An Orangeburg County man who shot and wounded a DEA agent during a surprise pre-dawn drug raid outside his home last fall was sentenced to eight years in prison Monday.
Just before U.S. Judge Michelle Childs passed sentence on Joel Robinson, 33, the agent Robinson shot told the judge there was no excuse for Robinson’s shooting him and that he almost lost his life.
“Two inches higher, it would have been a head shot. Two inches lower, it could have gone under my (bulletproof) vest,” said agent Barry Wilson, a 17-year law enforcement veteran.
Some nine months after Robinson shot him in the arm, breaking his elbow and forearm, Wilson has racked up $82,158 in medical bills, has nerve damage and might need another operation. The total is apparently covered by government medical and disability insurance, but Robinson has been ordered to repay that amount to the insurer as restitution.
Robinson had no reason to shoot at the agents, who were wearing reflective vests marked police and yelling “Police!” when he dashed naked out the back door shooting a .45 caliber handgun, Wilson said.
“Mr. Robinson didn’t ask who we were,” Wilson said. “He simply launched an assault.”
If Robinson truly believed he was the subject of a home invasion, he should have called 911, Wilson said.
Although the agent said he was glad Robinson stopped shooting at him after firing two shots, it was probably that he was running out of bullets and saw so many law officers in his back yard.
“That’s when he decided to surrender,” Wilson said. “I can forgive Mr. Robinson. That doesn’t mean there are not consequences that should come from this.”
One Robinson lawyer, Jim Griffin, said his client had been using marijuana just before the shooting and his mind “may very well have been clouded.”
Another Robinson lawyer, Dick Harpootlian, said Robinson is not only sorry for shooting the agent but grateful the law officers surrounding his house didn’t gun him down after he shot Wilson. Only after shooting Wilson did Robinson realize the people outside his house were law officers and put his gun down, Harpootlian said.
“They had a perfect right to shoot him and they didn’t do that,” Harpootlian said. The lawyer termed the incident regrettable but excusable. “It was dark. He was scared. He has never shot anyone in his life.”
Robinson could have gotten 30 years to life if a jury had found him guilty. But in a deal, federal prosecutors agreed to drop most charges against Robinson, including manufacturing and distributing illegal drugs, if he would plead guilty to shooting Wilson. At Monday’s hearing, a prosecutor told the judge that evidence against Robinson now indicates he played “a limited role” in any drug scheme, just using his property to store illegal chemicals.
No drugs were found in Robinson’s house.
The formal charge to which Robinson pleaded guilty to is assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon while the officer is in the performance of his duties. Although Robinson contended he didn’t know Wilson was a law officer, it is still a crime to shoot a federal law officer who is performing his official duties.
Yeah. Dial 911 and wait for the coroner.
ReplyDeleteThat's absolutely disgraceful!
ReplyDeleteThugs invade your house and you don't have the right to defend yourself. It's a pity the jerk Wilson was not killed.
As for the bitch Michelle Childs, any virtuous person will hope she gets ambushed and executed.
Had this gone the other way, they would have thrown a bag of weed down and pinned a medal on the pig for "bravery in the line of duty."
ReplyDeleteNext time coppers, ring the doorbell around 10am and you'd be surprised how congenial people can be. You can always resort to overwhelming violence later, but some manners goes a LONG WAY towards not getting your head blown off!
Bullshit. Who were the jurors? Were they familiar with jury nullification? You don't serve a search warrant at three in the morning by breaking into someone's home. He should have shot them all dead.
ReplyDeleteAnother American IN-JUSTICE story...
ReplyDeleteread he article, they avoided jury trial because were afraid the jury would find him guilty. He took plea deal.
ReplyDeleteThe reason they go at 3AM is to prevent destruction of evidence, i.e. flushing the drugs down the toilet before opening the door. Certainly this is more important than anyone's life.
ReplyDeleteIf I was on the jury, no way I'd find him guilty.
ReplyDeleteIf you go unannounced, you take the risk. Rely on your skills and equipment, but it's fair game to kill you all. If you want to stay safe, knock on the door. Can't have it both ways.
"As for the bitch Michelle Childs, any virtuous person will hope she gets ambushed and executed."
ReplyDeleteShe will certainly follow her own advice: ask armed invaders who they are, then call 911 and wait.
If he had a public defender, I guess his best bet was to just accept the plea deal, because the public defender would've done his best to get him as close to 30 as possible at a trial. Awful. SMH. 8 years? Absolutely ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteSmart criminals will dress like the police to break into a family's home to gain entry without resistance. After all, the public are not trained to recognize the "Official" police SWAT team uniform. Anyone with some reflective tape, a big "Police" sign on their black clothes and an aggressive attitude should be able to pull it off and can do what they want to defenseless homeowners.
ReplyDeleteLet's talk about this "flushing of evidence" issue: THERE IS NO "AWAY!" Most toilets either lead into a box in the back yard (called a septic tank), or a sewer line which is also accessible for samples. The fantasy that evidence can just be disintegrated in a toilet is just another cock-and-bull story made up as an excuse for barbaric behavior.
ReplyDeleteThey used the same kind of reasoning as an excuse to kill 80+ people in a church in Texas, when they could have taken any number of non-violent approaches/solutions to that situation.
Bottom line: Knock on the door at a reasonable hour. If they rebuke you, there's always the SWAT team waiting around the corner as backup. It would result in fewer dead children, adults and pets. It would also do wonders for public opinion concerning the police and their TRUE intention of responsibility.
I would hope if he had it to do all over again, he would react the same way, I would hope that if this were to happen to you and yours, you would react the same way, I would hope that so long as we think and act the way God almighty would have us do, then there is still hope to rid ourselves of the stupidity that walks amongst us, and some in places of so called authority . Listen to the words of this agent and tell me that he has an ounce of brain in his head.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if the police would stop acting like the Gestapo on a serial killer and more like PEACE OFFICERS looking for a joint then they wouldn't get shot at.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame the DEA POS wasn't killed.
ReplyDeleteAll houses on an urban sewer system have a clean-out access where the building's line makes the drop into the city's line. It would be easy for cops to discretely deploy an inflatable block before any drug raid, knock or no-knock making it impossible to flush anything, and just as easy to remove the block when the raid was over. Why don't they have such a simple, inexpensive device? Because it's more butch to smash in with guns drawn. This whole SWAT raid mentality with all the damage it does to buildings, injury to citizens, pets, and police, and immense harm to the reputation of police and psychological well-being of the public living under constant threat of government-sponsored terrorism is driven by petty low-brow ego not common sense. This is public policy conducted at the brainstem level rather than the neocortex.
ReplyDeleteEvidence is more important than life? Really. PIG mutherfucker! Eat shit and die! Scum sucking rat fuck rat bastard fuckin' cop.
ReplyDeleteThe War on Drugs seems to be working perfectly.
ReplyDeleteWord!
ReplyDeleterelax dude. Look up "sarcasm" in a dictionary.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they need to use that military gear that pentagon gave them; maybe they need justification to keep swat team with their benefits and pension plans you can only dream about.
ReplyDeleteWow, haha.
ReplyDelete