Student kills burglar with samurai sword

[The Minsky Moment]

There is already a case in Kentucky where a guy tried to lure someone on his propery in order to brain him

Hey, that's a great idea.

Forgot to mention the details: he used nunchucks. 
What is about these crazy Castle doctrine guys and their exotic Asian weaponry?

[DisturbedPervert]

I wouldn't even shoot at somebody in that situation

The guy in this story wouldn't shoot at somebody in that situation either

[Caliga]

Forgot to mention the details: he used nunchucks. 
What is about these crazy Castle doctrine guys and their exotic Asian weaponry?

Good point.  We ought to rename it the Shuri Castle Doctrine.   

[CountDeMoney]

So far, the cops probably aren't going to charge him, but SA Patricia "There are too many black men in chains" Jessamy will probably toss it to the grand jury.   
White Hopkins boy Hassan Chops a dazzling urbanite criminal?  In Baltimore?  Get a lawyer, son.

[Jaron]

So far, the cops probably aren't going to charge him, but SA Patricia "There are too many black men in chains" Jessamy will probably toss it to the grand jury.   
White Hopkins boy Hassan Chops a dazzling urbanite criminal?  In Baltimore?  Get a lawyer, son.

You should do standup!

[CountDeMoney]

Sword-wielding Hopkins student kills intruder
Intruder was repeat offender, released from prison Saturday

By Brent Jones, Liz F. Kay and Jill Rosen

Baltimore Sun reporters

September 16, 2009
Quantcast

Hours earlier, someone had broken into John Pontolillo's house and taken two laptops and a video-game console. Now it was past midnight, and he heard noises coming from the garage out back.

The Johns Hopkins University undergraduate didn't run. He didn't call the police. He grabbed his samurai sword.

With the 3- to 5-foot-long, razor-sharp weapon in hand, police say, Pontolillo crept toward the noise. He noticed a side door in the garage had been pried open. When a man inside lunged at him, police say, the confrontation was fatal.

"He was backed up against a corner and either out of fear or out of panic, he just struck the sword with force," said Baltimore Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. "It was probably with fear for his life."

Pontolillo, who rents the house in the 300 block of E. University Parkway in the Oakenshawe neighborhood, struck the intruder no more than twice, police say, nearly severing his left hand and inflicting what police termed a "spear laceration."

The intruder, Donald D. Rice of Baltimore, a 49-year-old repeat offender who had been released from jail only Saturday, died at the bloody scene.

Pontolillo, 20, of Wall, N.J., whose identity was confirmed by law enforcement sources, was released late Tuesday afternoon. Guglielmi said it would be up to the state's attorney's office to determine whether he will be charged in the incident.

In a statement Tuesday, Hopkins officials told students there had been more than a half-dozen burglaries in the area recently, and that police presence would be bolstered.

Diego Ardila, a Hopkins student who lived with Pontolillo in the three-story, five-bedroom house during the summer, said Pontolillo owned a samurai sword and generally kept it in his room. He described Pontolillo as somewhat outgoing, but said they didn't talk a lot.

"You don't expect to hear that someone you know killed a guy with a samurai sword," said Ardila, 19. "From what little I know of him, he wasn't some guy going out to kill."

It is legal to possess a sword in Baltimore, Guglielmi said, and "individuals have a right to defend their person and their property." He declined to comment on whether its use in this case was appropriate.

University of Maryland professor David Gray, who specializes in criminal law, said prosecutors must weigh whether Pontolillo felt his life was in danger or whether he became the aggressor.

In Maryland, Gray said, an individual is not expected to retreat from suspected danger in his own home. But it is unclear how the law applies to an enclosed backyard.

If the student felt he was in danger of severe bodily harm, then he was within his right to protect himself, Gray said: "It doesn't matter if he used a gun, a sword or a frying pan."

The sword police recovered from the scene, with a sharp blade and ribbon-wrapped hilt, is a replica of a historic samurai weapon. Though a real one would cost thousands of dollars, Guglielmi said, this one probably cost a few hundred.

The police spokesman said the student who wielded the weapon had no advanced sword training. "He wasn't a ninja," Guglielmi said. "He may have been moderately trained or on the intermediate level."

Hundreds of varieties of samurai swords are available online to collectors and hobbyists, martial arts enthusiasts and students of swordplay through stores such as Steve Dibble's Japanese Swords 4 Samurai site, based in Birmingham, Ala.

His swords range in price from about $50 for the model called the "Kill Bill," after the violent Quentin Tarantino films, to more than $2,000 for a handmade "Katana" forged of steel, a hilt wrapped in leather and silk, and decorative flourishes of silver.

Midrange swords, the type apparently used in the Baltimore incident, are those likeliest used at martial arts schools, he said, where students want a weapon sharp enough to cut.

To inflict lethal damage requires some skill, Dibble said.

"To be that confident with it that he would go grab it, he may have been into martial arts," he said. "You would have to hold it with two hands and be confident that you would really know what you were doing."

Mantis Swords, an online outlet based in Westminster, specializes in sharp weapons. "Our swords are ready for cutting," owner Shawn Salafia said.

