commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Ambush in the Mind
When I was a wee lad with stealth and energy but very little brain, one of my great joys was to lie in wait for my brother Tom who in my mind was either a Native American (although they were known as Indians in those far off times), a black hat cowboy, or a Nazi. Occasionally, it was North versus South in our 
own private family civil war. But it really didn’t matter which bad guy Tom was playing; my goal was simple — to either spring out and confront him and mow him down, or take him down like a sniper, a veritable sharpshooter. On rare occasions, I would charge out and bayonet him. It didn’t get any better than that.
Now that I am reaching that age where a man should grow a long white beard, I look back on those days and smile. Although we made a great show of pretending it was real, we still knew that it was not real – that we were playing a child’s game.
Real Ambush
Today, folks in ever-increasing numbers (either that or it’s publicized more) are lying in wait but they are not wee lads with very little brain; rather they are 
generally adult males. They are armed with real guns and set up watch in their homes. Their homes are typically equipped with video and audio relay systems that enable them to see around corners and through walls, thus alerting them as to the best moment to attack. Their intention is to shoot and kill the anticipated intruder — no questions asked, no quarter given.
Currently, we have Byron Smith on trial over in Minnesota (closing statements are Tuesday morning) for lying in wait and shooting and killing two teenage cousins with a bit too much enthusiasm. And now we have Markus Kaarma, 29, of Missoula, Montana, who has been charged in the shooting death of a 17-year-old boy. Prosecutors say he set a trap in his garage to catch any would-be burglars because he was frustrated over recent thefts.
Amy Beth Hansen of Huffington Post writes:
Markus Kaarma, 29, of Missoula made an initial appearance in Justice Court on Monday but did not enter a plea to the count of felony deliberate homicide filed in the death of Diren Dede, an exchange student from Hamburg, Germany.
Kaarma’s attorney, Paul Ryan, said his client feels terrible about the death of the young man, but he was also was disappointed that the Missoula County attorney filed the charge.
Court records said Kaarma and his wife, Janelle Pflager, had set up sensors outside the garage, a video monitoring system in the garage and left the garage door open. Pflager said she put personal items that she had cataloged in a purse in the garage “so that they would take it.”
Missoula like Little Falls, Minnesota has teenagers who may have too much time on their hands, or it may be simply that they are drug addicts. Whatever their motivation, it is really stupid to flit around town burglarizing houses. It’s especially stupid when the house has been hit a time or two already. At this moment in time in America’s hell-bent plunge into violence and retribution, such a strategy will literally get you killed as Dirin Dede found out to his dismay (though the moment of recognition when the bullet hits the bone may not have lasted long enough for him to fully grasp his death).
(This is a good argument for the fact that the adolescent’s brain often doesn’t work very well.) (Unfortunately, this story is also a good argument that the brains of adults don’t work much better.)
Sure as taxes, as Kaarma and Pflager anticipated, on Sunday at 12:30 am, the sensors went off. Kaarma and Pflager looked at the video feed and saw that someone was in the garage.
According to court records, Kaarma went outside into the night with his shotgun and headed for the open garage door. Like anyone might be, he was afraid. His story is that when he peered into the darkened garage, he heard a noise that sounded like metal scraping metal, and he was afraid the intruder would come out and hurt him. Without further ado, and without saying a word to anyone, he swept the garage with four shotgun blasts. Dirin Dede was struck in the head and arm and died in a Missoula hospital.
* * * * *
Kaarma and Pflager were both frustrated. Kaarma said he didn’t want the suspect to get away. Pflager told police that they had been burglarized two times in the last three weeks. Kaarma said that police can’t catch burglars in the act.
According to Attorney Ryan, they felt someone in their neighborhood was watching them. To their credit, they had called the police “(but) nothing was done.”
Then they decided to take the law into their own hands.
Pflager had made a list of the items in the purse thinking that if it was taken, they could attempt to track the thief.
The prosecutors, however, pointed out that it was somewhat suspicious that despite the fact they’d been robbed twice in a three-week stretch, they’d left the garage door open. (Is this like luring a child with candy?)
Ryan countered:
“They certainly didn’t tell the kid to come in (the garage). He entered voluntarily.”
The thing about crime (or even near crime) is that the further you look into it, the worse it usually gets. In this case, assuming the prosecutors are not fibbing, Kaarma blabbed his plans to a female friend who went to the investigators and told them that Kaarma had told her that he had been waiting up for three nights with his shotgun to shoot a kid.
Ouch!
Dede was a junior at Big Sky High School.
Justice of the Peace Karen Orzech set Kaarma’s bail at $30,000. Maybe the economy is still depressed in Missoula.
* * * * *
Based on the Byron Smith case, and now this one, it appears that at least some Northern prosecutors are going to come after the shooters when there is strong evidence that the shooter took affirmative steps to place himself ahead of time in a good position to shoot and kill the would be intruder.
As for Kaarma, I can certainly understand his frustration but there’s got to be a better way for homeowners to deal with thieves than lying in wait and ambushing them.