ONTD Political

Woman Shoots, Kills Intruder: 911 Operators Say Its OK To Shoot

4:30 pm - 01/04/2012
By KEVIN DOLAK and RYAN OWENS | Good Morning America – 4 hours ago

A young Oklahoma mother shot and killed an intruder to protect her 3-month-old baby on New Year's Eve, less than a week after the baby's father died of cancer.

Sarah McKinley says that a week earlier a man named Justin Martin dropped by on the day of her husband's funeral, claiming that he was a neighbor who wanted to say hello. The 18-year-old Oklahoma City area woman did not let him into her home that day.

On New Year's Eve Martin returned with another man, Dustin Stewart, and this time was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife. The two soon began trying to break into McKinley's home.

As one of the men was going from door to door outside her home trying to gain entry, McKinley called 911 and grabbed her 12-gauge shotgun.

McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO that she quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby's mouth and called 911.

"I've got two guns in my hand -- is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?" the young mother asked the 911 dispatcher. "I'm here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?"

The 911 dispatcher confirmed with McKinley that the doors to her home were locked as she asked again if it was okay to shoot the intruder if he were to come through her door.

"I can't tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby," the dispatcher told her. McKinley was on the phone with 911 for a total of 21 minutes.

When Martin kicked in the door and came after her with the knife, the teen mom shot and killed the 24-year-old. Police are calling the shooting justified.

"You're allowed to shoot an unauthorized person that is in your home. The law provides you the remedy, and sanctions the use of deadly force," Det. Dan Huff of the Blanchard police said.

Stewart soon turned himself in to police.

McKinley said that she was at home alone with her newborn that night because her husband just died of cancer on Christmas Day.

"I wouldn't have done it, but it was my son," McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO. "It's not an easy decision to make, but it was either going to be him or my son. And it wasn't going to be my son. There's nothing more dangerous than a woman with a child."

Source

A great story. Good job to this woman! Glad her child is safe.

vehemencet_t 4th-Jan-2012 09:50 pm (UTC)
Yes it does seem like you are pointlessly grudging, but you knew that.

It is terrible as hell all the loss she has suffered and that some fucks would try to use that to get at her when she was down. That said I'm just glad she and her child are not YET ANOTHER statistic on the violence against women wall of shame.

And yeah--"great!" I take particular pleasure in seeing the "little (person" come out on top.

Thank you very much.
vehemencet_t 4th-Jan-2012 10:05 pm (UTC)
Well alright then. Because I agree with you how awful it is.

BUT, like I said, I can't help but feel really good when I see the "underdog" stand up to bullies and come out on top. I can't help that. That's all it was.
vehemencet_t 4th-Jan-2012 10:30 pm (UTC)
Why don't you THINK about what my comment actually said rather than just making an ass out of you and me by assuming I was completely mocking/laughing and celebrating her tragedy. I mean SERIOUSLY? Have some context.
chaya 4th-Jan-2012 10:43 pm (UTC)
completely mocking/laughing and celebrating her tragedy

Where is that even from jw
meran_flash 4th-Jan-2012 11:12 pm (UTC)
You're doing it again. Once again, the only consistent factor in all of these "misunderstandings" is you. lrn2communicate
freebacon 5th-Jan-2012 04:02 am (UTC)
because people sometimes assume things due to how you communicate to the world

you really need to brush up on your Communications class, i'll bet your teacher would be so disappointed!
darsynia 5th-Jan-2012 02:18 am (UTC)
I think what folks are objecting to is the idea that it's 'great' to YOU because you aren't picturing yourself in her place, maybe. Like of course you're not the bad guy in this or the dead guy so you can look at it as triumph but as a pregnant woman with night terrors all I can do is look at this and go 'this right here. This is my worst fucking nightmare' and be terrified to death just picturing having to go through HALF of what she's doing. I'd 100% kill for my daughter that's already born and sure as hell for the one that's not, but I don't want to have to live with that a week after my husband has died, much less live with it at ALL.

I hope this makes sense--many of us don't see this as 'great' as much as 'fucking terrifying ohgodohgodohgod.'
tmlforsyth 5th-Jan-2012 12:59 am (UTC)
I don't consider her act to be murder, but taking a life is a terrible thing to go through, and I do hope she heals from that experience. The good news is in a followup where the community is coming to her aid. After that experience, she could use a few hours with baby kittens to de-stress.
forsythia9 7th-Jan-2012 07:12 am (UTC)
This is exactly what I was going to comment on. It's more justifiable homicide. Murder is unlawful killing with malice aforethought.
subversive_kiwi 5th-Jan-2012 04:05 am (UTC)
Hey, dude. So I know this is kind of late, but I saw your posted images that try to tie gun control laws to systemic mass-murder. I'm being as polite as I can, so I'll make it quick - my whole family was destroyed during purges against Jews both during the Holocaust and during Stalin's purges. This is living history for a lot of people. Families were absolutely devastated, and the after-effects continue. My grandfather only told us right before his death that his whole side of the family died at Babi-Yar, the largest mass grave in the world. I grew up knowing that if I didn't tiptoe up the stairs at night, my grandmother would remember the sound of jackboots on the stairs and have a PTSD flashback, triggering a panic attack that could last for hours. I just want you to understand that this is real and present to a lot of people. You don't get to point at our suffering and say HERP DERP GUN LAWS CAUSED THAT. You degrade us, and yourself.

