This is so sad and ridiculous. Over snow shoveling.

[Fla Dem]

Three people are dead after an argument over snow shoveling leads to murder-suicide
By Alec Snyder, CNN

Updated 12:21 PM ET, Tue February 2, 2021

(CNN)Three people, including the shooter, are dead after a dispute over snow shoveling in Plains, Pennsylvania, outside Wilkes-Barre on Monday, Plains Township Police Chief Dale Binker told CNN on Tuesday. At around 9 a.m. Monday, the shooter, Jeffrey Spaide, got into an argument with James and Lisa Goy, who lived across the street, while shoveling snow from his driveway, a release from the Luzerne County District Attorney's Office said.

The Goys were shoveling snow from their parking spots across the street onto Spaide's property, the release said. Spaide asked them to stop and the argument escalated quickly. As they argued, the release says Spaide went into his house, retrieved a handgun, and came back outside firing multiple shots "at close range" at the Goys. He then went back into his house, pulled out an AR-style rifle, and fired at the injured Goys, "executing them," Binker said.

Binker told CNN this was not the first disagreement between Spaide and the Goys over snow this year. Two months ago, another snowstorm also led to an altercation between them, he said, though police were not notified of that dispute and said Spaide was not known to police for any other matter.

Police arrived soon after the Goys were shot, and as they approached, heard a single gunshot coming from Spaide's house, which they believe was the self-inflicted shot that killed him, Binker said. Both James and Lisa Goy were pronounced dead at the scene, he said. The Goys left behind a 15-year-old son with autism, whose grandparents will assume custody, Binker said, adding that they worked through the night on the case and consider the investigation closed.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/02/us/snow-shoveling-dispute-murder/index.html

[Wicked Blue]

1. Horrible

I feel like a good-sized chunk of the country has gone batshit insane.

[634-5789]

2. Could not have said it better.

[theneworiginal]

22. I think there is an elevated baseline of frustration b/c of COVID concerns and the social isolation

and economic hardship that go with it. I think some of the continuing Trump rage and some of the nit-picky infighting is because so many people are pushed closer to their trigger point with the underlying anxiety of the pandemic.

It's hard not to wonder just how much of the BS that we are going thru with peoples abandonment of rational thinking and the national polarization are due to or influenced by various forms of COVID trauma.

[gratuitous]

3. Thank goodness Spaide was heavily and properly armed

Otherwise, when this simmering feud boiled over, it might have resulted in just a black eye or a bloody nose. But because Spaide had his personal arsenal, he was able to leave a 15-year-old autistic boy orphaned and his own wife widowed.

Spaide won the argument, right?

[Iggo]

45. Oh yeah, he won.

Gunfucker logic.

[Rorey]

4. I read another article about that

Last edited Thu Feb 4, 2021, 12:59 PM - Edit history (1)

The Goys sounded like real asshole neighbors. I feel more sorry for Mr. Spaide. It sounds like he was pushed to his limit.

Editing to add:

Unfortunately, some folks choose to jump to conclusions. I didn't say that Mr. Spaide was justified. It sounds like he likely suffered from some mental issues, and they were likely exacerbated by the long-going feud with the Goys. (And yes, I do feel sorry for people who have the misfortune of being afflicted with mental issues.)

If those who are trying to say that I said things I didn't would take the time to look up other articles, they will see that witnesses are reporting some more facts.

[Squinch]

8. This is sick. He murdered them. This is on him. There are many things you can do to your

asshole neighbors that don't include murdering them.

[Rorey]

10. I agree, but they were still assholes

And that was my real point.

They were shoveling the snow and throwing it into the other guys property, and they argued. Mr. Goy raised his fist, and Mr. Spaide went in and got his gun. The Goys still kept it up with vulgarities and yelling. This is according to witnesses, according the article I read.

I'm not at all condoning that Mr. Spaide shot them, but it sounds like he was pushed to a limit he couldn't handle.

[Squinch]

32. Yes, but there are assholes in the world. Always have been. The rest of us deal with it. A growing

number of American white men simply don't seem to feel they have to deal with that simple fact of life. Instead they get their gun and begin shooting.

No one is a worse snowflake than an armed, entitled white guy.

Yes, he may have been pushed to HIS limit. HIS limit is an awfully low bar.

I think the reason you are taking heat for this is not that anyone thinks you are justifying the murders, it is that you said you feel more sorry for Spaide.

Us feeling sorry for the idiotically miniscule trials of these ridiculously entitled armed white guys is, I think, a big part of what is wrong in the America today. We care way too much about the opinionated moron in the diner.

[Rorey]

38. His limit doesn't matter anymore

It also doesn't matter "if" he was a "snowflake" and "armed, entitled white guy".

