The homeowner who fatally shot 20-year-old Nicholas Donofrio will not face charges due to the state's "castle doctrine" law, Columbia Police announced Wednesday.

The homeowner who fatally shot a 20-year-old University of South Carolina student who tried to enter the wrong home on the street he lived on Saturday morning will not face charges because the incident was deemed “a justifiable homicide” under state law, Columbia police announced Wednesday.

Police said the identity of the homeowner who fired the gunshot that killed Nicholas Donofrio shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday will not be released because the police department and the Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office determined his actions were justified under the state’s controversial “castle doctrine” law, which holds that people can act in self-defense towards “intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others.”

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
      15·
      2 years ago

      Just for curiosity’s sake, if it was the middle of the night and someone started pounding on your front door and yelling, then tried to kick your door in, then broke your window, reached in and started trying to unlock your door from the inside, what’s the civilized non-American response to that?

      • LordOfLocksley@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        2 years ago

        You engage them in conversion, explain to them simply they are at the wrong house, and keep pushing that point

        Source: I had this situation happen to me at uni, explained to the side he had the wrong house, showed him the house number, and he calmly left.

      • kicksystem@lemmy.world
        6·
        2 years ago
        1. Talk to the person
        2. Call the police and tell the person the police is coming
        3. Block the person from coming in
        4. If he comes in anyway use tools like baseball bat, hammer or kitchen knife to defend yourself
      • Leo_agiad@sh.itjust.works
        9·
        2 years ago

        The U.S. spends a tremendous amount of its energy on paranoia, checks and balances, and being remarkably resistant to large-scale changes of the status quo, particularly with respect to rights attendant to private property.

        In the current period of bullet trains, wind farms, and unisex bathrooms, it is incredibly inconvenient, even dangerous in its own right. It looks like an operating system bug, but only because it is holding up a feature that the real owners of America don’t like advertised.

        There is a reason the dollar is still the global reserve currency- because the entire system was set up to make private property despot-and-revolution-resistant, and the smart money knows it.

        The world is heading into a major demographic shift that is going to hit everybody’s social model like a brick through a plate glass window- too many pensioners and not enough taxpayers, and no one has built the roomba that cooks and cleans for grandma yet. We will get to watch a preview in China and Russia quite soon. The pitchforks are going to come out again, and politicians will blow with the wind.

        But if you own land/stuff in America, you will still own land/stuff in America.

        I’m not saying it is right, or just. It is simply some useful perspective on what such an awkward, irritating, distributed, recursive system might have been designed for, because it certainly wasn’t designed for speed.

        The term “storm canvas” comes to mind, and with it a reminder to keep an eye to windward.

      • Soulg@lemmy.world
        38·
        2 years ago

        We hate having these garbage laws to protect rooty tooty point and shooty more than our actual citizens

        • Rusty3427@lemmy.world
          9·
          2 years ago

          Personal accountability. Don’t enter a mental state where you can’t identify your own house.

          Should I just allow someone to kick my door in?

          • Adalast@lemmy.world
            11·
            2 years ago

            “banged and kicked on the door” ≠ “kick door in”

            He was drunk and frustrated. He was likely kicking the base of the door trying to be loud enough to wake a roommate to open the door since he couldn’t get his key to work and was confused. Castle doctrine should not have applied here as he was likely not an obvious threat. The shooter could probably have talked with him through the door or, heaven forbid, actually opened the door and talked with him to figure out what was going on and helped the obviously inebriated young man home.

            Castle doctrine is intended for when someone is making an obvious threat with deadly intent. The way it is being implemented here you can shoot a proselytizing baptist dead on your porch because they were there to attack your soul.

            • FlowVoid@midwest.socialEnglish
              14·
              2 years ago

              He did more than make noise:

              While the woman was on the phone with police, Donofrio broke a glass window on the front door "and reached inside to manipulate the doorknob," at which point the male resident fired the shot through the broken window

              Regardless of what you think about gun laws, I think the resident had good reason to be concerned for his safety.

