Boy, 10, charged with shotgun slaying of dad (CNN)

[ahem]

HUMBOLDT, Kansas (AP) -- When Carolyn Moore answered the light knock on her front door Sunday night, she was greeted by a boy wearing only burgundy underwear and holding a shotgun.

"There stood this poor, scared, half-naked little boy saying 'Help me, help me. Hide me. They're after me,"' Moore said. "I could see the fear in his eye. He said, 'They're going to get me and spank me hard."'

On Wednesday, Allen County authorities said the 10-year-old boy was charged with first-degree murder in the shotgun slaying of his father. Robert D. Hamlin, 43, was found dead Sunday night at his home near Humboldt.

"The child said, 'I done something really bad,"' Moore said, recalling their conversation. "And I said, `What did you do?'

(more)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/28/child.charged.ap/index.html

[BlueEyedSon]

1. What we need is more guns. LOTS more.

[denverbill]

6. Maybe if the father had been armed, this wouldn't have happened.

/sarcasm

[smirkymonkey]

33. That's pretty funny - despite the gravity of the situation.

I sometimes feel like this country is just one big insane asylum.

[NuttyFluffers]

45. perhaps concealment laws would've saved him

:sarcasm:

a real tragedy. i feel horrible for all involved. but my emergency response dark humor defense must kick in first, it's a lot of tragedyto absorb all at once.

[BrainRants]

2. Two words: Gun locks.

Not knowing the whole story, I feel sorry for the kid, but not for the dad.

Thinning the herd.

Sorry.

[stanwyck]

26. Question on the gun locks

from someone who knows absolutely nothing about guns. If the gun owners uses gun locks to protect his/her children, how much protection are the guns if an intruder busts into your house during the night? Do you really have time to get the gun and unlock? I work with people who have an arsenal of guns and small children. They claim the guns are well hidden from their kids. So....how much protection are they? Do you ask the intruder to wait while you retrieve your weapons from the hiding places? Do you have the weapon accessible at all times? In the kitchen? The bath?
Personally, I refuse to give into that kind of paranoia. I don't want a fear based life. Plus, it just doesn't sound very workable, does it?
Maybe these folks are wearing holsters to bed.

[slackmaster]

27. It's possible to have a good gun storage device that allows fast retrieval

The best solution IMO (if you have children and really think you need to have a gun handy) is a strong box that attaches to a wall, and opens with a sequence of button pushes. A friend of mine has one that is specifically designed to hold a handgun (he keeps his .44 Special Smith & Wesson in it), and is disguised as a fancy wall clock (yes, it keeps time).

Children are inquisitive, clever, and like dogs and cats will break the rules when you aren't looking. It's naive to think you can hide something as large as a firearm from a child.

When I was a child we were shown where the guns were kept, taught how to use them safely, given an appreciation for their destructive power, taught how to unload and clean them, and told not to play with them. That de-mystified guns for us.

Our dad kept the ammunition separate from the weapons (two .22 rifles and a 12-gauge shotgun). We never messed with them, and never had a problem. My stepfather had been a rifle instructor in the Navy.

[Mithras61]

28. Re: Question on the gun locks

The answer depends on the specific type of lock used. Most often, the type is a trigger lock, which is basically a lock cylinder with parts that fit through and around the trigger guard and latch in place. These can usually be removed in about 5 seconds with the key that fits the lock. If I owned a gun for self/home protection, I'd probably keep the loaded gun locked and out of reach of children and the keys to the lock somewhere un-obvious but on the way to the gun.

Other gun locks range upwards from that to full-size safes that can hold rifles/shotguns and can only be easily breached with the combo or a serious cutting torch.

IMHO, the best lock can be breached too easily, so I don't keep guns in my home. I do keep a steel baseball bat, and also a dress sword (not sharpened, but I dare you to stand there and let me smack you with it!).

[CO Liberal]

3. And ANOTHER Family Kept Safe By a Gun In The Home

I used to post stories like this every day in the Gungeon. I finally stopped because it was too depressing to find them so easily on Google. And the pro-gunners got pissed having the truth waved in fri=ont of their faces.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. yep..gun locks interfere with their 2nd amendment right to have their

offspring shoot them

[billbuckhead]

5. The NRA is part of the "Culture of Life"

Not!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. Waiting for the punishist wackos saying this boy should be executed.