So on their behalf, FUCK YOU. Study history before you open your mouth, you ignorant prick. If it fucking counts for anything, I did my undergrad dissertation on the spread of power in totalitarian dictatorships, focusing on North Korea. This is the subject area I am preparing to study for the rest of my life. So if you want to challenge me on this, bring it.

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romp 5th-Jan-2012 04:42 am (UTC)
thanks for writing that
vehemencet_t 5th-Jan-2012 12:28 pm (UTC)
Alright, macho "undergrad", North Korea has gun control right? It's difficult to find a firm piece of law about it, but this illustrates the extremely low numbers of gun ownership (http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/north-korea).

Also, yes, it is awful that those acts of genocide were committed, and awful how many people abandoned them to their fates. Compare and contrast that example, however, to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising), and the Bielski partisans rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski_partisans).

I have studied history. I still study history. I'm glad you are devoting your life to doing so. But the fact remains, and the American Founding Fathers understood this and tried to teach their descendants this, that having equal weapons to the class in power available to the people with a simplistic enough design to be readily utilized by them was indispensable to remaining free and holding the government in check from becoming totalitarian as well as providing a domestic bulwark against invasion. http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndfqu.html
subversive_kiwi 5th-Jan-2012 08:12 pm (UTC)
No need to condescend to me, that was my senior thesis. You call me macho, I'll start talking about neo-Foucauldian biopolitics and how the process of dehumanization happens in totalitarian countries, rendering it a public service to kill members of the targeted population. Hell, I can throw in some Giorgio Esposito and talk about homo sacer as well. The principle there is that when the cultural violence of declaring one group of people unworthy of life is committed, it doesn't matter much if you have a pistol. The entire civilian populace is against you, and wants you dead whether it be through beatings on the street or handing you over to the secret police. There is actually no way to protect yourself adequately after that state of totalitarianism has come to pass, other than fleeing the country (if possible.) If the government is targeting not an ethnic group but a political one, as in North Korea, it may also be possible to appearing to be such a paragon of good citizenship that you are not in immediate danger of being accused of treason. No matter how many anti-aircraft guns you happen to have, it will not do anything other than alerting the police and the military that you are a threat, and need to be squashed.

Looking at the sources that you provided, I see that in the entry on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, it is prominently written that "Just a few rifles and automatic firearms smuggled into the Ghetto were available. The insurgents had little ammunition, and relied heavily on improvised explosive devices and incendiary bottles." This is the opposite of readily available firearms. People are well known for creating improvised weapons, but gun availability on the street to the individual will not allow them to do much other than suicide by cop. This pattern of improvised arms holds true for partisan forces in France during WWII and in Spain before Franco's regime. Even the Bielski Partisan group that you cite were only able to remain active from 1942 to 1944. They were scattered by the NKVD, and the remaining brothers could only flee to the West to escape, a tactic I mentioned above.

If you want to make a serious argument that freely available arms among the citizenry are necessary to prevent totalitarianism, please cite an academic paper. Your "guncite" link consists only of the personal beliefs of early Americans, and this does not constitute any sort of historical argument. Besides, the people quoted are not talking about totalitarianism as it exists today, since they predate the regimes that we are discussing.

In conclusion, things are not as simplistic as "guns help me shoot bad guys, I prevent tyranny." (Not quoting you, just stating the logic of your position.) Life is not "V For Vendetta." You are trying to use the logical fallacy "post hoc ergo propter hoc," or "because I did X thing before even Y, X must have caused Y." Except... that doesn't work either, because the articles you cite don't even factually support your position.

In honor of my grandfather's memory,

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freebacon 5th-Jan-2012 08:21 pm (UTC)
you are amazing and i'm so sorry you have to put up with this dude's ignorance and horseshit
vehemencet_t 5th-Jan-2012 09:44 pm (UTC)
My problems with your explanation are thus-- 1) during the Holocaust, many people were, through an impressive amount of propaganda, kept in the dark about the existence of the genocide operations until rumors began to spread and build. I won't bother citing it since, as one who's studied this, you must undoubtedly be aware of how some were forced to write post cards from the camps telling what wonderful new living conditions they were in, etc. Now the state hiding the true nature of its operations is nothing new, but we also know other people who *were* aware of the situation, such as the case of a church that "sung all the louder to god in order to cover the sound of Jews being taken away" did nothing, though as we also know there are some incredible stories of those who took in Jews and hid them and helped them escape the country. I'm sure you are also aware of the horrid economic conditions of the Weimar Republic, a direct result of the severe reparations imposed on Germany by the U.S. and its Allies after World War I that made it particularly susceptible to demagoguery and fascism in the hopes of a political savior restoring their glory as a people.

