Waffle House shooter receives life in prison without parole

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JONATHAN MATTISE

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A man who shot and killed four people at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018 received a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on Saturday.

Jurors handed down the penalty for 33-year-old Travis Reinking after hearing about two hours of testimony from family members of the four people killed. They sobbed and trembled as they talked about their loved ones and how losing them continues to fracture their lives more than three years later. Jurors had the option of giving Reinking the chance for parole after serving 51 years in prison.

Naked save for a green jacket, Reinking opened fire inside the restaurant just after 3:20 a.m. on April 22, 2018, killing Taurean Sanderlin, 29; Joey Perez, 20; Akilah Dasilva, 23; and DeEbony Groves, 21. He fled after restaurant patron James Shaw Jr. wrestled his assault-style rifle away from him, triggering a manhunt.

“I’ve always been somebody that they say is unbreakable, because no matter what our family has been through, I will always be the one to bring our family up,” Patricia Perez said through tears about losing her son Joey. “This has broken me.”



Shaundelle Brooks weeps while giving her victim impact statement at Justice A.A. Birch Building in Nashville, Tenn., on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022. Jurors are hearing testimony about whether or not to make parole possible after 51 years in prison for Travis Reinking, the man who shot and killed four people at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018. Jurors on Friday rejected Reinking’s insanity defense as they found him guilty on 16 charges, including four counts of first-degree murder. (Nicole Hester/The Tennessean via AP, Pool)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/nashville-travis-reinking-6839ec09d4c4a743bc5c31c54b918290

[oldsoftie]

1. Not quite harsh enough for the likes of him.

Perfect death penalty case. NO doubt of guilt. Away with him. And anyone like him.

[Major Nikon]

2. If you support the death penalty in any case, then you support the death penalty

The punishment itself is fucked up for a variety of reasons which is why the entire civilized world abandoned it long ago.

[Dial H For Hero]

6. Japan isn't civilized?

[Major Nikon]

9. Child porn was legal in Japan until just recently

There's quite a few other examples which can't be chalked up to differences in culture, but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Any country which can afford life imprisonment to protect the population doesn't get to call itself civilized if it employs the death penalty. There's plenty of examples you can set your google on.

[Dial H For Hero]

11. If having the death penalty is a disqualifier, then India, Thailand, and Vietnam aren't civilized

Of course, any country gets to call itself “civilized”, just as they can call any other country “uncivilized”, given that the terms have no objective definition.

[Demsrule86]

17. No country with a death penalty can be deemed civilized IMHO.

[Dial H For Hero]

26. And you have every right to that opinion, humble or otherwise.

But in the end, that's all it is.

[Sherman A1]

32. Precisely

[Major Nikon]

22. Civilized:

1. at an advanced stage of social and cultural development.

When you are stuck in the stone age, you don't get to call yourself civilized anymore, so yeah it is a disqualifier. There most certainly are objective reasons why the DP is uncivilized.

[Dial H For Hero]

25. Technological advancement can be measured objectively. Morality cannot.

There most certainly are objective reasons why the DP is uncivilized.

The universe enforces E=MC2. It's hardwired into reality. Right and wrong are not.

[Major Nikon]

30. I did even mention morality

The justice system most certainly is hardwired into right and wrong and I can’t think of a more defining feature of civilization than justice. YMMV. Meanwhile there’s objective goals which justice seeks to achieve regardless of whether or not you choose to submit to your base instincts and demand your pound of flesh.

[Dial H For Hero]

36. Neither right and wrong nor justice have objective definitions, either.

None of these concepts are falsifiable.

[oldsoftie]

38. Civilized can also mean being more efficient.

No need to stone people when they can be put down painlessly. Just like before surgery.
After all, the Constitution DOES say "cruel or unusual punishment".

[roamer65]

28. Michigan should be somewhat blue like Canada.

Death penalty has been banned in Michigan since 1847.

At least at the state level it has been.

[Demsrule86]

16. No, and neither are we civilized...state murder is still murder.

[Dial H For Hero]

27. That presumes that the DP is, by definition, murder. Legally, it certainly is not.

[oldsoftie]

18. I support the death penalty for those who deserve it. I also support changing the law.

To prevent the chance of any innocent person being executed. Very easy to do. In a nutshell, the DP can only be sought in cases where there is ZERO doubt of guilt. Think Dylan Roof. Those kinds of people. No doubt. Not "beyond reasonable doubt"; NO DOUBT.

While we're at it, lets also make it law that any prosecutor who intentionally jails someone who is innocent should be made to serve jail time themselves. We all know those; they hide evidence of innocence. They threaten witnesses. They don't accept alibis. Etc. Instead of making just the State pay for wrongful incarceration.

[Major Nikon]

21. Wrong on several levels

First of all there is no legal standard of "zero doubt of guilt" for several reasons, but whatever unobtainable standard you want to invent must be implemented at the state level and there's exactly zero chance states like Texas would even consider such a thing.

Next, even if your imaginary legal standard could by some miracle implement in all 50 states you still haven't addressed all the other problems with the DP like...

1) Disparate use on the basis of protected classes
2) No benefit to victims
3) No benefit to deterrence
4) More expensive than the alternative.

Nobody "deserves" death unless you subscribe to some uncivilized biblical notions of "eye for an eye" which are nothing more than an emotional response for your pound of flesh that is counterproductive to society. That's why the civilized world did away with it long ago.

So really what you mean is you support the status quo.