Personally, I have had the misfortune of having to deal with people with extreme anger issues, and as a matter of self-preservation I did NOT escalate the situation. The way that I deal with people like that is to put as much distance between me and them as possible.

The fact of the matter is, ALL three of the people involved in this share in the responsibility. The Goys didn't deserve to get killed for being assholes, but if they had not continued to escalate the ugly situation they may still be alive.

[Squinch]

39. No. The guy who pulled the trigger over a snow shoveling argument is the ONLY ONE responsible

for these murders. The guy who pointed the gun and shot. No one else. Only him.

The others may be responsible for bad blood in the neighborhood, but only Spaide is responsible for murder.

[Rorey]

41. We're looking at it from different points of view

I'm done discussing this. It's reached a point where it's obvious that some are intent on attributing words to me that I didn't say. I'm not going to participate in that anymore.

[Squinch]

46. I have not put any words in your mouth. And again, no. This is not just you and me not seeing

eye to eye. My position is the legal and moral definition of murder that is the basis of any civilized society. Spaide murdered. The others did not.

Your position is that if you make someone really, really mad and they kill you, you share the responsibility for that murder. I think if you think it through, you will conclude it is not a position you want to keep.

[NurseJackie]

50. You make many good points that illustrate why this is a complex situation...

... that would very well have ended differently if people had recognized the volatility, and made different choices. I do not believe it's "blaming the victims" to point out any factual information that reveals how the hostility may have been unnecessarily and dangerously escalated and how that contributed to the final tragic outcome. I also have mixed feelings about this and it does indeed appear to have been something that could have been avoided. What a sad sad situation.

[Rorey]

53. "Complex situation"

Thank you for explaining it better than I did.

[RobinA]

56. We Had A Situation

some years ago in my neck of the woods where this guy took it upon himself to harass his neighbors. Big time. Bright signing lights, big speakers blaring noise, really annoying stuff. The neighbors were two families, Mom, Dad & kids in each house. The men had had fights before, but one night the harassee just snapped and shot the harasser dead. Apparently, the harasser was a known bully and loudmouth. REALLY provocative. His wife did not seem to find it particularly surprising that someone had had enough. It went to trial and the shooter was found guilty, which surprised me a bit after I read the whole article about what had been going on for a very long time. I felt sorry for the shooter, but really, what can anybody do. Yeah, he should not have shot the bully, but society has no remedy for this kind of situation.

[Rorey]

58. I was married to an asshole

I wouldn't have been surprised if someone had retaliated.

[fescuerescue]

63. Some people have anger issues in person

Others have them online and project their issues onto others.

[Fla Dem]

11. Maybe the Goys were assholes, but that doesn't justifies murder.

The fact Spaides didn't kill them with his hand gun but then got his AR rifle to finish them off says a lot about him.

Well they're all dead now. Situation resolved.

[Rorey]

17. I didn't say it was justified

It's incredibly stupid to keep pushing and taunting someone who has a gun aimed at you. By saying that, I am NOT saying that the shooting was justified.

If the Goys were right or wrong doesn't even matter. They're now dead.

[MyNameGoesHere]

27. So being an asshole is grounds for executions?

Do yourself and the world a favor and delete this.

[Rorey]

30. Why do some want to read words that aren't there?

I didn't say that. Ever.

[Tommymac]

51. It seems you did.

That is how I interpreted your post too.

Do yourself a favor and delete it.

Or not. enjoy being ignored.

[NurseJackie]

65. Ridiculous. Nobody said that.

[NutmegYankee]

37. It's not mental illness, it's uncontrolled rage.

People are building up unhealthy levels of rage and not releasing it in safe ways. We need to stop treating all these gun murders as mental illness. They are not.

I live in snow country. I'm still trying to understand what the hell his problem was. It's snow. As long as it goes on grass, I don't care if a neighbor throws it there. Hell, the city throws the entire contents of the road 15 feet into my yard, and that has salt mixed in.

[Rorey]

40. Uncontrolled rage is a mental issue

Is it not?

They had a long-running feud, so I think it went way beyond the snow thing.

[Squinch]

49. Often, "uncontrolled rage" is simply self-indulgence.

A man beating his wife due to his "uncontrolled rage" can usually refrain from throwing punches at a guy who is bigger than he is, even when the bigger guy has made him very, very angry.

A man fighting with his neighbors over snow would probably have been able to control his rage and not murder the neighbors if there was a cop car parked on the street.

[NutmegYankee]

62. Exactly. nt

[Mariana]

43. Really, I don't get it either.

At my house, the property line is just a few feet from my driveway. There's a retaining wall on the other side. Most of the snow lands in my neighbor's yard every time.

This guy was already angry and looking for a fight.