No doubt he will be "tried like an adult" too. :mad:

[jayfish]

9. You Beat Me To It.

He shouldn't even be charged IMO.

Jay

[SemiCharmedQuark]

20. Hey, a kid ceases to be a kid when he commits a crime

:eyes:

No really, someone actually told me that.

[OzarkDem]

30. He should get the same treatment as this guy

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/11490796.htm

A Tallmadge man has admitted that he shot and killed his wife, but instead of being sentenced to prison Monday, he received probation.

In a plea deal reached between the prosecution and his defense attorney, Frederick Knippenberg, 81, was allowed to plead guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter for using a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot his 49-year-old wife, Catherine Knippenberg.

Summit County Common Pleas Judge Brenda Burnham Unruh sentenced the elderly man -- who has had two heart attacks, undergone bypass surgery and is on a number of medications for diabetes, a nerve disorder and low blood pressure -- to five years in prison.

The judge then suspended the prison time and placed the man on probation for five years. As part of his probation, he must report daily to Oriana House and undergo counseling.

The judge said the reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter was appropriate given the couple's combustible history and the defendant's advanced age and his poor health.

``It is a highly unusual case,'' Unruh said.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. Charging a ten year old with 1st degree murder????

I'm sorry, but it's not the kids fault that his parents were irresponsible gun owners, and left a firearm where he could get it and use it. If anything, the other adult in the family should be charged.

And who knows what sort of things may have been going on in that family that could have driven the kid to do something like this.

[slackmaster]

13. We also don't know exactly why the boy shot his father

There may have been extenuating circumstances.

[TahitiNut]

16. "They're going to get me and spank me hard."

Sounds like that's a large part of his experience. :shrug:

[Crunchy Frog]

18. That's what jumped out at me too. n/t

[slackmaster]

22. Me three - sounded more like a 5-year-old than a 10-year-old

This could turn out to be another "kid raised in a closet and sexually abused by his psychotic father while his wimpy mother wallows in a state of denial, then seizes an opportunity to get out of his living Hell by grabbing a shotgun, shooting his father, and running to the nearest house for help" story, or something like that.

[Shallah Kali]

42. Me too plus the fact the kid was only in his underpants!

What was going on in that house??? Did his father make him strip to spank him? Ick.

[LeighAnn]

10. I wonder if he was on meds

I'd be willing to make a wager that he was.

[frustrated_lefty]

11. Sounds like another repuke family

torturing their child.

[Maple]

12. I'm predicting

there is a good reason the boy did that.

[slackmaster]

15. That's a possibility

I'm not betting money one way or the other.

[JanMichael]

25. I almost did it when I was a little older than he is now.

Physical and emotional/psychological terrorism on the part of my father almost made me lose it. Leaving is the only thing I think that stopped me.

I imagine that you're right and the "nice to the neighbors" dad was something other than "nice" in his "castle".

[demo dutch]

14. Seems to me it always happens in "RED STATES" !

[OzarkDem]

29. I've been to Humboldt before

At that time it wasn't a "red state" kind of place at all. It reminded you of small town USA, almost like a movie set - only the real thing. I recall going downtown to the drug store where they still had an old fashioned marble counter soda fountain. People were really nice and the community was actually well integrated. It had a sizeable AA community.

My guess its just a case of severe child abuse with a non-abusing parent who covered it up and a child acting out of desperation to stop the abuse.

[Xenotime]

17. Real WMD

Right here in that little community. Because of that shotgun, it has brought horror to that little town.

[MidwestTransplant]

19. He mus be punished to deter other 10 year olds from killing their parents.

[LisaL]

52. Well, considering another 10 year old is accused of

killing his mother, then himself-it's ain't all that rare anymore.

[newscott]

21. Quick somebody file a frivolous lawsuit!

[NNN0LHI]

23. Maybe if this father had spanked some sense into this kid...

...this might not have ever have happened? And then on the other hand perhaps daddy did try doing that in the past and this may be the end result of that bright idea?

Don

[slackmaster]

24. We need a new flurry of "spanking" threads in GD

Is It Right To Keep Guns In The House If You Spank Your Kids?

:D

[NNN0LHI]

32. More like Is It "Smart" To Keep Guns In The House If You Spank Your Kids?

Perhaps not?

