Bar owner who shot and killed a rioter in Omaha commits suicide after being charged in his death.

 

Screenshot from the video of the shooting. KMTV/Daily Mail.

 A bar owner who shot and killed a rioter in Omaha has committed suicide after being charged in his death. The Daily Mail. Jake Gardner, 38, confronted Black Lives Matter rioters in Omaha outside of his business. There was a scuffle and Gardner was knocked down on the ground and he fired two shots. 22 year old James Scurlock jumped on Gardner's back and then was shot and killed. The DA initially refused to press charges but pressure from activists sent to the case to the grand jury, which came back with four charges for Gardner, including manslaughter, terroristic threats, attempted assault and using a weapon. Gardner was a Marine veteran with PTSD and had fled the area due to threats against his life and he committed suicide in Oregon. His lawyers said they were confident that he would beat the charges on the grounds of self-defense while the special prosecutor said that there was evidence of Garner planning the incident. Gardner had been charged in the past for various crimes, some involving weapons.

My Comment:

A sad outcome to this case. It's unclear if it was self defense or not but Gardner will never get his day in court now. With his death the truth will likely never come out. It's possible more information will come out but we will never know if the case would have ended with an acquittal or with a conviction. 

From what I understand Gardner had a bad time of it. Not only was he charged with several crimes, he fled to California because of the massive amount of death threats he was getting from Black Lives Matter and other groups. When he got to California he had to be evacuated from the massive fires there and he ended up killing himself in Oregon. I am guessing it was just too much for a guy with PTSD to handle. 

There is video of the shooting but it doesn't show much and there isn't any audio. Some are claiming that Gardner said something racist, which is possible, but doesn't justify an attack on him. Getting knocked down and jumped on seems like a pretty good case for self defense, so unless there is some severe context we are missing I have no idea why the case was charged this way. My guess is that it was politically motivated. 

I have no sympathy for Scurlock. Even if Gardner was the bad actor, Scurlock caused his own death by jumping on Gardner. He never would have been shot if he hadn't tried to fight a guy armed with a gun. Even if Gardner was an avowed racist or something, the dumbest thing anyone could do is try and tackle someone armed with a gun. If you do that you are probably going to get shot. I don't know why Black Lives Matter is supporting Scurlock, he was an idiot. 

I do think that much of the blame for this incident is on Black Lives Matter and the lack of police response. People wouldn't have to protect their properties from rioters if these riots weren't happening or if police cracked down hard on them.