Looking to Get Shot and Killed For Doing Nothing More Thank Walking Through a Neighborhood or Going to the Movies

Visit the Sunshine State – But Buy a One Way Ticket

After George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin for doing nothing more than walking through Mr. Zimmerman’s neighborhood and after Mr. Zimmerman was exonerated in a trial, it became clear that in Florida one can carry a gun and shoot people at will. 

Need further proof?  Here is the story of Curtis Reeve who feels he has the right to carry his 380 caliber gun into a movie theater.

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. — There’s a sticker on the door of the Grove 16 Theater just outside Tampa: no weapons.

Curtis J. Reeves Jr. must have walked right past it on Jan. 13 when he went to a matinee with his wife, carrying a .380 handgun.

So why carry a gun to a movie?  Why to shoot and kill someone who is texting about his sick child.  Gosh, why even ask?  

Curtis J. Reeves Jr. appearing
via video conference before
a judge on Jan. 14, the day
after he shot and killed
Chad W. Oulson. Pool photo by Brendan Fitterer

“He always had
 a smile on his face,” said
 Bill Costas, his next-door
 neighbor in Brooksville,
 a small town 55 miles
 north of Tampa.
 “He is always very decent
and very kind to my
 wife and myself.”

Just a great guy who
kills people who text
before the movie starts

Why?  Because he can

In front of Mr. Reeves was Chad W. Oulson, 43, of Land O’ Lakes, Fla., a finance manager at a local motorcycle dealership. Mr. Oulson was a 6-foot 4-inch motorcycle enthusiast, whose 22-month-old daughter, Alexis, was at home with a babysitter and not feeling well. So Mr. Oulson defied technology etiquette and texted the sitter. The light from his phone was visible in the semidarkness.

Mr. Cummings remembers Mr. Reeves kicking the seat in front of him.

“He was agitated,” Mr. Cummings said.

Mr. Reeves asked Mr. Oulson to quit texting. Mr. Oulson kept at it, explaining that he was just communicating about a preschooler. Mr. Reeves left in a huff to get a manager, but he returned alone.

Mr. Oulson complained about being tattled on, and the two men exchanged more words. The words got louder. That’s when Mr. Oulson made what would turn out to be a fatal move.

“He stood up,” said Joseph Detrapani, a friend of Mr. Oulson’s, who heard the story later. “That was it.”

This was a boutique theater with rows of large seats that are elevated from one another, with a foot and a half of legroom between them. Mr. Oulson turned to face Mr. Reeves and swung the popcorn bag at his side; kernels struck Mr. Reeves’ face.

Mr. Reeves, a co-founder of the Tampa Police Department’s first tactical response team, reacted. Struck in the face by what he told police was a “dark object,” he reached for his .380 and fired, just as his son, Matthew, also a police officer, entered the theater. Mr. Oulson’s wife, Nicole, had placed her hand on her husband’s chest and was struck in the finger.

Will Mr. Reeves get away with this.  This is Florida, do you really have to ask.

His lawyer, Richard Escobar, said Mr. Reeves, who is charged with second-degree murder, acted in self-defense. He suggested that Mr. Reeves was hit in the face with something other than popcorn, and had every right to defend himself with deadly force.

Mr. Escobar in court described his client as a person who attends Bible study and has been married to the same woman since 1967. Mr. Reeves, he said, was a commander in the Police Department for almost 17 years and has health problems including bursitis and respiratory ailments.

“He has been protecting the community from individuals that do commit crimes,” Mr. Escobar told the judge at a bond hearing last week.

Mr. Escobar has said that because of his age, Florida law supports Mr. Reeves’ self-defense claim. In Florida, a misdemeanor assault against anyone 65 or older is a felony. And in Florida, a person who has a reasonable fear of great bodily injury or death is not obligated to retreat.

The gun lobby is of course celebrating this as we speak, to them Mr. Reeves is just another hero in the fight against people being safe from killers who legally carry guns and who think they have the legal right to gun anyone down.

As for Mr. Reeves, his thought process was likely that he was not only entitled to carry a gun, he wanted to carry a gun, and he wanted to shoot someone.  Maybe that's not the case, but if not, why carry a gun when all one does is go to the movies?