              • Adalast@lemmy.world
                1·
                2 years ago

                Yes, my only issue is what lead up to this point. Once he broke the glass, maybe I can see it being justified. But did he call the police? Did he actually talk to the guy or stand inside and ready himself to shoot him? Was there a non-lethal option? Could he have broken his wrist by pistol-whipping?

                Regardless of your stance on fun laws, I am sure we can agree that there have been far too many people shot through a front door this year to be comfortable. There was the girl who was selling Girl Scout cookies, the woman who was trying to deal with a neighbor who had violently assaulted her children with malice and a weapon, the guy who was lost and stopped to ask for directions. The list goes on. This country is founded on the idea that you can walk up to someone’s front door and knock on it. Barring posted signage to the contrary, it is a universal right of anyone to be able to walk up a driveway and knock on the door without fear of reprisal. Castle doctrine has been getting applied too broadly in recent years and needs to be reigned in. It needs to have reasonableness applied as to it being a last resort. It should also not extend beyond the castle walls. There were many reasonable actions that could have been taken in this case that obviously were not. A non-lethal shot? Hell, even a warning shot would have likely been enough to warn a drunk off. I am not saying that this is murder, or even manslaughter, but a life was unnecessarily snuffed out. This needs to be something. This idea that you can shoot someone on your front porch is reprehensible.

          • PowerGloveSoBad@lemmy.world
            8·
            2 years ago

            Exactly-- no one wants to take responsibility for themselves anymore, and then has the nerve to complain when they are justifiably executed on the spot. Maybe you won’t have that last beer next time

              • PowerGloveSoBad@lemmy.world
                5·
                2 years ago

                You wanna know what’s REALLY justifiable, buddy? Not reading the obvious sarcasm in phrases like “executed on the spot” because the US gun culture is deranged

          • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
            4·
            2 years ago

            Where the fuck were his friends? Sounds like he was blackout drunk. No one was sober enough to look out for him?

            Folks, if you friend gets this smashed, don’t let them wander off by themselves. All manner of bad could happen. Simply falling in a bad enough spot may be enough. People have been known to drown in their own vomit.

            If we did a better job of looking out for each other, it wouldn’t come to these shitty situations in the first place.

            • seejur@lemmy.worldEnglish
              6·
              2 years ago

              Regardless of how drunk you are, you should not get shot for a silly mistake which endangered no one. Gun laws and this obsession of defending private property in ALL cases is simply stupid. Losing your life because you got drunk is stupid

          • kattenluik@feddit.nl
            2·
            2 years ago

            Every country other than the US has wild break-in issues with fatal robberies happening 24/7 because they don’t have guns.

          • tchotchony@mander.xyz
            2·
            2 years ago

            No, but shooting them is an extreme reaction. I’m a woman alone. If this would have happened to me, I’d have barricaded the door, fled to another part of the house (there’s more than one door in), put more barricades in between us and made absolutely sure I screamed the neighbourhood awake. Once there’s more people to subdue him, the main problem is solved. Damages are to be covered by insurance. Now if he carried a gun, that’s an entirely different matter. Still, I don’t own a gun, never will, don’t think I’ll ever need one. Once a culture sees “shooting someone” as a first solution, things are down the drain imho.

            • Rusty3427@lemmy.world
              1·
              2 years ago

              So rely on other people to help. Ever hear of the story of Kitty Genovese? Dozens of people either saw her getting stabbed or heard her screams and nobody intervened or called the cops. Thanks, but no thanks.

              • tchotchony@mander.xyz
                1·
                2 years ago

                They were already on the phone with cops. I’m just buying time until they arrive. And he’s a drunk, as far as we know not a murderer. My first instinct is not to kill anybody who has a slightly bad day.

                • Rusty3427@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  2 years ago

                  Fight or flight. Some people run while others don’t. You can run all you want and assume they are drunks I have seen the darker side of humanity and will not assume the person doesn’t mean harm. Hindsight it’s easy to say oh he was just a drunk having a bad day. But when it’s 2am and they break a window to open the door, my first thought isn’t “this guy must be drunk”