Trial begins for Dallas man accused
of murdering neighbors in dog-poop dispute (1.7.14)
Dallas jury hands down verdict in
dog-poop revenge killings (1.9.14)
Fatal shooting tied to quarrel over
dog feces
Man claims dog poop feud killing was self-defense
Recently, Chung Kim,
an elderly Korean American man was sentenced to life in prison for shooting his
neighbors over an ongoing conflict over poop, urine, and noise. To call it a
simple dispute would trivialize the matter. Originally, there had been tension
over noise and excrement, which his neighbors had consistently dropped or sprayed into his yard by hosing
down waste in their own balcony, which was over his.
"It is well-documented that Jackson and Stafford frequently washed dog feces from their balcony onto Kim’s. The condo’s homeowners association received reports of dog-poop dumping dating back to August 2012.
Kim provided photos of his balcony’s poop-streaked windows, floors and walls to a variety of entities. Animal control eventually took the couple’s dog away, but the poop problems didn’t end. In December 2012, after Jackson gave birth to her fifth child, the couple began tossing dirty diapers over their balcony and onto the unit below them.
Kim and his wife owned their first floor condo and had lived there for more than a decade . . . . . In addition to voicing his complaints with the condo association, Kim reported the excrement issues to the Dallas Police Department, the City of Dallas Health and Human Services Department. Condo maintenance supervisor Keith Morris said he was aware of the ongoing dispute between Kim and his neighbors.Morris said he had personally cleaned Kim’s balcony on at least two occasions, and once used a power washer to remove the poop (Culture Map, 1.7.14.)."
He had brought this
matter up with the police, the health department, as well as his homeowner's
association. Unfortunately, they did not do much in the matter except for clean
his balcony in the case of the homeowner's association. Animal control took the
neighbors' dog away but after their fifth child was born, they "began tossing dirty diapers over their balcony"
and onto his unit (Culture Map, 1.7.14). After a year and more of
aggravated stress without much resolution to the problem, the man decided to
confront his neighbors after they had dumped dog poop on his front door and
patio. According to the Star-Telegram:
"Investigators believe that Michelle Jackson and Jamie Stafford, both 31, dumped their dog's excrement at the front door and on the patio of downstairs neighbor Chung Kim, 75, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
During a subsequent argument, Kim "produced a handgun" and fatally shot Jackson as she stood outside her front door on her balcony, the affidavit stated."
On 1.7.14, Culture
Map also reported that:
"Carlata Robinson, the condo’s HOA president, testified about the extent of the animal and baby feces on Kim’s property. She said the amount, location and frequency of the feces made it a health issue.
On January 31, 2013, more poop appeared on Kim’s balcony. This time, instead of being washed down from the balcony, it appeared to be piled up deliberately on Kim’s property.
“This issue has been ongoing for months,” Robinson wrote in an email the same day to the HOA board about Jackson and Stafford’s behavior. “Mr. Kim is about to reach his breaking point.”
There
was a heated confrontation and he shot several bullets, which ended up killing
the couple. I don't condone the way he handled it, but I don't think his
neighbors were without fault either. It was not a simple matter of a crazed man
who decided to "settle" things through violence. He had taken all the
reasonable measures to settle the matter by going to the police, the health
department, as well as his homeowner's situation. But they did not do much
except for get rid of the dogs. Evicting the tenants is not always such an easy
process. There are legal standards that need to be met, which may take a long
time. I don't understand why the police could not charge the neighbors with a
harassment violation or a violation of the public space like vandalism. I'm not
sure that vandalism would warrant jail time, but I think that it might have
been a deterrent to the harassing behavior of his neighbors and might have
given his homeowner's association more legal ground to evict them. Graffiti vandals
do get charged, so I do not understand why something that is much worse than
graffiti, a public health violation as well as the intentional infliction of
emotional distress, not up to legal scrutiny. Unless laws in Dallas are grossly
different from those in the rest of the United States, we have a case of
incompetence by the authorities. We have an elderly man who felt overwhelmed by
his living situation and the constant, daily emotional distress it caused him
due to the incompetence of the legal system. Thus, the old man had to put up
with this torment for a long period of a year and several months. Some people
say that he should have just moved out, but that is very blasé. Not everyone
has the means to move out. This was a retired old man on a limited income, so
just renting another place may have been a strain on his resources. His defense
attorney, "Warren[,] pointed out that Kim had no prior issues with the
homeowners association. 'He's been
there for years, and this couple comes in and in a matter of months, shakes up
his world (Culture Map).' " There was no mention of previous issues with
Mr. Kim during the trial, which the prosecutor would have brought up because it
would have bolstered his case, so I think we can safely assume that he had no
prior issues before these neighbors moved in. It was only after he had gone
through all the legal channels available to him and finding poop on his front
door and balcony did he decided to confront the neighbors on his own.
You can look at a
matter like this and say that it is silly, but if you can imagine having to
deal with the emotional distress of poop flooding your yard on a daily basis
and not just clean poop that you can pick up and throw away, but poop that is
drenched in water so that your whole yard becomes a poop drenched mess, then I
think you would be more sympathetic. The man had been through a lot at that
point. He was weak and elderly. People don't appreciate how vulnerable elderly
people can be. Their bodies and minds are weak so they just can't take these
kinds of assaults in the same way that younger people can. If he had been a
forty year old man, it would have been a different story, but I still think the
neighbors would have been culpable for some of the situation. Just looking at
pictures of the man, you can tell that he is of a frail mind and body. That
doesn't excuse shooting people at any hint of anger. There should be
consequences for what he did. At the same time, he was under severe emotional
duress and so the shooting was aggravated. By the actions of the neighbors and
the inactions or impotence of the legal system, he was made to feel that he had
no recourse. Elderly people spend a lot of time at home and so it's important
for them to have a peaceful environment as any change in their environment
would affect them greatly. This situation was not just a minor inconvenience.
It was vigilant harassment and emotional terrorism. His neighbors felt free and
audacious to "get him back" for having their dogs taken.
One
can make an argument for dog poop laying on the ground to a certain extent as
that's where dogs need to go. That still does not excuse leaving dog poop on
the ground. However, one cannot make the argument for a child's feces to be on
the ground when his parents intentionally throw it over their balcony or drench
dog poop with water so that it floods into their neighbor's balcony. Can you
imagine having to deal with that day in and day out? “Dog poop, repeatedly thrown — not just a pile that’s easily swept up, but liquefied dog feces [poured] on the windows,
walls and doors, multiple times. Over and over again, Mr. Kim tried to rectify
this in a civil manner (Culture Map, 1.9.14.).” In an earlier article, it was mentioned that
"Kim provided photos of
his balcony’s poop-streaked windows, floors and walls to a variety of entities
(Culture Map 1.7.14)." Can you imagine being an
elderly person who spends a lot of time at home having to live around such
people and having to deal with their concerted harassment day in and day out?
Older people are generally weak, so it would have been a great hardship to have
to clean up his whole yard EVERY SINGLE DAY or perhaps every time the child's
diapers got changed. Can you imagine that? It would be difficult for anyone,
young or old, to deal with on an emotional and practical level. The old guy
felt trapped because he had taken all the measures he knew how and I don't
believe that he should have had to do more than calling the police to rectify
the situation although it would have been the best for him if he had not shot
his neighbors. He did much more than most people would have done by contacting
the police, the health department, and the homeowner's association. I can see
how any reasonable person, especially one of such advanced age, would have been
taxed by the situation on a legal, emotional, and practical basis. The fact
that the jury indicted him for capital murder is a grave injustice and suggests
that they really did not take into his emotional capacity at that time.
What he should have
gotten is the insanity defense as he was under great emotional distress and
limited mental capacity. The guy is 76 years old and so, he does not have much
longer to live. Even without that consideration, he should have gotten the insanity
defense and sent to a facility for evaluation until he was deemed to be
mentally stable by a psychiatrist. He
had to endure a lot of emotional distress on a daily basis for months and
months, which caused him to reach his breaking point as Robinson, the president
of the homeowner's association warned of. I just think it's sad that he gets
life in prison for something that he was greatly aggravated into doing. He did
not shoot at the first sign of dog feces. He went through all the legal
channels to get the matter resolved, but the authorities were too inept or
impotent to take any effective action, except for getting rid of the dogs. I
cannot understand why the housing association could not evict the tenants after
fair warning like maybe two times, but there are certain mandates that need to
be upheld in such a process and without the backup of the authorities like the
police to charge the tenants with anything, I don't think there was much they
could do unless it was explicitly stated in the housing contract.
It is sad that there
are children that will grow up without their parents, but at the same time,
these people need to be held accountable whether or not they have children. It
was unfortunate that the authorities were too inept to do anything about these
individuals, but there are consequences to affecting others in a negative way.
Based on the reports of how the neighbors acted, I really don't think their
children are going to miss out on great role models. These are people who acted
as animals, throwing feces on a daily basis over their neighbor's balcony.
These are people who willing trashed their own balcony by leaving or throwing
feces onto it and washing over it with a hose so that the water would flow into
and drench their neighbor's yard with fecal matter. These are people who chose
to "take revenge" on their neighbor because the authorities made them
give up their dogs as a result of their own negligence and harassment. These are people who feel that they can do
anything they want without regard to the consequences. These are not civilized
people who have the basic understanding that other people need to be treated
with respect. These are individuals who feel that they can do whatever they want
and will only comply if it threatens their personal interests or you have power
over them. They may be nice to their family and friends, but have little regard
for others who have no value in their eyes. These are the people that the
elderly and vulnerable man had to deal with for months on end on a day-to-day
basis, so I do not have much sympathy for them. Sometimes, the response to an
action may be too much, but at the same time, if one does something that is
hurtful to another, one cannot be outraged when the other person reacts in the
only way they know how to protect themselves. We cannot say, "No, you have
to protect yourself in this way." We can say, don't go crazy in how you
deal with something, but some people are led to that point by their aggressors
like in the case of this man. If the old man were more emotionally resilient
and mentally tough, perhaps it would be reasonable for him to "rise
above" the situation and find other ways to deal with it. But in this
case, he was frail and elderly and emotionally exhausted due to the situation
and he took all the reasonable channels to address his concerns yet they were
not resolved. I believe that he did the best he could based on his age,
physical and emotional condition, as well as resources. The conditions he was
forced to deal with on a day to day basis would have brought about charges of
criminal neglect had he been a parent or caregiver of someone that was mentally
ill. But in this case, there were no such charges. So he had to deal with the
matter the only way he knew how.
I don't believe that
he set about to kill the neighbors, but he did have to arm himself as he needed
to deal with these barbarians and that is saying a lot as I am generally not in
favor of guns in the home. This was an extreme situation. Had the neighbors
been civil enough to just take responsibility for their mess and leave it at
that, the matter would have been resolved, but instead, they chose to continue
to inflame and instigate the matter by continuing their ongoing harassment of
the old man. If you are ever in this situation, obviously, guns are not the
answer. But I don't know how much presence of mind you can expect from someone
like this man in this type of situation. It would certainly be different if he
was in his forties. One would certainly expect more presence of mind, but by
the time one gets to this man's age, typically there is a feeble mindedness
that occurs unless one is proactive about their health. He wasn't a super
healthy old man, but one that was frail and at his breaking point.
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