3.16.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




This happened outside of a Beaumont courthouse. I looked for a follow-up and it's pretty interesting: The shooter was actually a criminal defendant in a case being tried in that courthouse, and he was trying to kill his daughter who was a witness against him.  It's a capital offense in Texas to kill a person in retaliation for being a witness, but he didn't kill the daughter -- he missed and killed someone else. Nevertheless, he still got the death penalty for the shooting in a later trial under the doctrine of "transferred intent." (A concept you heard a lot about in law school but practically never see it used in real life.) 

Wild fact #1: The defendant actually shot at and hit his daughter "multiple times" and "then ran over her with his truck before fleeing the scene but she survived." Wild fact #2:  Cops fired 50 shots that day, but the defendant was only wounded. 


  • Hurry up and enter the Liberally Lean Tourney. We are up to 88 entries. Get down on it. 
  • Lots of updates for bullet points over the last two days:
    • The 25 year old who fell to his death off of a rooftop bar in Dallas was Chris Hill -- a Paradise High School graduate and employee of the City of Bridgeport. 
    • The man who led police on wild police chase that started at Decatur's Quik Trip and ended up at the Oklahoma border has now been identified: "When Decatur police officers approached the vehicle, the driver, Tristan Almanzar, 26, fled, according to DPS. Troopers later joined the chase. Almanzar lived in Midlothian." He killed himself at the end of the chase. 
    •  It wasn't a murder-suicide after all. It looks like a hit.

    • (Not) Gone Girl. The Russian reporter who protested on live TV is alive and well, and she actually appeared in court yesterday in connection with a different protest she engaged in. She was fined around $300.  I wouldn't feel too comfortable if I were her.

  • This was in Andrews County last night. The golf coach was killed, but they still haven't released the number of students who have died.  But it sounds like there is at least one. Edit: Wow. Six students killed.

  • And we have yet another case solved by familial/genetic genealogy DNA testing. 

     
  • This is going on right now. Let's keep our emotions in check. It's just WWIII hanging in the balance if we haul off and do something stupid. 

     
  • Profiting off of war is almost as old as war itself. 
  • That guy is right. Fox News really does have a lot of bad graphics. 

  • It's been 20 years and we still haven't given these guys a trial? We need to just admit that we can't prove anything but that we just feel safer keeping them locked up. 
  • I'll admit to a little confusion about the NCAA Tournament games in Fort Worth. There are eight teams in town, but they aren't all from the same quadrant. For example, Baylor (from the East) and Kansas (from the Midwest), and who are both #1 seeds, are there. So if they both win, they won't meet on Saturday. The only way they'll ever face each other is in the championship game a month from now. Maybe that always happens and I've never noticed. 
  • Sportsy. If you've ever wondered about all the small schools in the Tournament, look at how many were automatic qualifiers and where they are seeded.

  • Messenger: Above the Fold