Sad, sad....

[FKAGobucks877]

In reading the article JohnnyCockfight posted, I still think this was a case of self-defense. Keeping in mind that the kid was only 13, obviously younger than the bigger, white kid, and after being pushed THREE times by this larger, older kid, he pulled out his bat and hit him, with a "check swing", in the KNEE. Said larger bully then takes at least one, if not two, threatening steps towards the younger, smaller kid, before the smaller kid decides to defend himself more aggressively, and swings, ONCE, at the bully's head.

Yeah, maybe excessive, but still sounds like self-defense to me, ESPECIALLY if the older, larger boy had a reputation of being a bully. Even if not, it is still reasonable to me that a thirteen year old kid would have no glimmering whatsoever that he could even seriously injure the bully, let alone kill him.

 

[martinss01]

"Did he have a reputation as a violent man?" Greg Harris' defense attorney, William McKinney, asked witness Willy Tonkin.

"I guess, yes," responded Tonkin.

"He was a bully," said the former coach, referring to the Highland High School freshman who died April 12 after being hit with an aluminum baseball bat, allegedly wielded by 13-year-old Harris after a Pony League game at a Palmdale ball field.

Tonkin, who said he was in the Pony association for 10 years, testified about an incident "approximately 11 months ago" in which Rourke, apparently frustrated at being walked in a game, "took his bat and threw it toward the dugout, about 50 to 75 feet into a wall."

Upon being informed that he was out of the game, "extracted," said Tonkin, Rourke "said '(expletive) you' to the umpire and, raising both hands in the air, flipped him off. He then threw his helmet in the air and punched his coach in the chest."

When challenged, however, about Rourke's later involvement in the league as a junior umpire, Tonkin said he didn't object to the boy's supervisory role.

"You were in charge of the junior umpire program, the first year Jeremy participated, weren't you?" Deputy District Attorney Lonnie Felker asked. "Yet you didn't object to him being an umpire. He was enough in control to be an umpire," Felker said.

In day two of the trial at the juvenile courthouse on Avenue J, the defense called a series of witnesses, two of whom were 13-year-old acquaintances of Harris and Rourke.

The first boy to take the stand in the second-degree murder case, Dominic Archey, appeared in a suit and tie. Following his father to the stand about witnessing the incident, Archey said he saw Rourke push the defendant while the two were standing at the snack bar.

"He (Rourke) said, 'Oh, what, you think you can cut (in line) now,' then pushed (Harris) again," and yet again, "a third time," said the boy.

"I said, 'Leave him (Harris) alone,' " to which Harris added, "Leave me alone, I'm not in the mood," Archey said.

"Then I saw him (Harris) with a bat. His bag was on the ground near him, and he took a step and he hit him, with a check (or half) swing, in the knee," the boy testified.

"Jeremy kind of moved, flinched to the right and started walking toward (Harris), approximately two steps" at which point the teenage defendant "took a step back and swung again, hitting him around the jaw. Jeremy then fell to his knees and hit his forehead," said the boy, adding that "it happened real fast."

pssshh.. sounds like self defense to me. attacking a kid with a baseball bat might not be a good idea mmmkay?