72 Year-Old Man With Alzheimer’s Killed After Ringing Bell At Wrong House
If only had the homeowner had not had a gun. If only had the homeowner had not walked out of his house. If only the homeowner did not have a spirit of fear. (sigh)
WALKER COUNTY, Ga – In another example of “stand your ground” law gone wrong, a 72 year-old man suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease who had wandered away from his home was shot four times and killed early Wednesday after ringing the doorbell and turning a doorknob at a home in Georgia.
This is the second reported case this month of someone being killed after approaching a home in the middle of the night. On November 2, 19 year-old Renisha Mcbride was shot and killed in Dearborn Heights, Michigan.
The man, Ronald Westbrook, of Walker County, who had one or two dogs with him, apparently wandered three miles away from a home he shared with his wife, who did not know he was gone until contacted by police. Suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s, Westbrook was wearing only a light jacket and straw hat in sub-freezing temperatures.
He was killed about 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning by…
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Posted on 11/30/2013, in Gun Control, Videos and tagged Alzheimer’s, Ronald Westbrook, Stand Your Ground. Bookmark the permalink. 29 Comments.
We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident 
I am getting so sick of hearing this kind of shit!!!! This HAS to stop!
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Maybe now that it’s happened to a White Man, something will change. 😦
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Mindyme, it’s very upsetting. People with Down’s Syndrome, people with Alzheimer’s, and people of color. Why do they all look threatening to people with guns?
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Because owning a gun makes certain people want to use it. I will believe this to the day I day. I do think there are unfortunate accidents but leaving one’s safe place knowing the police are on their way, isn’t an accident.
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Mindyme, you make an excellent point. I have to keep vigilant with this situation because the killer has not been arrested. Like with Ted Wafer, there is no legitimate excuse why anyone needs to walk out of their house to shoot a person.
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@Xena: Don’t forget Xena: Black boys who are walking home from the store, deaf people, the Mormon Brothers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, people with dementia, blind people with canes, drunks, women who crash their cars, who may have had a little to much to drink and are injured and confused and who wander onto porches, knock on doors, and end up shot through the screen door?? I cannot imagine what some homeowners are smoking or is the pipe of racism?
Now that a white old man has been shot, let’s see how they handle this case since they don’t care about black people. We know thay don’t care about black boys who are followed, detained and shot through the heart! We also know that they don’t care about a young woman who was inebriated, confused, and disoriented who just happened to wander onto a proch, thinking maybe she was in her neighborhood, and her home was on a corner (just like the home where I grew up)? This fool just shot her through the door. How sad and unfortunate for this young girl and her family. Black life means absolutely nothing in the criminal justice system.
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@Deborah
It’s the defense attorneys who are at fault because they do not want any consequences for their client’s action. When they take the position that the victim was not perfect, they cross a very dangerous bridge in conveying Nazi ideology. Sadly, too many defense attorneys now take the route of smearing the victim in raising a defense for defendants.
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@Xena:
When you have a defense attorney like Moron O’Mara who did his best to smear Trayvon Martin, and to imply false allegations against this innocent boy! The defense will do anything to try and smear the victim. What I find amusing now, is that we now read posters who are calling GZ out, and now they believe that he is the monster that we have all believed he was from day one. Why did it take for him to point his gun at a white woman for them to believe the truth about this man? We see this now with Renisha McBride! The man who killed her, shot her through the door! What threat was she outside of his door? Why didn’t he contact the police and just wait? Does he shoot at the Jehovah’s Witnesses who come to his door too?
i remember informing my daughter’s when they were 18 and 19, that if they ever had car trouble, to call me,the police her dad and to wait for any of us. I would also give them enough money to take a cab home as well, the way my mother did me. They also had two working cell phones to use. She also could call my nephews or my brothers. If she ever broke down in an area where her friends resided, she could go to their home. These days, you are just not safe going to anyone’s home and knocking on their door. People are trigger happy now, and they will shoot you through the door especialy if you are black. If you are black, you are already deemed as criminally inclinced, and out to commit a crime.
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Deborah. My dog discourages anyone who comes to my front door. LOL!
You gave your daughters good advice.
It’s no longer safe turning around in someone’s driveway either. Guns have changed the entire scope of America. Neighbors are no longer neighbors but killers. Defense attorneys are no longer defense attorneys but victim bashers.
How much fear does it take for anyone to stand their ground when the other person is unarmed and the one with the gun voluntarily makes themselves physically exposed? Heck, they don’t even fear prosecution for killing!
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I don’t think it is because they look threatening to people with guns, Xena, I think it is because they DON’T look threatening to people with guns. Because they look like “easy” targets, people with guns shoot them. Of course there are times when people are a real threat, but we are not talking about that here. We are talking about people who are paranoid, people who are stupid, people who suffer from little dick complexes who don’t have guns for protection. They just have guns to have an excuse to shoot someone.
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Rachael.
Like if they went through the trouble of getting it, then they’re going to use it.
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http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-27/george-zimmerman-has-a-bad-temper-and-five-guns.html
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mindyme62,
Not according to a comment sent to this blog. The person expressed that some soldiers have to fall in war. Ultimately, each person who is not charged or acquitted in self-defense cases is a “win” for White Supremacists who, according to the commenter, will use self-defense to eliminate “knuckdraggers.”
