Jury rendered a not-guilty verdict last night. Only took 3.5 hours of deliberation.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/pasco/...-popcorn-toss/


This story has a special place in my memory because it was the story that "woke me up" to the level of media manipulation going on out there. I recall reading a CNN online article about it, where it started with only the facts, then turned to almost poetry (ie, "words were exchanged, popcorn was thrown") before returning to the normal subject-verb-object sentences that you'd expect from the news. CNN was attempting to obfuscate (or diminish) the facts of the story that immediately preceded the gunshot. Back in those days, there were comments sections at the bottom of each story (in fact this might have been the story that caused CNN to remove their commenting system from most articles). In the comments, EVERY post was criticizing CNN on how they wrote the story and posted "here's what the police reports say actually happened" which directly contradicted what CNN's writers were saying.

In that article, they stated that the guy did shoot him after having popcorn thrown at him. Yeah it seems like a petty conversation took place before hand. Seems like a chitty situation either way. I keep seeing more and more stories about shootings in Florida. I hope it doesn't get more common. What honestly blew my mind was that inside edition story (I think) of the guy shooting through his windshield because an aggressive driver flashed a handgun outside his car window. Supposedly at the time no charges were filed against the guy. That was wild.

So the way the law works in Florida, is if you think you're about to be attacked, you have the right to shoot the person you think is about to harm you. His defense presented enough evidence (including security footage) to convince the jury that he could reasonably expect to be beaten by the other guy, rending the shooting justified. The thrown popcorn is a trivial aspect the media latched onto. The wife was shot in the hand while attempting to restrain her husband from harming the then-71 year old.


The "thrown popcorn so he shot" narrative reminds me of that story from a few months ago about "black guy compliments a white dude's gf, so the white guy shoots him". Then you see the mug shot of the white guy and its immediately clear the black guy had been beating the chit out of him.