The following event happened in Lubbock, TX. A guy shows up to his ex-wife’s (and current husbands) house to pick up his kids for his visitation. Kids aren’t there for whatever reason. Guys get into it, Kyle goes into his house and grabs his rifle. Dad gets into it with current husband, shots ring out, Dad’s dead.
Kyle has not been charged by the DA’s office (yet). The most bizarre thing about this is the Dad’s current wife is recording this whole thing on her phone and shows zero emotion when he’s shot. After the video cuts to black you can hear some wailing, but don’t know how long after that happened.
We’re taught that in self defense, we can only respond with proportionate force. Clearly, Kyle Carruth was not in a life threatening situation here. He was pissed, and shot Chad Read in anger.
Compare this to the threat faced by Kyle Rittenhouse. They are worlds apart.
This seems wrong. If huband no. 2 was in imminent threat of life I can understand the shooting. But the ex wife nor the shooter (husband no. 2) look like they were in fear of their life. Especially, if you walk casually back inside your house to retrieve a deadly weapon. At that point, why wasn’t a phone call made to the police? The police would have been a better mediator then the shotgun. But the fact that he’s allowed on the mothers new husbands property to pick up his kids doesn’t allow the homeowner defend his property on a person who frequents the location due to a custody swap. The shooter is absolutely wrong.
One guy comes to the house where his children live, and he is so angry, that he pays no attention to either demands he leaves, or the warning shot.
The other guy brings out a rifle, did he think for a second he may end up shooting, killing the father of his step children, and then how will he look them in the eye?
Did you notice, he fires toward the house?? Who is indoors?
What a mess… I would hate to be on that jury.
Once Kyle exited the home with the rifle, Mr. Read should have retreated, like any sensible human being would have, and call the police. Instead he gets in Kyles face and escalates the situation. Once Kyle fired the warning shot into the ground he should have known to retreat. Instead it sounded like he threatened to take the gun then the rest was bleeped out. Even though he had the right to see his kids he went about it the wrong way. It looks like he attempted to take Kyles rifle from him. The minute that Kyle told Mr. Read that the kids were not there he should have retreated and called the police. As a matter of fact it would have worked out in his favor because his x-wife would have been in violation of the court order. When you show up to someone else’s property and demand to see your children this is what can happen. According to some of the video/audio it sounds like someone stated that the kids weren’t there. It could go either way, let’s see how if this goes to court how the jury views this video. Will it be self defense in Kyles favor or will the jury say Mr. Read attempted to take the rifle to shoot Kyle or to avoid getting shot. This is going to be a tough one. IMHO it should not have ended with Mr. Read loosing his life.
They were both partly at fault in that situation. But primarily, the husband/X should have backed off. It WAS the boyfriend’s property. And the husband pushed it too far.
After watching the excellent presentation and breakdown of Texas law specific to this shooting, my conclusion why this unnecessary death occurred is an ex-husband/father thought he was being wronged by his ex-wife with respect to visitation of his son. He became a real jerk seemingly due to his poor anger-management control. The new partner for the ex-wife wanted the jerk to leave his property and the jerk refused. The new partner escalated the situation by brandishing a firearm. The new partner could instead have easily brought the ex-wife inside, called the police, and let the jerk rant outside all he wanted until the police arrived. Instead, similar to the jerk, the new partner let his anger overwhelm his good judgement. There was minor physical confrontation and at a lull the armed man’s anger peaked and he shot the other.
My simple summary, if you have access to a firearm during an argument, especially if the other person is not armed, you must be cautious about your firearm. You can’t use it to threaten a person for being a jerk. You can’t fire a warning shot if a person is a jerk. You can’t shoot a person for being a jerk. Let the police handle it unless the jerk escalates into an attacker.
The fact that he left the argument, went into the house indicates that there was no threat. Then returned to kill the other guy, indicates not just murder, but premeditated murder.
No reason the current husband had to bring out the rifle. Emotions were high and no one had a clear head to diffuse the situation which unfortunately led to an unnecessary death.
As a retired peace officer who handled countless civil/custody calls, I would always advise citizens to call for assistance if they anticipated or suspected problems. My role was just to keep the peace and document whatever occurred. Fortunate for me my presence deterred conflict and violence and if either party was not satisfied, I would refer it back to their respective attorneys. I believe if law enforcement was present, the outcome would not have been so tragic and life would have continued.
Based on the Video where is the threat, what was he trying to protect with Deadly Force, and what was his reason for the escalation to bring out a Weapon? Not a Good Shoot in my humble opinion, all around not good at all.