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I don’t understand this level of fear. Homeowners / gunowners like this WANT to shoot people.
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Two sides, I agree. If not for the gun, anyone behind locked doors has no reason to go outside and confront people they suspect of being dangerous.
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Two sides to a story, Other than your life and the lives of your loved ones, what possession do we have that is actually worth killing over? What do we have that can’t be replaced? I do agree with you, some of these people have bought a gun, not for protection, not to prevent theft, buy have bought it simply for the opportunity to experience the thrill of killing someone… some one like that is simply sick….
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I totally agree with you crazy. Totally
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I totally agree. I would have to be pounded half to death by someone who was clearly intending to kill me before I’d even consider hurting anyone back. I’d rather almost die myself than do harm. And property just isn’t worth taking anyone’s life at all.
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If Alzheimer’s patient was turning the door knob then that is just a horrible accident and doesn’t come under SYG but the castle doctrine which is very ancient law.
The SYG law is being used by all races to solve a problem and this is where it is horrific. I live in an over 55 HOA called Del Webb in Fl. In another Del Webb community further south there was a mentally deranged man who had posted a sign saying ” del Webb hates vets” or something similar. His utilities had been turned off, grass was unmowed, home was getting ready to be foreclosed on but the HOA refused to intervene and the police said it’s HOA’s problem. Rather than waiting until man was evicted, a neighbor and his wife took a stroll past his home and moved the man’s sign ( knowing the mentally ill person would be watching ). The deranged man came running out with a butter knife screaming about his sign. The neighbor shot him point blank. Wife was hysterical and had to be hospitalized. No charges filed but clearly this was a set up to solve a nutball rather than letting legal system work.
The “sane” one said the sign was too close and he was afraid his wife would trip over it. Total BS. He could have walked around sign on his lovely Sunday stroll with his wife and a pistol through a quiet gate guarded, little traffic community.
This case received little if any media attention. And no charges filed against killer. But you can bet his neighbors are not quite as relaxed around him (even though they may be initially happy the deranged guy is gone).
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You know one time, many years ago when I lived in an apartment in downtown Seattle, I got off the elevator on the wrong floor. I was doing laundry or something, so it wasn’t like I had left completely or was gone long, so I didn’t lock the door. I walked to “my apartment,” went in the door, and after I got in, I realized I was in the wrong apartment. I had gotten off on the 3rd floor instead of the 4th. The guy who lived there looked at me a little stunned, but not as stunned as the look I had on my face. I was SO embarrassed!!! That was like 20 years ago. Now I’m glad embarrassed is all I was. I could very well have been dead. Geez!
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quote from the article
“Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson, who was personally acquainted with Westbrook through church services, said the victim was likely lost and confused. He also said that, though he thinks Hendrix should not have gone outside the house, it doesn’t appear he violated any laws.”
and this is why these laws must go. innocent people are being gunned down for no reason. this man was no more a threat than renisha mcbride.
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Hey fauxmccoy. Did you read where Westbrook was also deaf? First it was leaving a truck to follow that ended in an innocent, unarmed teen being killed, and now it’s leaving from the other side of a secured door to walk out and confront, ending in unarmed, innocent people being killed.
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yes, i saw that. poor old guy could not have possibly responded ‘appropriately’ to the verbal commands he was given. in that situation, under that law, he is practically doomed to death.
there can be no excuse, none, for a society that allows for this egregious conduct among citizens yet ‘no laws were broken’. how many must die before it changes?
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It takes people speaking out constantly on this issue in order to change it.
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@fauxmccoy.
Oh how I wish I could answer that question and say “zero.”
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Xena, What really concerns me in our gun toting and ready to kill using any excuse available society that we live in today, is had the fool waited until the Police showed up, would the outcome have been the same? IMO this man was doomed as soon as he was out of his safe home environment… There are just too many guns, too many gun owners ready to feel the thrill of the kill and all we do is sit by and allow it to happen… How many more kids, and innocent people have to die to satisfy the killer instinct that too many members of our society now possess? Even one is too many… Ok, off my soap box… scurrying quickly back to the safety of under my rock…
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crazy1946. No! Stay on your soapbox. What you say is true.
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Xena,
” No! Stay on your soapbox”
I’m just a little skittish, and (have been shown the need to) feel as if I have a bulls eye on my back, probably because my views on personal responsibility are extremely unpopular in todays times… So my cave under the rock is my safety zone, allowing me to be able to function with out conflict when I feel threatened. But on a positive note, I don’t have a gun under there, or actually any where else either, simply don’t feel the need nor the urge to kill anyone or thing… Guess I don’t fit into modern society… 😉
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crazy1946
Are you talking about the discussion regarding Castellani? If so, remember that we each were focused on different parties. We agreed that the cops abused their authority by beating him and allowing the dog to maul him. That was unjustified regardless of what Castellani might have said and being intoxicated. The cops could have arrested him without trying to kill him.
See — no need to think you have a bulls eye on your back or need to go into a cave.
Oh — and for David Piercy’s benefit, let me point out that Castellani is White. (He lurked here and on twitter, accused me of believing that Blacks have no personal responsibility.)
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