Skip to footer

Florida man who shot theatergoer for texting to invoke 'stand your ground'

Curtis Reeves' lawyer says he plans to use Florida's 'stand your ground' self-defense law in the trial of his client, who was accused of shooting a fellow moviegoer in 2014 for texting and throwing popcorn in his face.  

|
Brendan Fitterer, Tampa Bay Times / AP
Former Tampa Police captain Curtis Reeves Jr. (c.), sits beside his defense attorneys Richard Escobar (r.), and Dino Michaels as they listen to his taped interview by detectives during his bond reduction hearing before Circuit Judge Pat Siracusa at the Robert D. Sumner Judicial Center in Dade City, Feb. 7, 2014. Mr. Reeves is suspected of fatally shooting Chad Oulson and wounding his wife, Nicole, during an argument Jan. 13 over texting at the Cobb Grove 16 theater in Wesley Chapel, Fla.

The lawyer for Curtis Reeves, a retired police captain who fatally shot a fellow moviegoer in 2014, is planning to use Florida’s “stand your ground” law to defend his client.

Mr. Reeves was arrested for the fatal shooting of Chad Oulson in January 2014. Police say Mr. Oulson threw his bag of popcorn in Reeves' face after the former captain criticized him for texting. Reeves responded by pulling out his gun and shooting Oulson in the chest, according to law enforcement. A bullet also grazed Oulson's wife, Nicole.

“I think we have a pretty solid stand your ground case,” Richard Escobar, Reeves’ attorney, told the Tampa Bay Times. Escobar plans to utilize a video taken at the scene to prove Reeves acted lawfully under Florida’s self-defense law and ultimately have the criminal charges dismissed. A five-day hearing is scheduled to begin on Jan. 25.

With strong support from the National Rifle Association in 2005, the "gunshine state" became the first to pass a ‘stand your ground’ law that allows citizens to use deadly force if they fear their own harm or death. Under Florida’s "stand your ground" law, “a defendant must be able to show that he had a ‘reasonable belief’ in a threat before using deadly force, not that the threat actually existed,” explains the Tampa Bay Times. If the judge determines the defendant had "reasonable belief" for using deadly force, the shooter is “immune from criminal prosecution and civil action.”

The "stand your ground" defense became famous after George Zimmerman’s Stanford shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, in 2012. Mr. Zimmerman was acquitted of Martin’s murder, leading many to question the respectability of Florida’s law.

As The Christian Science Monitor reported after the shooting, Reeves’ case highlights several ongoing debates about loose gun laws in this country. Reeves’ was justified in having a firearm because the state allows concealed guns in movie theaters and retired police offers are permitted to carry a gun without a license. And if the ‘stand your ground’ defense is found plausible, Reeves’ will also be justified in his shooting of Chad Oulson.

“To be sure, the mixture of texting, popcorn, and guns that led to Oulson’s death is being seen by some as a poignant commentary on shifting social expectations in public places, in the wake of liberalized gun laws that have turned America into ‘virtually a fully armed society,’ ” as George Washington University law professor Bob Cottrol told The Monitor’s Patrik Jonsson.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Florida man who shot theatergoer for texting to invoke 'stand your ground'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/1029/Florida-man-who-shot-theatergoer-for-texting-to-invoke-stand-your-ground
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe