Troubling News Story

Troubling News Story

In the March 16, 2009 Idaho Statesman:

The 29-year-old Boise man who was killed outside a pool hall early Saturday morning while reportedly breaking up a fight was shot five times, according to Ada County Coroner’s reports.
Those five shots, which hit Ahmed Cepalo on his side and back, caused fatal internal bleeding which led to his death in a parking lot, Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg said Monday.
Shooting suspect Jeremy J. Hobbs, 27, told Boise police the shooting was done in self-defense, according to court testimony Monday
Hobbs is being held in the Ada County Jail on a $1 million bond for charges of second degree murder and using a gun in the commission of a felony.
Witnesses told police Cepalo was shot by Hobbs about 2 a.m. — a short time after Hobbs and another man started arguing inside Southwest Boise's Backstreet Billiards, which is on Overland Road near the Five Mile Road intersection.

This doesn't happen a lot in Boise, but it does happen. What makes this worrisome:

Officers arrived at the pool hall moments after getting a 911 call and found that Hobbs had put his gun away. He was arrested without incident.
Boise police and Ada County Sheriff’s officials say Hobbs had a valid concealed weapons permit at the time of the shooting. [emphasis added]

Now, there's a bit more to the story which means that it is possible that Hobbs was engaged in a lawful act of self-defense:

While witnesses told police Cepalo was trying to calm down an argument Saturday morning, he was arrested at the same pool hall in November and charged with misdemeanor battery after being accused of attacking a patron over issues about his ethnicity.
That man told police that Cepalo, who is from Bosnia, attacked him at Southwest Boise's Backstreet Billiards after a verbal altercation turned violent. That man told police Cepalo first pushed him and then punched him with a closed fist several times.
Cepalo told police he was shoved first before hitting the other man, according to police reports. Only Cepalo was charged in that fight. Cepalo was scheduled to begin a jury trial on the misdemeanor charge of battery in May.

What's troubling is that someone with the same name as Hobbs shows up in the criminal records here in Ada County with misdemeanor convictions including unlawful entry, and withheld judgments (which I think is something like a suspended sentence) for resisting a police officer, drug paraphernalia possession and concealed carry without a license.

Like most states, Idaho's statute a list of misdemeanors that will prevent you from obtaining a concealed carry permit for several years. The theory is that if you made one mistake, and manage to stay out of trouble thereafter, they won't hold it against you. I think there is merit to this--but I have been concerned since 2003 that the disqualifying misdemeanor list is a bit short, and may need some correcting.

Don't misunderstand; the number of people with concealed carry permits who commit a felony is astonishingly small--and often, those felonies don't even involve violence or guns. But they do happen. Idaho's law, like many of the earlier adopters of shall-issue concealed weapon permit laws, was less restrictive concerning previous misdemeanor convictions than the laws adopted in the mid-1990s and later. If it needs a little fine tuning at the edges, I would not be surprised.

UPDATE: This morning's Idaho Statesman story about this reports that Hobbs was awaiting trial on battery charges. Idaho Code 18-3302(m) provides that if you are awaiting trial on a disqualifying crime (as is any misdemeanor crime of violence, like battery), you are ineligible. So I called up the reporter, and asked him about this. He indicated that Ada County Sheriff's Department staff thought that they couldn't revoke Hobbs' permit because his previous misdemeanor convictions were too far back. Well, yes, but a current charge was enough to revoke.