Mountain Biker Breaks Into Car

[Mike Vandeman]

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/03/23/local/70lo_090323_bikeshooting.txt

Man arrested after shooting of mountain-bike rider
By ALANA LISTOE Independent Record - 03/23/2009
A vehicle break-in turned into a shooting incident Sunday morning on
Logan Street.

Officials responded to a theft from a vehicle call Sunday morning
about 9:20 a.m. on Logan Street. According to Detective Mark Ekola
with the Helena Police Department, the owner of the vehicle, Russell
Konkin, 22, of Helena confronted the man he suspected of the break-in,
who was riding a mountain bike. About an hour later, Ekola said,
officials received word of a shooting victim at St. Peter’s Hospital.

The victim, the mountain bike rider, had sustained a
non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the shoulder.

Several witnesses in the Logan Street area reported hearing a gunshot,
Ekola said.

Konkin was arrested for aggravated assault in connection with the
shooting; and Ekola said the incident in still under investigation.

Alana Listoe: 447-4081 or
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

[Bill Z.]

Mike Vandeman > writes:

> http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/03/23/local/70lo_090323_bikeshooting.txt
>
> Man arrested after shooting of mountain-bike rider
> By ALANA LISTOE Independent Record - 03/23/2009
> A vehicle break-in turned into a shooting incident Sunday morning on
> Logan Street.
>
> Officials responded to a theft from a vehicle call Sunday morning
> about 9:20 a.m. on Logan Street. According to Detective Mark Ekola
> with the Helena Police Department, the owner of the vehicle, Russell
> Konkin, 22, of Helena confronted the man he suspected of the break-in,
> who was riding a mountain bike. About an hour later, Ekola said,
> officials received word of a shooting victim at St. Peter’s Hospital.

Note, "suspected" (by the guy who fired the gun), with no claim that
he shot the person who broke into the vehicle.

> Konkin was arrested for aggravated assault in connection with the
> shooting; and Ekola said the incident in still under investigation.

If he shot the wrong guy, or if there is merely no evidence that the
guy he shot actually broke into the vehicle, he'll get negative jury
sympathy, but will quite likely end up in jail and sued in either case.

[di]

"Mike Vandeman" > wrote in message
...
> http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/03/23/local/70lo_090323_bikeshooting.txt
>
> Man arrested after shooting of mountain-bike rider
> By ALANA LISTOE Independent Record - 03/23/2009
> A vehicle break-in turned into a shooting incident Sunday morning on
> Logan Street.
>
> Officials responded to a theft from a vehicle call Sunday morning
> about 9:20 a.m. on Logan Street. According to Detective Mark Ekola
> with the Helena Police Department, the owner of the vehicle, Russell
> Konkin, 22, of Helena confronted the man he suspected of the break-in,
> who was riding a mountain bike. About an hour later, Ekola said,
> officials received word of a shooting victim at St. Peter's Hospital.
>
> The victim, the mountain bike rider, had sustained a
> non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the shoulder.
>
> Several witnesses in the Logan Street area reported hearing a gunshot,
> Ekola said.
>
> Konkin was arrested for aggravated assault in connection with the
> shooting; and Ekola said the incident in still under investigation.
>
> Alana Listoe: 447-4081 or
> --
> I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
> humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
> years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)
>
> Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are
> fond of!
>
> http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

What was the the man/s car doing out on a Mountain Bike Trail?

[Jeff Strickland]

"Mike Vandeman" > wrote in message
...
> http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/03/23/local/70lo_090323_bikeshooting.txt
>
> Man arrested after shooting of mountain-bike rider
> By ALANA LISTOE Independent Record - 03/23/2009
> A vehicle break-in turned into a shooting incident Sunday morning on
> Logan Street.
>

Ironically, a non-mountain biker was arrested, but you don't seem to care.

Given your penchant for painting everybody with the same brush, I'd think
you be calling for a ban on cars because car drivers all shoot people.

Imagine, all gun crimes could be solved if we simply banned cars. What a
wonderful world it would be.

[Opus[_2_]]

On Mar 25, 5:41 pm, "Jeff Strickland" > wrote:
>snip<
> Imagine, all gun crimes could be solved if we simply banned cars. What a
> wonderful world it would be.