Salafia sells mats that people can soak in water so that when they dry, they'll be roughly the consistency of a person.

"You stick them on a stand, and you cut them," he said. "If someone laid their hand into it, you could probably cut into it pretty darn deep."

By Tuesday afternoon, two pools of blood remained on the ground a few feet away from the door to the garage, which is not connected to the home. A gate in a wooden fence surrounding the backyard was broken, allowing the scene to be viewed from the sidewalk.

Michael Hughes, who lives about a block away in the neighborhood, heard screams early Tuesday.

"I could hear the fear in the voice, and I could tell someone was scared," said Hughes, 43, who works for Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.

He called police and then walked over to the crime scene.

"The body was near the garage," he said. "I watched them carry the sword out. The whole thing was surreal and totally bizarre."

Rice, of the 600 block of East 27th St. in Baltimore, had 29 prior convictions for crimes such as breaking and entering, Guglielmi said. He had been released Saturday from the Baltimore County Detention Center, where he had been held after his arrest by county police last year for stealing a car in the city. He was found guilty in December of unauthorized removal of property and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

The incident was the second this week in which a man was wounded trying to commit a robbery. An off-duty Baltimore police officer shot and critically wounded a man who had tried to rob him at gunpoint in his Northeast Baltimore home, according to police. He chased the man for two blocks before opening fire, police said.

[Ed Anger]

There is already a case in Kentucky where a guy tried to lure someone on his propery in order to brain him and then claim self-defense.  The case went to the State Supreme Court which sustained the conviction only b/c they found the new "Castle" law didn't apply retroactively.

Some of these laws are badly drafted, and the testerone-pumping pleasure they give may not be worth the mischief they can cause.

Commie.

[CountDeMoney]

There is already a case in Kentucky where a guy tried to lure someone on his propery in order to brain him and then claim self-defense.  The case went to the State Supreme Court which sustained the conviction only b/c they found the new "Castle" law didn't apply retroactively.

Some of these laws are badly drafted, and the testerone-pumping pleasure they give may not be worth the mischief they can cause.

Commie.

The fuck you bitching about, the only thing you're shooting is fucking sperm everywhere.

[MadImmortalMan]

Huh. Well I missed that the dude came after him. Who charges at a guy with a katana anyway? 

[CountDeMoney]

Who charges at a guy with a katana anyway? 

It's amazing what dead people admit to.

[CountDeMoney]

New details emerge on events that led to samurai sword killing
Johns Hopkins police had alerted student, roommates of suspicious person report; confrontation with man took place outside garage

Johns Hopkins University police had alerted a student and his roommates to the possibility that there was a suspicious person lurking around their home and canvassed the area with the students before one of them killed him with a samurai sword, Baltimore police disclosed late Wednesday.

Police also confirmed that the Tuesday morning encounter did not take place inside of a garage but outside, after the man lunged at the sword-wielding student.

The new details shed more light on the circumstances that led up to the death of Donald D. Rice, 49, a repeat offender who had been released from jail over the weekend. Police and prosecutors are considering whether to charge student John Pontolillo of Wall, N.J., after he killed Rice with a slice from the sword.

Police initially said that Pontolillo's room had been burglarized earlier Monday night, with someone stealing an Xbox 360 and a video game, and that Pontolillo later heard a noise, grabbed the sword and went to investigate.

But city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that Johns Hopkins University police and an off-duty officer working in a secondary capacity were called to the 300 block of E. University Parkway to investigate a report from one of Pontolillo's neighbors about a suspicious person spotted in a back yard.

The officers knocked on Pontolillo's door, where Pontolillo informed them of the earlier burglary, which occurred between 8 and 9 p.m., according to a police report of the incident. The housemates and the officers canvassed the area around the house and didn't find anything unusual, Guglielmi said.

After the officers left, the housemates decided to check the area again, with Pontolillo grabbing the sword, Guglielmi said. As Pontolillo checked an outside yard area after 1 a.m., he noticed Rice crouched in a corner, Guglielmi said. He told the man not to move, and yelled for his roommates to call police, according to Guglielmi.

Pontolillo was not inside the garage but backed up against the exterior of a garage door when Rice is alleged to have aggressively moved toward him with his arms raised. Guglielmi said Pontolillo made one downward strike towards Rice, hitting him in the neck and the hand. Rice's hand was nearly severed, and he bled to death at the scene.

Authorities are investigating whether Rice was involved with a rash of other recent robberies around the Johns Hopkins campus.

[Josquius]

Huh. Well I missed that the dude came after him. Who charges at a guy with a katana anyway? 

Its the sensible thing to do if someone with a katana is going to attack you and you can't run away. Try and get in close rather then let them slash you from afar.
I guess maybe he also thought the student was scared and wouldn't be able to use it.

[Savonarola]

Its the sensible thing to do if someone with a katana is going to attack you and you can't run away. Try and get in close rather then let them slash you from afar.

What most people fail to understand is that when someone comes after you with a katana he puts himself at an immediate disadvantage.

[MadBurgerMaker]

29 prior convictions?   Wow.

[DisturbedPervert]

29 prior convictions?   Wow.

This kid should get a medal