Regarding Nazi gun control.

The Night of the Broken Glass took place in November 1938. It was preceded by the confiscation of firearms from the Jewish victims. On Nov. 8, The New York Times reported from Berlin, "Berlin Police Head Announces 'Disarming' of Jews," explaining:

"The Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been 'disarmed' with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment."1

On the evening of Nov. 9, Adolph Hitler, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and other Nazi chiefs planned the attack. Orders went out to Nazi security forces: "All Jewish stores are to be destroyed immediately. Jewish synagogues are to be set on fire . The Führer wishes that the police does not intervene. All Jews are to be disarmed. In the event of resistance they are to be shot immediately."2

All hell broke loose on Nov. 10: "Nazis Smash, Loot and Burn Jewish Shops and Temples," a headline read. "One of the first legal measures issued was an order by Heinrich Himmler, commander of all German police, forbidding Jews to possess any weapons whatever and imposing a penalty of twenty years confinement in a concentration camp upon every Jew found in possession of a weapon hereafter."3 Thousands of Jews were taken away.

Searches of Jewish homes were calculated to seize firearms and assets and to arrest adult males. The American Consulate in Stuttgart was flooded with Jews begging for visas: "Men in whose homes old, rusty revolvers had been found during the last few days cried aloud that they did not dare ever again return to their places of residence or business. In fact, it was a mass of seething, panic-stricken humanity."4

1. The New York Times, Nov. 9, 1938, 24.

2. Gerald Schawb, The Day the Holocaust Began (New York: Praeger, 1990), 22.

3. The New York Times, Nov. 11, 1938, 1, 4.

4. The Holocaust, Vol. 3, The Crystal Night Pogrom, John Mendelsohn, ed. (New York: Garland, 1982), 183-84.
vehemencet_t 5th-Jan-2012 09:44 pm (UTC)
Also as for the assertion that your family was affected by the tragedy and thus have a special power to decide this matter, see Jews For the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, whose members include Holocaust survivors, and who do what they do partly because of what happened during the Holocaust and other similar scenarios. They have several publications explaining their historical line of thinking. http://jpfo.org/

Finally, while I essentially agree with your analysis that making a group into a homo sacer can make it difficult to survive at all because of the surrounding citizens becoming informants and spies and thus precipitate fleeing the country, you have to realize that those two examples I gave, as well as a few smaller skirmishes such as one in Sobibor ghetto, i.e. Jews resisting Nazi tyranny and submitting even to death is that the rebels in the former case were able to acquire some measure of weaponry as well as make their own and obtain supplies. Warsaw was an Alamo from the start--they didn't appear to expect to survive. The Pielski's were quite craft and made it by surviving in the woods for years while conducting guerilla assaults against the Germans with stolen or inherited hidden weapons.

Now, historically, do you not think that if there had been more firearms available to the Jews at that time, in other words has not been obediently registered and then later confiscated, that armed resistance like those cases might not have been more common? That was my theory.
deleriumd 6th-Jan-2012 02:45 am (UTC)
While this has been said before, I am literally cheering for you. Both for your brilliance and the fact that we're both in 'literarytattoos'.
alryssa 5th-Jan-2012 08:16 pm (UTC)
Holy shit you are just a terrible person and you are demonstrating no sense of empathy whatsoever. STOP COMMENTING, SERIOUSLY, YOU ARE NOT HELPING YOURSELF.

Also, why the fuck are you putting undergrad in scare quotes? Do you think subversive_kiwi is lying about their undergraduate status? Because that's pretty much the only reason scare quotes get used, and that's a pretty shitty thing for you to do.
subversive_kiwi 5th-Jan-2012 08:26 pm (UTC)
Haha, and I'm not even an undergrad anymore. That was the culminating, 100+ page thesis that I wrote last year in order to graduate. I'm between college and grad school at the moment.
crossfire 5th-Jan-2012 05:40 pm (UTC)
AFAIC you don't need to engage this douche at all...but if you decide to pick up the loltastic wikipedia gauntlet he just threw down I'm totally getting some popcorn because you're gonna own his ass.
subversive_kiwi 5th-Jan-2012 08:13 pm (UTC)
Get out the popcorn, I think this one is going to be tenacious.
darsynia 6th-Jan-2012 04:08 pm (UTC)
This is a fantastic comment and you should feel good for posting it. Thank you for posting it, as well, and I am sorry that you had to relive some heartbreaking memories in order to do that.
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