Meramec River Shooting

[jdmidwest]

Technically, it is illegal to be drunk and disorderly in public anywhere. But unless you are causing a problem, it is not enforced.

Still not enough details to make a judgement here, but the landowner was arrested so there must have been some fault.

There should be no guns in the hands of drunks period. From the looks of the mugshot, arrested individual may have been impaired also.

[bfishn]

News from the AP;

STEELVILLE, Mo. (AP) — An eastern Missouri man is charged with second-degree murder after allegedly shooting another man following an argument along the Meramec River.

The shooting happened Saturday afternoon. Crawford County Sheriff Randy Martin says 48-year-old Paul Dart Jr. of Franklin County and 59-year-old James Crocker of Steelville became involved in a dispute over whether Dart was on public or private property near Steelville.

Dart was shot in the head and killed. Martin says Crocker then went to a neighboring home and asked a woman to call 911 because he had just shot someone on the river.

Crocker is jailed on $650,000 cash-only bond. He does not yet have a listed attorney

[NoLuck]

Be interesting to look up the names on Case Net of the victim and the shooter.

[Justin Spencer]

A bunch of college kids who were camping here got stopped by water patrol and the underage ones were issued minor in possessions this weekend. Second year in a row so I guess they are slow learners. As for trying to reason with drunks there is usually one problem person that cannot be reasoned with even by his friends. I see it from time to time and no one can talk him down. Always ends with him being kicked out if he is staying here and often ends with him on the ground getting a stern talking to in order to get him to leave. It never involves a gun being pulled but sometimes does require law enforcement.

[moguy1973]

New STL Post dispatch article:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/urinating-along-meramec-river-dispute-over-property-rights-led-to/article_a2774d0e-578c-5d01-89e2-d334dbe7c9c3.html

[Quillback]

Interesting read on river rights in the last couple of paragraphs.

[Terrierman]

A bunch of college kids who were camping here got stopped by water patrol and the underage ones were issued minor in possessions this weekend. Second year in a row so I guess they are slow learners. As for trying to reason with drunks there is usually one problem person that cannot be reasoned with even by his friends. I see it from time to time and no one can talk him down. Always ends with him being kicked out if he is staying here and often ends with him on the ground getting a stern talking to in order to get him to leave. It never involves a gun being pulled but sometimes does require law enforcement.

No way could I ever do what you do for a living. I would have an ulcer or a heart attack or both.

[moguy1973]

Something else happened there. I'm sure that group of people wasn't the first to stop on that gravel bar to take a leak. That's a pretty large gravel bar. And like said above, that's a very heavily floated section of the Meramec.

[mic]

I found a couple of quotes interesting:

A 1971 attorney general's opinion said if the river is "navigable" the state owns the bed of the river; but if it is "non-navigable," title is in the owner of record. That opinion listed the Meramec River in Crawford County as non-navigable. I didn't realize there was a county by county list. Where is that?

"My cousin Bobby went up to go pee in the woods, and this guy comes out behind him with a gun and says, 'This is my private property. Get the (expletive) off of it.' - If he went in the trees, he would have been above the waterline unless they were scrub trees on the beach.

"He's waving his gun at everybody," she added. "He shot between Bobby and Paul on the ground. He shot in the air, too." - Right or wrong, I'm out of there at this point.

Then, Loretta Dart said, her cousin picked up a rock but her husband stood between her cousin and the gunman. She said the gunman looked crazed.

"My husband tried to calm the guy down," she said. "He went to the guy's arm to try to stop him, but the guy jerked back and popped him in the face. - So let me get this straight... guy has a gun (right or wrong) and mulitiple folks approach him some with rocks in there hands...and...on of them reach for the gun and is shot. I don't know, this guy might get off on self defense. If I was on a jury and this story was told this story by the victims wife... could be reasonable doubt to me much less some local landowner from the area.

[mic]

Maybe this will cause MO to pass a clear and defined law on access rights.