Actually I wouldn't mind so much if cars were banned. The main reason
I don't ride more in town is people in cars that vary from usually
nice (about 50%) to stupid and/or ignorant (about 30 maybe 40%) to the
outright hostile (10 to 15%) and the 0.2% that are out to kill me
because I'm slower than they want to go. So about 50% of the people I
interact with every day on the roads are indifferent to hostile to my
survival. I include in that number the people that try to pass in my
lane when I'm already taking the lane to indicate that it's not safe
or necessary to pass me in my lane. If I had some kind of hammer like
device on my left hand about 20% of the people that pass me would be
missing passenger side windows, and about 1% would be missing driver
side windows.

Opus

[Jeff Strickland]

"Opus" > wrote in message
...
> On Mar 25, 5:41 pm, "Jeff Strickland" > wrote:
>>snip<
>> Imagine, all gun crimes could be solved if we simply banned cars. What a
>> wonderful world it would be.
>
> Actually I wouldn't mind so much if cars were banned. The main reason
> I don't ride more in town is people in cars that vary from usually
> nice (about 50%) to stupid and/or ignorant (about 30 maybe 40%) to the
> outright hostile (10 to 15%) and the 0.2% that are out to kill me
> because I'm slower than they want to go. So about 50% of the people I
> interact with every day on the roads are indifferent to hostile to my
> survival. I include in that number the people that try to pass in my
> lane when I'm already taking the lane to indicate that it's not safe
> or necessary to pass me in my lane. If I had some kind of hammer like
> device on my left hand about 20% of the people that pass me would be
> missing passenger side windows, and about 1% would be missing driver
> side windows.
>
> Opus


Well, you are a vehicle that is allowed on the roads. But when the tonnage
rule is applied, you need to be on the defense not offense. You are obliged
to stay to the right so that faster moving traffic can pass, but that
traffic is obliged to do so in a safe manner. They make bike lanes for
bikes.

Personally, I think your desire to ban cars is silly.

[Beej Jorgensen]

Opus > wrote:
>I don't ride more in town is people in cars that vary from usually
>nice (about 50%) to stupid and/or ignorant (about 30 maybe 40%)

In my town it seems like 80% of the cars sacrifice their right-of-way at
stop signs. Drives me crazy. If I don't stop, then I'm just another
asshole (or dead) cyclist, so I slow or stop while the driver waves
frantically that I should take their right-of-way. If he had just gone,
it would have been all done by now, but no... Oh, and this is
especially awesome at night when I *know* they're frantically waving,
but I can't see **** in the passenger compartment because of their
headlights. (I do know that if I could see in there, however, it would
be Albert Einstein driving the vehicle.)

(I'm all for the law allowing bikes to treat Stops as Yields if there's
no other traffic present.)

My absolute favorite is when the guy in the #1 lane stops when he
doesn't even have a stop sign, and waves you through even though there
is heavy traffic in the #2 lane that he is oblivious to. So you can't
go because there's all this traffic (and it'd probably be illegal), and
he gets ****ed off and finally starts going again. But now there's a
20-car backup behind him, and you'll have to wait minutes to get through
the intersection instead of seconds.

At that point I just get off and walk my bike through the crosswalk.

-Beej

[Opus[_2_]]

On Mar 26, 3:29 pm, "Jeff Strickland" > wrote:
>
> Well, you are a vehicle that is allowed on the roads. But when the tonnage
> rule is applied, you need to be on the defense not offense. You are obliged
> to stay to the right so that faster moving traffic can pass, but that
> traffic is obliged to do so in a safe manner. They make bike lanes for
> bikes.
>
> Personally, I think your desire to ban cars is silly.

I was just engaging in wishful thinking. What I would really like is
to get rid of about half the drivers on the road, the ones that don't
care if I live or die and act like I'm not there except to blow their
horn as they squeeze past in my lane, even when there is an empty lane
beside them. And they don't make bike lanes in Dallas County TX. We
had about 110 meters of bike lane on Mockingbird Rd until they built
the bike/ped bridge over the north end of White Rock Lake, then they
gave that back to the cars. Right now the closest bike lanes are in
Austin, about 150 miles away (give or take).

Opus