Posted August 17, 2018 12:00 pm by Comments

By Tom Knighton

In many states, if not all, “Stand Your Ground” laws state that you can use lethal force to stop a “forcible felony” from taking place. Robbery, rape, murder, things like that. The idea is that you can’t just protect yourself, but you can protect others as well.

However, in Florida, an interesting case is going to test that standard to some extent. It seems a man fired on police officers because he thought they were kidnapping his niece.

A man accused of opening fire on three Brevard County deputies during a prostitution sting at his home in 2015 will use Florida’s stand your ground law to seek immunity from prosecution.

In a recorded hospital bed interview the night of the shootout, John DeRossett, who 65 at the time, told a police officer he had no idea the men pulling his niece, Mary DeRossett Ellis, from his Cocoa home the night of Aug. 20, 2015, were sheriff’s deputies.

“I didn’t know who they were,” DeRossett said. “It could have been the man in the moon, it could have been anyone. Who knows?”

Under Florida’s stand your ground statute a person is justified in the use of deadly force to prevent “the imminent commission …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms

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