Hill for a dispute. They were met at the address by Brent Alford, 49, of Spotsylvania County, who told deputies he noticed a vehicle was parked in his driveway.

Armed with a handgun, Alford went to investigate, deputies said. Inside the vehicle were three teen siblings, aged 17, 16 and 15, who said they were lost and had driven down Alford's driveway by mistake.

The teens were attempting to find a party near Alford's home, they told deputies, and were attempting to turn around in the driveway when Alford began banging on the vehicle window and yelling at them.

The 17-year-old driver was startled and quickly attempted to drive away, deputies said. According to the report, Alford fired one round from his handgun into the back of the vehicle, hitting the trunk.

The bullet traveled through the taillight and hit items in the trunk before landing in the center of the back passenger area under the seat cushion.

The two teens in the backseat were not injured, authorities said.

Alford was taken into custody and transported to the Rappahannock Regional Jail under no bond. He's charged with three counts of shooting into an occupied vehicle and one count of reckless handling of a firearm."


OP Comments:

This particular story hits close to home. We have a 700 foot driveway, paved and wooded on both sides. Although the homes in my "development" are all properties over seven acres and spread far apart, we have a shared entrance to the neighborhood with mail and package delivery boxes. Our driveway is clearly marked private, no trespassing, security system. The reason(s) for an unknown or random vehicle to come all the way down our driveway are few. Food, furniture or large package delivery are about it. When we first looked at our place my wife commented on how there'd be pretty much no justifiable reason for a random vehicle to end up at our front door or even halfway down our driveway and not be up to no good.

Of course, I try to be a fairly reasonable guy. I mean, if someone genuinely ended up down our driveway by mistake, they were lost or just had a sudden brain fart, well I wouldn't open fire unless they gave me a good reason. The thing is, with modern GPS technology on every smartphone it's kind of difficult to believe people would actually get lost up the wrong, really long driveway. So anyway, I think about what the gentleman in the above article went through—I think about it all the time, having to deal with a similar situation and how to react and not end up in jail like he did.

All of that being said, I don't think we're getting the full story here about what happened. I looked up the guy's address on Google Maps and the dude has a 400 foot long driveway. I'm guessing he and his wife think the same as my wife and I: no random stranger(s) should be showing up down our long, long driveways. What I think we have here are the accounting of events given to police by the three teens, and we have yet to hear the property owner's side of the story. I also looked up the property owner on Facebook and his political vociferousness on Facebook is not going to help his case here. He's a Marine veteran, pro-Second A, the whole usual country boy republican patriotic type, same as myself save for my being an Army vet. Looks like it could go really, really bad for the guy.

Very interesting. I would assume the kids WERE lost, because we see a lot of that, a whole lot of that. Especially since the bridge was closed for two years and just reopened. The number of lost people can hardly be believed. The worst were a car STUFFED full of Mexicans who kept going back and forth on the road trying to figure out where they were and where to go and ended up backing into a driveway clearly marked with hostile go-away signs: but apparently they couldn't read English! We both came over to the window to watch this show, because we know this neighbor, but he wasn't home so they eventually left safely.

Then there was this guy in a beat-up car who kept going up and down a long wood lane road which goes way into the forest to the house of a couple you really would be better off calling before you come. This guy got out of his car on the road at one point and he was not just black, he had long dreadlocks bouncing around his head and was dressed disreputably --- apparently he survived the experience, but I would not have bet on it. That neighbor is huge, too, like a giant.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Very interesting. I would assume the kids WERE lost, because we see a lot of that, a whole lot of that. Especially since the bridge was closed for two years and just reopened. The number of lost people can hardly be believed. The worst were a car STUFFED full of Mexicans who kept going back and forth on the road trying to figure out where they were and where to go and ended up backing into a driveway clearly marked with hostile go-away signs: but apparently they couldn't read English! We both came over to the window to watch this show, because we know this neighbor, but he wasn't home so they eventually left safely.

Then there was this guy in a beat-up car who kept going up and down a long wood lane road which goes way into the forest to the house of a couple you really would be better off calling before you come. This guy got out of his car on the road at one point and he was not just black, he had long dreadlocks bouncing around his head and was dressed disreputably --- apparently he survived the experience, but I would not have bet on it. That neighbor is huge, too, like a giant.

One of the points they stressed over and over again in CCW class is know the situation entirely before pulling the trigger. An example they used is you see a woman on the ground screaming and flailing underneath a very large man who is holding her down. He's too large and much younger to engage in a physical fight, so you shoot the guy. After all is said and done, you learned that you killed the woman's husband. They were taking a walk when she went into convulsions being an epileptic and he was restraining her so she didn't injure herself, and you're going to prison on a murder charge.

As Death Angel points out the article is very vague and there are probably some elements of the story untold so we can't make conclusive judgement. All I'm doing is commenting on the article itself and using my training to determine right and wrong. It described the occupants of the vehicle as three siblings. It's more likely that three siblings would be going to a party rather than on a house robbery. I would like to see the trial in this case to hear both sides.