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Originally posted by butthead
Charging the owner and the robbers are two separate events.
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Agreed, to a large extent. They're separate, but related.
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How do you justify charging someone for crimes they did not commit? How is it relevant that they used firearms?
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That's the way it works. The law differentiates between "robbery" and "armed robbery".
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If their accomplices had died, it would be a direct result of Peter crushing their vehicle. Peter must accept responsibility. Being attacked is no excuse for murder or other violent crimes.
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The law also says that injury in commission of a felony is part of the felony. It doesn't matter who causes the injury. Rather, it matters that the injury wouldn't have happened w/o the felony. Given the injury, the (accused) felons are charged with the additional crimes, such as "murder" in the case of ANY death, including that of one of their own.
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In the face of this, how do you justify charging a civil offense for something that was clearly criminal and critically injured others?
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I don't agree that it was clearly criminal, obviously.
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Both the suspects and Peter committed criminal acts.
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Begging the question, you're using the issue under discussion, that "Peter committed a criminal act", as a factor in your argument. You might want to change your structure there.
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Chasing others, critically injuring them and destroying their property over stolen money is not self-defense. It may be closer to "eye for an eye", but it still bypasses due process for vigilantism.
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I disagree. We're really starting to go in circles here.
Some of this depends on the laws of the particular state the action happened in. In Texas, this wouldn't have been a problem. In California or Massachusetts (where I live), he'd be clearly in the wrong. I don't know the situation in Arizona.
And this all neglects that they're calling some aspect of this a "Hate Crime" because one of the parties was black, the other white. I don't know which was which.