[oldsoftie]

23. Yes, there's no legal standard. Thats why I said the LAW needed changing.

And if we didn't take 20+ yrs to do it, there would probably be a good deterrent. people see them being put down while the crime is still fresh in the memory & I'd bet it would have an impact. And a LOT less money spent and jails full. How many murders are there every year? If we give them all life, how many jail cells do we have to build every year? 15,000? 20,000? Not all are solved unfortunately, buts lets just say 1/2 are. Still a ton of jail cells. Not even accounting for other violent crime where no one dies. So then we get to the "Oh, he's so old now he's no longer a threat. We should let him go". No.

As for it being an "unobtainable standard", I give you Dylan Roof. Brian Nichols. Robert Bowers. Nidal Hassan. The list go go all the way down the page. Easily obtainable standard.

[Skittles]

31. the death penalty has never been a deterrent

we'll kill you to show it's wrong to kill people is just some fucked up shit right there

[oldsoftie]

33. It can be. Ask Cass Sundstein. And it may be better not to wait 20 years too.

“The evidence on whether it has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has frequently taken liberal positions. “I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified.”

https://web.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/vol58/issue3/sunstein1.pdf
Foolproof analysis & study? Probably not. But until you actually execute one a week for a couple yrs you'll never really know ether. Worth a try with some of these people.

Changing the law to take away the chance of ever taking an innocent life & you could feasibly rid the world of the worst criminals in short order. When people still have the crime fresh in their minds. And you also stop the endless appeals that cost so much money. Appeals that are needed NOW because so many cases are ham-handed. How many appeals does Dylan Roof need?

Then there's the point that, regardless of deterrence, they get what they deserve. And as I asked earlier, how many prisons do you want to build? We have a LOT of murderers. Not to mention all the other prison-worthy crimes

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Remind me again about the exceptions to the

commandment about not killing.

[oldsoftie]

14. The Commandment properly translated from Hebrew is "Thou shall not murder"

Not Thou shall not kill.
And people are put to death for far less in the Bible, if you're going to use it as an example.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

24. I was once told that the original Hebrew is simply

"No kill."

Executions are simply legally sanctioned murder.

And you are right about the Bible. It is the most violent and hypocritical work out there. Zero consistency, zero morality, lots of justification to do terrible things.

I did bring it up because lots of people claim to follow the Bible. Not me. I prefer to think for myself.

[Warpy]

10. Uh, nope

He's pretty clearly insane, although not in legal terms. If they manage to medicate him in prison, he'll have to spend the rest of his life confronting what he did. If they don't manage to medicate him, he'll be in segregation most of the time.

I went through having a close family member murdered. The guy was insane and an alcoholic who was trying to self medicate. I didn't want him killed, that would have made it all worse. I got my wish, he eventually died of natural causes in prison. I was sixteen when it all happened.

The only possible DP case I've seen in my lifetime was Ted Bundy and only because he'd escaped jail more than once. Death was the only thing that would stop that guy.

[Demsrule86]

15. I do not believe in the death penalty for anyone period.

[oldsoftie]

19. I understand. I know I'm the outlier here on the topic. Thats fine.

[Hortensis]

3. He was unquestionably seriously mentally ill. This is well documented

and includes previous interactions with the police.

Whether he knew what he was doing was wrong at the time he murdered these four young people...? A jury of this era decided he did.

In any case, he won't be endangering people outside prison for the rest of his life. This sentencing merely denied him a chance to be considered for parole after 51 years of his life sentence.

Still, let's hope with everything we have that we find a way to undo schizophrenia long before then. It's still not known if it causes permanent brain damage, which would vary by cases anyway. Someday this man may become who he should have been before schizophrenia destroyed that person.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/waffle-house-shooting-suspect-sent-delusional-text-messages/139039/

[grantcart]

12. This was 100% on his father

Well known schizophrenic with violent tendencies. Police took family guns away and only returned them to the father after he promised not to give them to his son , which he did.

[Hortensis]

13. Well, I'm horribly glad I don't walk in his shoes, both as a father

of a mentally ill grown son and as someone whose horrible misjudgment helped enable those deaths and his son's incarceration for life. At least now he'll know where his son is and that treatment is his son's and the institution's responsibility.

My mother in law's best friend only escaped the pain and burdens of the mother of a schizophrenic daughter she could neither control nor consistently help by finally dying of old age.

[ck4829]

4. Hopefully, his father will be joining him

Last edited Fri Feb 25, 2022, 11:16 AM - Edit history (1)

https://disgupedia.freeforums.net/

[Midnight Writer]

8. Only took four years.

[oldsoftie]

34. yes. Another good point. WHY? Didn't take 4 yrs to FIND him.

[peppertree]

20. And when will Wayne LaPew receive his, one wonders

In the next lifetime, I guess.

[Samrob]

29. Travis Reinking is a white man but the photos in this AP story would make one think he is a black.

This is how the media contributes to the negative stereotypes of black men and women.

[oldsoftie]

35. The photo is one of the VICTIMS; a black man. Did you READ the story?

In the picture, His mother is testifying on his deaths impact on her.

[Samrob]

37. Yes, I read the story. My post was only about the photo used and at first glance the impresson

it would leave with many who may not take the time to read the story.

[Jedi Guy]

39. That wasn't my takeaway from the image included in the OP.

Why would the court show a tasteful, professionally-done photo of the defendant wearing a nice suit and tie? Simple answer: the court wouldn't do that because it makes absolutely no sense. You're reading something into this that simply isn't there.

Also, "make one think he is a black"? Awkward.