He shot a man over tossed popcorn, prosecutors say. His defense: Stand-your-ground.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

National

He shot a man over tossed popcorn, prosecutors say. His defense: Stand-your-ground.



Former Tampa police captain Curtis Reeves at his second-degree murder trial on Feb. 7 in Dade City, Fla. (Douglas R. Clifford/AP)

By Hannah Knowles
February 14, 2022 at 5:46 p.m. EST

Lawyers on both sides of Curtis Reeves’s murder trial agree: It all began with a man who left his phone on in the movie theater. ... Reeves was so irked by the white light emanating from Chad Oulson’s device that he got up to notify a manager at a Tampa-area matinee. Oulson, 43, eventually threw popcorn at Reeves, authorities say. Then Reeves, a retired police officer, pulled out a handgun and fired into the other man’s chest.

Prosecutors said this was clearly murder — a violent overreaction to some tossed snacks. But Reeves argued that he was protecting himself and cited Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which famously removed the “duty to retreat” from a threat if possible before responding with deadly force.

On Monday, eight years after the fatal shooting in Wesley Chapel, Fla., lawyers gave opening statements in a long-delayed trial that will hinge on whether Reeves can claim self-defense. Reeves’s case has stretched on amid appeals, pandemic disruptions and a battle over stand-your-ground, as he tests the limits of a law that has spread around the country despite concerns that it enables reckless violence.

{snip}

The whole interaction in the movie theater on Jan. 13, 2014, unfolded on surveillance video. But the silent footage is grainy and sometimes hard to make out, lawyers acknowledged. The prosecution and defense agree on some basic facts but painted very different pictures of Oulson and Reeves.

Rosenwasser, the prosecutor, said that when Reeves returned to his seat after speaking with the manager, he acknowledged that Oulson had put his phone away and said he had contacted the people in charge. Oulson told Reeves to mind his own business and may have used some profanity but did not pose a threat, the prosecutor said. ... In Rosenwasser’s account, Oulson stood up, reached into Reeves’s lap, grabbed a bag of popcorn and flicked it at the defendant. Reeves was not cowering in fear of Oulson and lunged forward to shoot him, Rosenwasser said.

{snip}

By Hannah Knowles
Hannah Knowles is a reporter on the General Assignment team who joined The Washington Post in June 2019. Twitter https://twitter.com/KnowlesHannah

[dchill]

1. It's all so DeSantis.

[Chainfire]

2. It is OK, he is a cop, he earned his double naught status.

The next thing you will hear from Florida is the former cop who kills a man, under "Stand your ground" for making a face at him.

[catrose]

4. Looking at me funny, always a justification for murder

[Girard442]

6. This is what they're reaching for -- a privileged class that can mete out instant "justice."

[I_UndergroundPanther]

8. Reminds me

Of when nazis gave out orders to kill as many people as possible and do it fast during that genocide by bullets part of the holocaust.
Nazi troops became judge jury and executioners,and millions of innocents died at thier evil hands.

[secondwind]

3. That smirk on Reeves' face in the photo....

[Chainfire]

5. Yea really, it says, "Yea, I killed him, so what, I am a cop.

[doc03]

7. I can't believe this he should have been in prison

8 years ago. If they do find him guilty they will give him
a suspended sentence since he is old.

[Saoirse9]

9. This happened at our movie theater

I had lost track of the case and I think I assumed the shooter cop was dead by now.

Shocked this is still an active case, and he's above ground and not jailed.

[Zorro]

10. The victim was texting his babysitter during the previews

It disturbed this ex-police captain, and the situation escalated from there.

Asshole should have been put on trial years ago, but his defense lawyer managed to keep pushing the trial date off for a variety of dubious reasons.

[hay rick]

11. Shocked? Florida.

[Dreampuff]

12. You're right. He should have never seen the light of day after he did that

One of the holdups was because of covid, supposedly, and another hang up was because they had a hearing to just have it dismissed under the stand your ground law, but the judge said no. I also remember when he wanted more freedom than to just go to the store and church into his attorney's office and wanted to be able to at least walk around the neighborhood with his grandchildren and during the trial, it seems like they said he only had one grandchild.

Still waiting to see if he will testify because all of the defense witnesses have mainly been just side noise, a distraction.

His wife got caught in a couple of lies when she testified and I really wish the prosecuting attorneys would have gotten on her to make it more clear, but the experts feel the right thing was done because they didn't want to appear to be bullying his wife. Sad after the way the defense bullied Nicole Oulson.

His daughter is pretty and blonde and blue-eyed and white and all that is supposedly right with the world, but she is a chip off the old block. His defense is now basing around being old when he did it and feeling vulnerable and that his health was failing. In one breath she would talk about how he couldn't even get down on the floor and play with his grandchildren anymore and in the next breath she talked about how they had met up in Tennessee for vacation and he had driven him and his wife up there. Just before the shooting he had also driven to Ohio and back. Just because of the fact that he had to start riding a bicycle instead of going running at the age of 71 didn't seem like too much of a hardship.

I didn't get to see much of his son's testimony, but he and his dad had just recently gotten back from a hunting trip. Apparently he came in right around the time of the shooting and supposedly tried to render aid to Chad and he made the comment that he ordered the man who was going to assist him in what to do. That shows his mindset. And he is the one who was supposed to be in charge of the guns when Curtis Reeves went to court earlier to have his guns released and if they didn't feel they could give them back to him, they should just give them to his son? His son is also a police officer, but was off-duty and out of uniform so ordering people around is apparently the way their family rolls.

If this turns out to be a Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and he is set free, I will have lost all faith in our judicial system. At least Georgia got it right in their recent situation.

[Dreampuff]

13. So apparently Curtis Reeves has taken the stand, huh?

I started trying to follow it a bit, but I hope to catch when the prosecutor gets to do his questioning. Just read an article from my local TV channel and as usual, they have omitted parts of the very topic they were talking about. They published that Mrs Reeves had asked him to move and that was confusing because he had said he wishes he would have moved like his wife said and evidently either during her initial questioning or during the hearing to have it dropped on the stand your ground rule, she also said that she asked him to move, but on the witness stand, she said she didn't say anything to him. When the prosecutor asked for why, she said it was because her husband had already contacted their son and told him where they were sitting, she thinks.
Something else that has been bothering me is the fact that when they asked her about her son, she said he had blood all over his hands and she made a negative face. I would have asked her where the blood came from and whose blood it was and how it got there. But I digress. I don't have anything near a law degree.