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Idiot with a gun
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Ruling stuns family of man shot at homeBy CINDY CLAYTON, The Virginian-Pilotc December 9, 2001 NORFOLK -- Scott H. Rein was getting ready to sit down and watch the game inside his Ocean View home on Super Bowl Sunday when the unthinkable happened. A bullet from a Rossi .357-caliber revolver shattered the glass in his back door, hit Rein in the back and sailed through a living room window. Rein, who was alone in his home on West Balview Avenue, died on the living room floor. His body was discovered later by his fiancee, Eldine Erickson. Police arrested Timothy W. Woods, 32, a sailor who lived behind Rein's home in a duplex in the 9500 block of Lakeside Drive. Woods had been playing with a gun in his front yard when it fired. In September, prosecutors argued that Woods' reckless handling of the gun constituted criminal negligence. But Circuit Judge Junius P. Fulton III disagreed and dismissed charges against Woods of involuntary manslaughter and shooting into an occupied home. ``It's a tragedy and as a consequence, a man is dead and I can't think of a more unfortunate circumstance,'' Fulton said while delivering his verdict. ``And the tragedy is we have to essentially not consider that as part of the evidence because the criminal's liability is based on his actions, not necessarily the value of the life that was lost.'' Fulton's words stunned Rein's family and friends, who have struggled to comprehend how the 53-year-old Vietnam veteran and former sheriff's deputy could be taken away from them so suddenly. ``There's just no way you can call this justice,'' Erickson said. Hate may be too strong a word for how they feel about Woods, they said. Deep down, they know he meant no harm to Rein. But they wonder how Fulton could let Woods walk away. ``I was floored beyond belief,'' said Rein's daughter, Jenny Darieng. ``One part of me says give him everything he can get. Another part says I believe it was an accident.'' It was about 6:45 p.m. on Jan. 28 when Woods, his girlfriend, Stacey Summers, and his daughter arrived home to the 9500 block of Lakeside Drive from seeing a movie. They heard two gunshots outside. Woods told police in a statement filed in court that his first instinct was to go outside to his car to get the newly purchased Rossi and fire off a warning shot in response. But instead of firing a warning shot, Woods said, he held the gun and admired it. He pulled the trigger several times while keeping the hammer from striking the casing. But something happened, he said, and the gun fired. He wasn't sure where the bullet went. When he came home later that night from a party in Virginia Beach, Woods said, he saw the police at Rein's house and got scared. His mind racing, he went to a pay phone to call Summers, who told him to come home. ``I went to the house and the police asked me to park on the curb because they were still investigating,'' Woods told detectives. ``And I went in the house and woke her up, crying, because I thought I had possibly killed somebody.'' The next morning, he said, he took the casing out of the gun and left for work. As he stood aboard the dock landing ship Oak Hill, he smoked a cigarette and held the casing in his hand. He thought about the situation, then threw the casing into the water, he told police. About two weeks later, Woods was arrested and charged with murder. The charge later was lowered to involuntary manslaugh\ter. Erickson and Darieng said they didn't hear the entire story until the trial. They were sure he would be convicted. ``Some people would say that reckless handling of a firearm is criminal negligence, but the law requires more,'' said Woods' attorney B. Thomas Reed. ``You have to show that it was purposely pointed at the house.'' Reed has not heard from Woods, who he said had once been in the Army and held a job as a corrections officer in Texas. His service record, Reed said, was unblemished. He believes that Woods may have gone back to Texas. Woods could not be reached for comment. ``It's a sad and tragic ending,'' Reed said. ``It's an ending that reasonable people could differ on.'' The picture of Rein that used to sit on the TV in the house he once shared with Erickson has been moved to another room. ``It was making people uncomfortable,'' Erickson said. She has rearranged the living room furniture. Friends from the Fleet Reserve Association changed the carpet. The shattered door and window panes were replaced, but the bullet also had torn through a curtain. ``Others brought curtains so I wouldn't have to look at the hole anymore,'' Erickson said. Nothing can replace the hollow feeling she gets when she looks around the home. She pictures Rein, retired from the Navy and the Norfolk Sheriff's Department, watching the Green Bay Packers or Jeff Gordon on TV. She still can hear him walking down the hallway toward the kitchen. She and Darieng wish that Woods could understand how his actions changed their lives. ``I just want to know why,'' Erickson said. ``The only thing I think about,'' she said, ``is I hope he remembers this for the rest of his life, and may he never come home to it. I hope he never picks up a gun again.''
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