[LizBeth]

54. All in a small period of time I had to talk to comcast, IRS and Unemployment. Hours on these calls

and trying to resolve issues. Could not get a hold of a person. Everything now a days are two three four times harder. They say saving time. To get my refund, I had to gather all kinds of stuff, sit down and go into a site and do all kinds of stuff activating a card instead of just going to bank and depositing a check.

I tell the kids so much of their time today is wasted because companies and others make it easier for them and no longer consider the customer.

I am paying for ATT and have to go to one spot in house, patio door so caller can hear me. Hours on trying to address the issue. Paying money for a service that is crap.

We have instilled all kinds of triggers for our anger in society today, not to mention other sources.

[Iggo]

47. I do not feel more sorry for the guy who killed 3 people....

....because I do not suck.

[LizBeth]

52. While reading the story I thought it pretty asshol'ish of the neighbors too and was reading replies

to get more information> Of course it does not justify murdering two people and horrible then to kill self. A wasted life of three.

[JHB]

55. Or... because they didn't have another place to put the shoveled snow

Here's an overhead of the properties. The Goys were in #13 along the bottom, Spadie in the house with the red driveway at the top. That little protrusion opposite the Goy's driveway (the one with a white car in it) is for a utility pole.

The houses along the bottom are two-unit houses with very small front yards, close together. The ones long the top have long driveways and large yards.

If you're in the closely-spaced 2-unit houses, just where should you put the excess snow?

Were the Goys assholes for shoveling snow onto areas that were not walkways and driveways? Some, since it wasn't their property, but not even in the same class as Spadie, who got his nose murderously out of joint over that little practical matter.

[Rorey]

59. I would have asked permission first

It's just something we do where I live.

I have a huge driveway, and sometimes the guy who maintains my neighbor's yard will ask if he can park on my driveway so he doesn't have to carry yard debris so far. I told him he's welcome to use it at any time, but he still always asks.

[dawg day]

5. Immediate access to guns-- we can't escape that reality.

Obviously, since he quickly killed himself, we can assume he sort of regretted it-- and if he hadn't been able to run into the house and get guns, this wouldn't have happened.

[Fla Dem]

18. Agreed. Uncontrolled access to guns are a curse on our nation.

[sinkingfeeling]

34. +100

Guns have become the solution to all problems in America.

[Politicub]

44. If anyone had any inkling that this person was that aggressive,

his guns should have been confiscated. No warnings.

[ScratchCat]

6. Very Sad

We had a similar incident here in North Florida several years ago which revolved around a fence dispute and ended with a guy going and getting a gun and killing two unarmed people who were taking down(again) his illegal fence. I just don't understand how and why people think murder is the proper response to "disputes" whether its snow, a car stereo or a fence.

[malaise]

7. Guns kill

We used to settle disputes without them

[Fla Dem]

12. +1,000

[Kaleva]

26. Native Americans would argue otherwise.

[Freedomofspeech]

9. 1.5 million guns were sold in Pennsylvania in 2020.

I hate living here...my neighbor saw an idiot wearing a Proud Boys jacket in a local convience store.
This entire country revolves around guns and violence. How did this happen?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. Another episode in the ongoing series

"Guns Make Us Safer."

[greenjar_01]

14. If this happened in any other country, it would lead the national news for a week

Here, it will barely register a three minute segment in Wilkes-Barre.

The modern conservative interpretations of the 2nd Amendment have produced an unprecedented social catastrophe in the United States. We are in deep crisis due to American post-war gun culture.

[malaise]

21. Don't be sure

Jamaica leads the Caribbean and Latin America in homicides.
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20210131/jamaica-tops-homicides-latin-america-and-caribbean

I know of two cases - a man was killed for not dimming his lights on a public road. Another was killed for stepping on a man's new Clark shoes.

[iscooterliberally]

15. We've had a couple of killings over dog poop here in Florida in recent years.

There was one guy down in Miami somewhere that would threaten anyone walking a dog near his home. He ended up shooting one of his neighbors over dog poop. There was another story up in Palm Beach county of one neighbor hacking another neighbor to death over dog poop. The cops arrived and shot the guy with the machete. I can only imagine the conversation up at the pearly gates after this. Yes, we are in dire need of mental health assistance here in this country. Insanity is contagious.

[gibraltar72]

16. Gunz are such an easy solution!

[maxsolomon]

19. Will this be counted as a Defensive Gun Use?

An Armed Madhouse.

[Celerity]

20. another day in gunhumper USA

[Beakybird]

23. Isn't Goys pejorative? Shouldn't it be the gentiles?

[Kaleva]

24. Always assume the other guy may be armed and willing to use that gun.

[Rorey]

28. Exactly

And throw in that you should never assume you're dealing with a sane, balanced person.

