Update on 14 Year Old Girl Mistaken As Burglar Killed By Stepfather

Dec 26

Posted by

Meade

2nd Lt Daniel Meade with his wife and mother of 14 year-old Kiana O’Neil

29 year-old 2nd Lt Daniel Meade has been identified as the man who shot and killed his 14 year-old step-daughter, mistaking her for a burglar.  He is listed as an active-duty health service officer assigned to 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson.

Kiana 2

Kiana O’Neil

The victim, Kiana O’Neil, is the oldest of three children.  The Daily Mail reports that Kiana may have been trying to enter the house through a basement window.  Kiana was shot in the chest and stomach, and died from the wounds.

The case is expected to be handed down to the district attorney’s office after the police complete their investigation. The district attorney’s office will decide whether to charge Meade.

Like similar cases where homeowners shot and kill unarmed people they suspect of being a burglar, Colorado’s “Make My Day” comes to the spotlight.  Despite its Clint Eastwood-inspired nickname, the Colorado law is a narrowly focused, widely accepted common law commonly referred to as the castle doctrine.

The “Make My Day” law allows anyone to use deadly force in his or her home when confronted with an uninvited intruder and a reasonable belief that the intruder “is committing or intends to commit a crime” against person or property. Under such circumstances, the home defender is immune from criminal prosecution or civil liability.

Kiana

Kiana O’Neil

The question is this case is, how can a resident of the home be an “intruder”? 

Introduced in 1985 as the Homeowner Protection Act, “make my day” stops at the door. Front porches and yards don’t count. As a result, criminal charges can vary vastly, depending on whether a shooting occurred inside or outside the threshold.

As of July 2013, an informal survey by Doug Wilson, the state public defender, found there have been at least 22 cases in his agency’s offices in the past year where “Make My Day” law was cited as a defense. Two ended with jury acquittals, two were dismissed by district attorneys, four were plea-bargained and seven others are pending.
Source

Posted on 12/26/2013, in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. 49 Comments.

  1. mindyme62 | 12/26/2013 at 12:31 pm

    this is so sad. we allow ourselves to live in so much fear. I wish more would take heed of statistics that show a gun in the home is 42 times more likely to be used to accidentally kill a family member.

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    • Two sides to a story | 12/27/2013 at 2:47 pm

      Oh, how I wish. People need to be far more careful. I still say this guy was itching to use his firearm. The last thing you do in any situation is shoot someone! He didn’t seem to try to identify who was coming in the window.

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  2. Jueseppi B. | 12/26/2013 at 12:42 pm

    Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat™.

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    • Xena | 12/26/2013 at 4:26 pm

      Thanks Jueseppi.

      I’m not getting notifications through Word Press today for some reason.

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      • Jueseppi B. | 12/26/2013 at 4:38 pm

        I had to re subscribe to your blog this afternoon…WP had unsubscribed me. That happens to my blog all the time.

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        • Xena | 12/26/2013 at 5:42 pm

          I checked my subscriptions, and also checked under discussion settings because I’m neither receiving notifications for comments posted and/or in moderation. Last month when Word Press did updates, comments were going into moderation that should not have. Then we found some new widgets and layouts on the admin side. LOL!!

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          • Jueseppi B. | 12/26/2013 at 7:41 pm

            Sometimes mine go right into spam…wordpress doing it’s mess up thing.

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          • Xena | 12/26/2013 at 8:10 pm

            Jueseppi. I found the problem. On the dashboard under blogs I follow, is the word “settings.” I generally just click the Reader, but I had gone through Reader and made sure of my subscription settings. This time when I clicked settings, it took me to a page where it had defaulted to block all email notifications from Word Press. Once I un-clicked that, I started receiving email notifications again.

