Can Homicide Ever be Justifiable?
What exactly is a “justifiable” homicide? Is it OK to kill people sometimes and not others. The Detroit Free Press takes a hard look at “justifiable homicide,” citing FBI crime records that say Detroit is city number one among “justifiable homicides.” In the still of the night, after her southwest Detroit bar has closed, Adela Rivera sometimes still wonders whether she’s going to hell. “You know it says, ‘Thou shall not kill,’ ” Rivera said, taking a drag on a menthol cigarette, a habit that reclaimed her after that November night in 2003 when she shot two robbers in her parking lot. “It doesn’t say, ‘Thou shall not kill, except …’ ” Across town, another woman often lies in the dark. Her son was on the other end of bullets fired in self-defense in another case. “I am awake every night, and I think about it every day,” said Bernadette Taliaferro-Cain. “It’s been almost 1 1/2 years and a part of me is dying and I don’t know how to stop it. I just want to ask why they did it, why they s
What exactly is a “justifiable” homicide? Is it OK to kill people sometimes and not others. The Detroit Free Press takes a hard look at “justifiable homicide,” citing FBI crime records that say Detroit is city number one among “justifiable homicides.” In the still of the night, after her southwest Detroit bar has closed, Adela Rivera sometimes still wonders whether she’s going to hell. “You know it says, ‘Thou shall not kill,’ ” Rivera said, taking a drag on a menthol cigarette, a habit that reclaimed her after that November night in 2003 when she shot two robbers in her parking lot. “It doesn’t say, ‘Thou shall not kill, except …’ ” Across town, another woman often lies in the dark. Her son was on the other end of bullets fired in self-defense in another case. “I am awake every night, and I think about it every day,” said Bernadette Taliaferro-Cain. “It’s been almost 1 1/2 years and a part of me is dying and I don’t know how to stop it. I just want to ask why they did it, why they sho