Don

[Sequoia]

31. Could've been an accident

and the boy was messing around with it and it went off. But when he mentioned how he'd be spanked real hard makes me wonder if his dad hit him alot. Poor kid, he needs help like he asked.

[NYC]

34. Children are often punished for accidents.

So the remark about being spanked for this does not indicate that it was not an accident.

...Hamlin was sitting on the living room couch when he was shot in the back of the head with a 20-gauge pump shotgun.

His wife, Debbie, and two younger children fled to another neighbor after the shooting. Two other children were coming out of the house when deputies arrived, Sheriff Tom Williams said. He said he did not know the other children's ages.

The boy then walked up the road to Moore's home, carrying the shotgun with one unfired shell, authorities said...

The child could be locked up for 13 years:

...The boy, whose name was not released, was charged as a juvenile and could be held until age 23 if convicted. A closed juvenile court hearing was conducted in the county seat of Iola, eight miles north of Humboldt, and a judge ordered the case sealed...

[Maddy McCall]

35. Oh Jesus.

Jesus Jesus Jesus Christ. Horrible. There's more to this story, and I dread hearing what it might be.

A child in his underwear does not premeditate murder. Therefore, this cannot be first degree. The underwear, the "gonna spank me hard" comment...there's more to this story.

:(

[GreyRoofoo]

36. So what does a child wear.....

when committing first degree murder?

[Maddy McCall]

37. Do you have any children this age?

I do. A boy this age would rather be caught dead than running around his neighborhood and banging on his neighbor's door in only his underwear.

If this were premeditated, the kid would have had some clothes on when he went to his neighbors. It sounds to me like he was trying to protect himself from something terrible when he shot the gun, and then ran out of the house after he'd realized what he had done.

[slackmaster]

46. What Would Lovey Howell Say?

[LisaL]

51. But if the guy was sitting in the chair and was shot in the

back of the head-that rules out self-defense theory.

[valis]

38. My bet: the father had been molesting him....

[Maddy McCall]

39. Or some other form of horrible abuse.

Very sad. :(

[Eloriel]

41. Count me on that vote as well

Kids just don't shoot their parents in the back of the head on a whim.

But whatever happened, this guy (liquor store owner) has it 100% right:

"He probably needs treatment more than he needs punishment."

I personally believe ANYone who kills or engages in violent crimes is mentally and/or emotionally ill. But you're damn straight a CHILD committing a crime like that needs therapy and a lot of it before (instead of, actually) any kind of "punishment."

I'm sick to death of this War on Children we're secretly waging in this country. I don't understand the reasons for it, and I want it stopped.

[chalky]

40. What's the matter with Kansas?!!? n/m

[slackmaster]

47. Nothing inherently wrong with it

I was born there but wouldn't want to live there. The weather sucks most of the year, and there are all kinds of nasty biting insects.

[NickB79]

43. If the father was molesting or torturing him

And it really sounds like SOMETHING freaky was going on in that household from the statements the boy made, I have one thing to say:

The gun saved this boy's life.

Flame away.

[genieroze]

44. Maybe they should charge him as an adult. (sarcasm)

[NNN0LHI]

48. First question should be what kind of idiot would leave a gun and shells..

...laying around with a ten year old kid in the house to begin with?

Don

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

55. You nailed it, Don

[leesa]

49. It's what America wants.

[Shallah Kali]

50. The boy is the biological grandson of the victim!

Child Accused of Murder
http://www.ksntv.com/news/default.asp?mode=shownews&id=3244

When they arrived, officers found 42-year-old Robert Hamlin dead on the couch. He had been shot in the back of the head one time with a shot gun. Hamlin`s 10-year old son was determined to be the suspect. The boy is the biological son of Hamlin`s daughter, but was adopted by Hamlin and his wife at birth. Authorities say the boy was found about a quarter mile from the home armed with a 20-gauge shotgun.

The daughter must have been awful young to have a baby with her father only being 32 at that time!

[Dogmudgeon]

53. Murder. Firearms. Pedophilia. Spanking.

Shouldn't we at least wait until this tragedy is investigated?

We know NOTHING about the family, the boy, the father, the circumstances, or even the background.

Instead of conjuring monsters out of thin air, let the cops, forensic experts, and DA's office investigate this case.

--p!

[NNN0LHI]

54. The boy was talking about getting spanked after he shot the old man

That is in the article. No one is conjuring that up.

Don