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          • Jueseppi B. | 12/27/2013 at 2:20 am

            Glad you fixed that issue….so sorry to hear of your misfortune of being dismissed from 2chicspolitico….however will you survive now? 😆

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          • Xena | 12/27/2013 at 1:49 pm

            Jueseppi. Yeah, I’m glad I discovered the problem too!!! It’s one thing to go to the Reader to follow other blogs, but another for comment notification. I was not receiving any moderation notifications.

            so sorry to hear of your misfortune of being dismissed from 2chicspolitico

            Not a misfortune. I had not written anything for that blog for months and was more like a harassment cop. I appreciate them giving me opportunity to post articles I wrote on the jury and verdict in Zimmerman’s case. That issue falls in seeking justice for Trayvon. The message is important. Politics is not a subject I feel qualified to write about.

            In the event that Zimmerman is charged and we write about it here, they are always welcomed to re-blog.

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          • Jueseppi B. | 12/27/2013 at 1:57 pm

            I was joking about the firing…

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          • Xena | 12/27/2013 at 2:07 pm

            Jueseppi. LOL!! I’m glad you clarified that because it gives me opportunity to say that it was not a paid position. The haters who lurk here don’t need another reason to say that I was “employed” by “Black racists.” They’ve already alleged that attorney Benjamin Crump has me on his payroll. LOL.

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          • Jueseppi B. | 12/27/2013 at 10:09 pm

            Say hello to Crump for me…I may need him one day (more humor)

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          • Xena | 12/27/2013 at 11:34 pm

            Jueseppi, want to hear something really funny? The harassers claim knowing my real name, and they sent a comment here asking why I have so many aliases and suggested that I google the name they claim is my name. I did Google it and found a background check website that had the name the harassers allege is my true name, with the last name “Crump” as an alias. It even included that the person once resided in Florida. LOL!!

            I contacted that website and upon sending them the comment, they got back to me and said that the profile was recent, posted by someone using an email address @talktalk.com.

            That’s one way of setting up your own evidence, uh? LOL!!

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          • Jueseppi B. | 12/28/2013 at 11:34 am

            Idiots spend way too much time in other folks business. Mental issues are at play here.

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          • Xena | 12/28/2013 at 1:44 pm

            Jueseppi,

            Mental issues are at play here.

            IMHO, White Supremacy is a mental issue, and that is the motivation behind the harassers. When they use an article wishing Happy Veterans Day to submit filthy comments about Trayvon being a “thug,” blacks committing ALL crimes, and to accuse me of being racist — well, that screams out their motivation.

            Like

          • Jueseppi B. | 12/28/2013 at 2:37 pm

            I left a message for your david/jessica…I await their response on MY blog.

            Like

  3. Yahtzee | 12/26/2013 at 12:58 pm

    This is so sad and tragic. A sweet and innocent child has lost her life.

    When, oh when, will our legislators change the gun laws? When will they stop listening to the gun lobby and start hearing the cries of the victims?

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  4. racerrodig | 12/26/2013 at 1:32 pm

    This is a trained soldier at home, not in a combat zone. As I posted elsewhere, he couldn’t just say “…who’s there ?” or “….don’t move an identify yourself, I am armed” where as that little girls voice would have said “…it’s me dad….I lost my key” or to that effect.

    And dad didn’t put any lights on……he fired at someone in the dark??

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    • Xena | 12/26/2013 at 4:29 pm

      racerrodig, know what? I wonder what investigators are going to find and determine since she was shot in the chest and stomach? Would that happen with someone coming through a basement window, or kneeling at a basement window?

      You’re absolutely correct. Burglars run when they know someone is home. Even armed burglars run when they are told by someone in the house that they will shoot.

      Like

  5. Jackie Saulmon Ramirez | 12/26/2013 at 1:47 pm

    Civilians are not trained to sat, “Stop!” or “Halt!” This is so wrong.

    Like

  6. Rachael | 12/26/2013 at 2:50 pm

    You know, I was just talking to a friend about this this morning. She had a scare, thought someone was breaking into her house, said she wanted a gun, even though her alarm went off and called the police. People get shot that way.

