South Carolina State Rep. Charged With Assault With Intent To Kill

[alteredstate]

State Representative Charged With Assault With Intent To Kill

A state representative from Charleston is charged with assault with intent to kill, and his legal counsel is a fellow state lawmaker.

But Rep. John Graham Altman says the charges against Republican State Representative Wallace Scarborough are bogus.

"That's garbage,” Altman says. “He's charged with assault with intent to kill under the common law— the affidavits themselves point out there’s no crime being committed."

Scarborough appeared in bond court Sunday morning. He's charged with assault with intent to kill. According to Altman, Scarborough was house sitting for his parents in the Crescent subdivision of Charleston. That’s when two S. C. Electric and Gas employees who were working on power lines in the rear of the home startled him.

“Here come some flash light beams coming through the windows he's in the dining room working on some paperwork he picks up a pistol there’s some people in his backyard,” Altman says.

According to the police report, the SCE&G employees told Scarborough who they were, but when Scarborough walked back towards the house, a single shot was fired from his pistol as he was going up the steps.

"The shot went down at the porch,” Altman told us. “He told me it scared him to death when the gun went off and almost blew his foot off."

Altman continues:
“These SCE&G workers can thank their lucky stars and their good lord that somebody didn't stick a shotgun barrel out of a window in the crescent last night and shoot one of them in half.”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Legislator_Arrested.html

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. Unbelievable! n/t

[jumpoffdaplanet]

2. And of course he's a rethug

Why does the newspapers never mention rethugs are rethugs.

[tkmorris]

4. Funny, aint it?

if he had been a Dem he would have been referred to a a "leftist lawmaker".

[alteredstate]

3. His lawyer's not too smart either

:)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/21/211114/713

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/21/224133/624

[rodeodance]

5. whey to articles NOT tell us if Dem or Repug?--this one does in

the 2nd to last sentence--but i have noticed that many do not.

btw--he is a repug.

[tanyev]

6. "Altman said he wants the charges dismissed and an apology

from the electric company."

For WHAT??? Doing their job?

[kurth]

14. GOP logic: Victim MUST apologize

Ask Uncle Dick.

[last1standing]

7. You should change your subject line to reflect the title of the column.

Also, I'm not seeing much of your content in the actual article. Is there another source you meant to link to?

[UpInArms]

8. I would suggest Altman find an alternative source of power for his house

'cause I would refuse to ever get service anywhere near him (if I were an employee at the electic company)

[sendero]

9. There is nothing sadder..

.... than an asshole waving a gun around when he's such a total fool he cannot handle the weapon 1 minute without an accidental discharge.

[Poll_Blind]

10. What kind of dumbass has his finger on the trigger when he's not...

...going to discharge the weapon? This always astounds me. You place your finger straight along the bottom of the slide. If you need to discharge the weapon you just drop your finger to holding the trigger. Since it appears he was walking back to the house, with his back turned (presumably) there should have been no damned reason to have his finger on the trigger, especially since adrenaline was almost certainly coursing through his veins making his muscles twitchy.

Astounds me...

PB

[KansDem]

22. The same kind of dumbass who accidentally shoots while cleaning his gun

It never fails to astound me when someone is either shot or shoots someone else because "the gun went off while I was cleaning it." The "I was cleaning it and didn't know it was loaded" argument doesn't fly with me simply because you cannot clean a gun properly while it's loaded.

I rather assume the dumbass(es) got to fooling around with a loaded firearm only to have it discharge unexpectedly. The "didn't know it was loaded" bullshit is used to avoid looking, well, like a dumbass...

[SCantiGOP]

11. Here's the SC paper

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/15057768.htm

the usual publicity from the Palmetto State. His lawyer who is mentioned in the paper is one of the most racist jackasses around, even by our standards. He is fortunately not running again because he felt like even his 90% republican district was tired of him.

[AndyTiedye]

12. Give This Man a Membership in Dick Cheney's Hunting Club!

Please!

9997

[xchrom]

13. i think there were not enough guns available at the

scarborough house.

that's where the problem lies here -- more guns would have been the solution.

oh yeah -- and the sce&g workers should have had a few guns too.

[lumpy]

15. "........almost blew his foot off".

LOL...why was the asshole trying to pull a John Wayne by going outside if he felt he was in danger? Not very bright.

[China_cat]

16. John Graham Altman is the scum of the earth

He's the asshole who, when chair of the school board, called art and music classes 'finger painting and sing alongs' and moved to abolish them from all county schools. He's one of the ones that called for all artists coming to Charleston for Spoleto to submit HIV negative tests before being allowed to perform.

He even farther right than Rush and Savage combined. He is evil incarnate.

Here's the Charleston paper link: (it requires subscribing...if it wasn't for the 4 paragraph rule, I'd post the whole thing for you)

http://www.charleston.net/stories/?newsID=98063§ion=localnews

[Ian David]

17. They were coming to rob him of his manly essence?

Coke-fueled paranoia?

Maybe he thought the Enron Death Squad was coming to silence him?

[Ian David]

18. The Electric Company announced themselves first...

They shouted...

"HEY YOU GUYS!"

[benEzra]

21. Now THAT was funny... (n/t)

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. Anyone laying bets on the - ahem - race of the SCE&G employees?

:shrug:

[Threedifferentones]

20. Well in his defense

that wasn't "assault with intent to kill."

[Toots]

25. And you know all sides of the story?

All I read was what his lawyer said. What I know is he fired a shot at two electric company guys who were doing their job. The lawyer said the gun went off accidently but do we really know that? I would say that it should be left to a jury or at least a judge to decide don't you, or do you just want to take his lawyers view and forget about it?

[gratuitous]

23. Good thing he had a gun

Otherwise, the outcome of a minor incident in which a pee-his-pants scared little boy might have just been an overcautious 9-1-1 call; now we can have a criminal trial and listen to the accused's ultrastupid lawyer jaw on about blasting electrical workers with shotguns.

With all due respect to our fellow DUers in the South, this sort of story is what fuels and sustains a lot of anti-southern rhetoric. There are just enough of the crazies running around to keep the bigotry going, and while the same things happen north of the Mason-Dixon line, they don't resonate nearly as much as when they happen in (for example) Charleston SC.

[nealmhughes]

24. Under the common law he has no such right to brandish a weapon, not for

simple trespass, which this was not. They were authorized agents of the utility who provide service to his parents.

Sounds like an asshole to me...

Who the F doesn't know who the electric company is?

Oh, maybe he was preparing for life at Ruby Ridge Southeast after the race war....

[Scurrilous]

26. I'd hate to be his paper boy. n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

27. He thought they were interns.

Recessive familial gene.