[Kaleva]

35. Yes.

[Peregrine Took]

36. Good point. City drivers are very angry these days....sometimes my husband

will flip one off if they are especially obnoxious and I told him don't do it. They may have a Glock on the seat next to them, shoot you and zoom off somewhere.

[RobinA]

57. Yeah,

I stopped flipping off drivers way back in the '80's because I was afraid of getting shot. Hell, some bully tased a guy ahead of him in the grocery line when I was shopping a couple months ago. This was in suburbia. I was in another line and I just looked for where I was going to dive once bullets started flying.

[KentuckyWoman]

25. Don't blame snow.

Poor mental health plus gun ownership is why.

I am not smart enough to know how we deal with either of those issues. We keep dialing up the stress level in this country. At least a third of us are not OK.

[LakeArenal]

29. Sometimes I think the municipalities are at fault.

Last edited Thu Feb 4, 2021, 01:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Not necessarily this case, but I’ve complained about my neighbor’s mostly feral cats killing birds in my bird feeder and pooping by our doors, yowling at our windows at night. The county sheriffs department wouldn’t even talk to them.

It was sooooo frustrating we started shooting over the cats heads to get them out. She reported us and We got in trouble.

There are times when people who have guns handy don’t kill the neighbor.

Edit: we weren’t in trouble for firing the gun. We were in trouble for firing at a known pet. Fortunately our neighbor could produce not one vet record to prove ownership of the 20 or so cats.
Anyway the advice from the county:
“I can’t tell you to shoot them, but I might if I could.”
We couldn’t shoot them.
PS Feeling sorry for the decimated song birds and giving no solution to the problem of predatory invasive cats is a copout.

[sanatanadharma]

31. Bringing a gun to the philosophical inquiry into "free-will and/or determinism" debate

The sociology class homework assignment, now over-due, is to write an essay about the role of guns in deterministic behavior

Premise:
The act of choosing (or not) to have a gun (or more guns) may be considered a free-will action.

Discussion:
Does the possession of a gun limit free-will choice?
Is the quantity of guns possessed a positive sign or a sign of "possession?

[Peregrine Took]

33. I saw a man from across the street walk over to our side of the street

with a shovel full of snow and dumped it on our side of the street in front of our house.

Why I have no idea as there is snow all over the place.

People do the craziest things under adverse conditions.

[JHB]

60. I think there was a little more rhyme and reason to it in this case. See #55 upthread

One side of the street has tightly-spaced multifamily dwellings, a sidewalk, and a need for street-parking cars, leaving very little space to put cleared-away snow.

The other side has a bit more conventionally "suburban" arrangement, with greater spacing, long driveways, large yards, and no sidewalk. As a practical matter, there's simply more unused space, right there within shovel-toss distance.

No mystery in this case as to why the guy was shoveling stuff across the street.

[Politicub]

42. Hotheads should never be allowed to own firearms. Ever.

The Goys were executed for shoveling snow on the neighbor’s yard. Unbelievable.

Even if they used a snowplow to block the neighbor’s driveway (the Goys did not do that. This is a hypothetical), there is no excuse for physical violence.

[fescuerescue]

64. Agreeing with that is an easy thing to do

Testing for it is impossible.

[dalton99a]

61. Shocking video shows Pennsylvania couple arguing with neighbor before murder-suicide

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-shoveling-murder-suicide-surveillance-video-20210204-uudc6ma5z5bv7gf6mdnizbwj2e-story.html

Shocking video shows Pennsylvania couple arguing with neighbor before murder-suicide sparked by snow shoveling
By Jessica Schladebeck and Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News | Feb 04, 2021 at 11:30 AM


Surveillance video captured the horrific moment two people who shot and killed in what ended in a murder-suicide in Pennsylvania after a dispute over snow shoveling.

In video from a surveillance camera perched above the home, the married couple can be seen in a heated exchange with James Spaide, who lived in the house across the street. The 47-year-old neighbor can be heard muttering that the Goys are “scummy” before he appears in the frame, sparking an immediate reaction from the pair.

“This is bull s---,” Lisa shouts.

“You can go f--- yourself,” her husband adds.

In the clip, James Goy appears to approach Spaide with a raised fist, both of them hurling expletives and calling each other names throughout the exchange. It prompts Spaide to race inside his home while his neighbors continue to shout.

Lisa Goy at one point returns to her shoveling, but stops again to call Spaide “scum” in the seconds before he returns with a handgun.

“Go ahead,” she urges her armed neighbor. “Go ahead.”

[Easylife]

66. More to it

My grandparents live in that neighborhood and they said the snow was just the straw that broke the camels back that they have had issues with each other for a while