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    • Xena | 12/26/2013 at 4:34 pm

      Rachael, having a gun for home protection is not appropriate for those with itchy trigger fingers. It’s ridiculous. They should have a dog that alerts them of strangers.

      Like Bill Cosby said, they can’t call bullets back.

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      • Rachael | 12/26/2013 at 7:04 pm

        That is exactly what I told her. She said she needed a gun, I told her that she definitely did NOT need a gun. I told her I have a dog, a baseball bat and a sock with pennies.

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        • Xena | 12/26/2013 at 8:13 pm

          LOL@Rachael. I have to remember the pennies. LOL! What I do have is a can of military regulation tear gas that is used like mace.

          But know what I was told works better because it has a further reach? Wasp spray. I have to keep several cans anyway during the summer. Sprays up to 30 ft.

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          • Yahtzee | 12/26/2013 at 8:36 pm

            Yes, the hornet spray is the thing to have!

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          • Xena | 12/26/2013 at 9:22 pm

            So I heard. And a big dog helps too. LOL!!

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          • Rachael | 12/27/2013 at 3:44 am

            She has a dog – 2, I think. And the alarm system. Turns out it was her husband warming up the car. God help him if she gets a gun.

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          • Xena | 12/27/2013 at 1:51 pm

            Rachael. So, she could have shot her husband had she had a gun! And, she doesn’t see how that could be a deadly mistake? Geez. I hope she re-thinks her need for a a gun.

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  7. towerflower | 12/27/2013 at 12:04 am

    Yes, this is a tragic accident. A step-father believes that his daughter is safe in her bed only to shoot her thinking it was someone trying to break into their home. As it was said above, why couldn’t he turn on the light? Holler out–where’s there, I’m armed and I’ll shoot. This is a decision that will weigh heavily on his mind for the rest of his life.

    Yahtzee asked above when will the government change the laws…….which law are you referring to? The 2nd Amendment?

    How would everyone feel if it had been someone different, a bad guy, who was trying to break in to do harm and was armed? Would you feel he was justified then? There are more stories with this scenario than there are with the first. Yes it was a violent death, but it was still an accident, just like so many other types of accidents.

    But back to Yahtzee…….why doesn’t the government change the law, not knowing which laws you are referring to I can only say that maybe the government is not likely to change it not because of the gun lobby but because of our history. It was through private gun ownership that gave us our freedom and country today. It all started on April 19, 1775, when the government went after the guns and supplies (black powder, musket balls, etc) of the citizens in Concord. It started with a shot at Lexington when the “rebels” took a stand. In a matter of a few days, these rebels–just normal people, farmers and business owners were able to take on the greatest army in the world and force them back to Boston. It was through private gun ownership that the future United States was able to form their local militias and stand up against an oppressive government.

    Now, do I believe that anyone should own a gun? No, I believe if one takes on the responsibility of gun ownership then they should have training. I grew up around firearms and my father educated me at an early age about respecting a firearm. I also knew that he would have protected the family if the need arose–and because of that education I would never try to sneak into my home.

    I know my opinion will not be popular with most.

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    • Yahtzee | 12/27/2013 at 4:40 am

      Thank you, towerflower, for sharing our history and your opinion with us.

      I know my opinion will not be popular with most.

      You are part of our community, and I would hope you will NEVER withhold your opinion from us because of a concern that it might not be popular.

      It is the SYG laws that I was especially referring to. I have no problem with responsible gun ownership.

      *Hugs* 🙂

      Like

  8. cadesertvoice | 12/27/2013 at 10:21 am

    It needs to be said…how do we know this was an accident? Thank you Blackbutterfly7.

    Like

    • Two sides to a story | 12/27/2013 at 2:52 pm

      I felt this way too. At the very least, wouldn’t a trained soldier employ rules of engagement? You just don’t shoot blindly without identifying who or what you’re shooting at.

      Like

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