14 year old shot dead for egging a Jeep

[HailToTheThief]

Yep, this is what the world's coming to.

Tue Dec 19, 2:53 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio - It was the sort of commonplace misbehavior that raises blood pressure across the nation's roads: kids, out after midnight, egging cars along a busy thoroughfare.

This time, though, the mischief turned deadly. The driver of a targeted gray Jeep barreled after the boys and someone inside pulled a gun, firing multiple shots that killed 14-year-old Danny Crawford.

Police are still seeking the gunman more than two weeks after Crawford's death. They have interviewed the Jeep's owner but aren't saying if that person is a suspect.

"I'd like to know where he is. I'd like to know why he won't come out and admit what he did," said the teen's mother, Kelly Crawford, 35, a Fredericksburg, Va., office worker.

Crawford, raised in Virginia, where he lived with his mother, had moved to Columbus over the summer to be with his father. He decided to stay for the school year, attending eighth grade at a middle school a few minutes from his house.

"We're just wondering why it happened to him and why would somebody even think to do that?" Hannah Pulse, 13, a friend, said of Crawford's slaying.

Crawford's death was reminiscent of a shooting in Indiana last year when a motorist whose truck had been egged by teenagers chased the youths and opened fire in a parking lot, killing one boy and wounding another.

Three years ago a young man in northeast Ohio was shot to death after throwing tomatoes at passing vehicles, a common prank in the Amish community.

Cars give people a sense of anonymous power that helps explain such confrontations, a type of road rage, said Northeastern University criminologist Jack Levin.

"People are reacting from their gut in the heat of the moment and if they had a little time to think about it and cool off they might not respond at all," he said.

Crawford's killing happened Dec. 2 in a struggling neighborhood of century-old homes plagued by poverty and drug abuse. It's common to see prostitutes after dark and hear late night gunfire.

The church parking lot where Crawford and his buddies were hanging out that night is about a mile from his father's house, and friends said he didn't know the layout well.

Family and schoolmates said Crawford _ called D.J. by his family _ was fun to be around and made a point of helping other kids, cheering them up if they had a bad day.

"Danny was a nice kid, he doesn't get in a lot of trouble," said 12-year-old Cyril Butler, a seventh-grader who played pickup football with Crawford. "He was hanging around the wrong people, honestly."

The boys shouldn't have been throwing eggs at cars, said other teens from the area. But they also said nothing the boys did justified a fatal shooting.

"That's what kids do, they have fun on the weekends," said Kwon Wright, 16, a sophomore at nearby West High School. "That's what him and his boys was up to _ having fun doing what they do."

It was after midnight when the shooting happened. The teens were on a lighted church parking lot where it was common for kids to play basketball or roller-skate, and adults were nearby. Someone showed up with eggs, and the kids started tossing them at each other, said Bobby Messer, 43, father of 14-year-old Devon.

At some point, police say, the boys began lobbing the eggs at cars along a busy four-lane city stretch of U.S. 40, the old National Road that divides Columbus in two. A police detective says it was another boy who threw the egg that hit the Jeep.

Family members say the prank was out of character for Danny.

"We had hoped that he would graduate from high school, possibly go to college," said his grandmother, Gayle Shiner, 65, of Fork Union, Va.. "We hoped he would date and marry and have children, and of course all of that was ended because of somebody's stupidity."

[AmyW]

The boys shouldn't have been throwing eggs at cars, said other teens from the area. But they also said nothing the boys did justified a fatal shooting.


I have to agree with this. Kids do stupid things. I egged a car, hey, who didn't? If you are able to follow the kids that did it, you get the license number or complain to the parents. You DON'T pull out a gun and start blasting. How irresponsible and horrible! I'm shocked and appalled after reading this story. My heart goes out to Danny's family and friends.

[torch1974]

Freely available guns are the problem here. The guy egged loses his temper and reaches into the glove compartment and takes out his gun. If the guy didn't have the gun, it would be unlikely he would of killed anyone.

[AmyW]

I'm not sure I agree with that. If someone has a temper problem where they'd shoot a kid for egging their car, they'd find a way to hurt them regardless. He might have tried to run their car off the road or even beat the kid to death. That man was just violent.

[torch1974]

Originally Posted by AmyW

I'm not sure I agree with that. If someone has a temper problem where they'd shoot a kid for egging their car, they'd find a way to hurt them regardless. He might have tried to run their car off the road or even beat the kid to death. That man was just violent.

Hmmmm, so the fact he was carrying a gun made no difference to how he reacted? It's pretty easy to fire off a clip, it's considerably harder to chase someone down and beat or stab them to death!. Also, if he didn't have a gun would he of had the balls to chase a gang of youths down? What's to stop the kids fighting back? People tend to be much braver and stupider when they have a firearm in their hands.

[Gaiar]

The thing is had he not of had a gun he would most likely of still hurt the kid, most likely using the car as a weapon by running the kid over. The thing is I hope the guy is put behind bars for quite some time since egging a car is no real excuse for shooting or killing a kid in any way. Its like the guy who shot the girl in the car as she and her friends had been driving around after he chased them off his property. That they had been looking around since they had heard "stories" about it being haunted.

The thing is guns while it makes it a lot easier to terrorize people. the Truth is a gun does not make you anymore violent nor does the lack of one make you any less violent.

[torch1974]

Hi Gaiar,

I accept your point that being armed or not does not change your personality type, other than to make you braver, at the end of the day a sociopath is a sociopath, whether they have a gun or not. One thing is for sure, people like that murderer should not have access to a gun, period!. I don't know what the gun laws are like in Ohio, so will be interested once the guy is caught to see if the weapon was legal or not.

One observation I do have as a Brit, is if this had happened in Britain, it would have been on every front page and news programme, yet there is hardly any coverage in the US media!.

The article I read on ABC 13, said the police have interviewed the driver of the jeep, interviewed! the guy should have been arrested as a matter of course, threatened with a murder charge as a incentive to "give up his friend".

Since the article says nothing about the jeep being stolen, it is safe to assume that the owner was either in the car or aware of who was.

[Gaiar]

Im actually unsure of the legal laws involving guns in Ohio myself. This is because I live in PA so while its only across the boarder I don't have much true insight into their gun laws. Though youd be right most states have such a law but the problem is traditionally when your buying a gun its little more then them running a background check. Rather then so much a Psyche evaluation. When you can keep yourself from getting in legal trouble.

Your right about it not being that well known I mean I live about an hour and a half from the shooting, though this is actually the first iv heard about this event. It hadn't been very well broadcast due to their opinion how little of concern it was. With most of the news events being seen as global issues.

The thing is I don't know how far arresting the driver of the jeep would get them in the scenario that the driver did say his friend did it.

[112965]

I agree with Torch the guy loses his temper the gun is in his reach. It's just tragic to lose a life over something like this.

[torch1974]

I seem to detect a lack of sympathy for this murder victim. When I was a lad at school, me and my friends used to throw snow balls at passing cars and buses, I think I was around 10 or 11 years old. Luckily for me, I don't live in America or it seems likely someone would have shot me dead!!!. If someone eggs your car then swear at them or egg them back, you don't pull a gun and kill them!.

BTW, does anyone have a update about this case? Have they caught the murderer yet?