Canadians Flock to the Defense of Peter Khill, who Shot Car Thief at 3 a.m.

Image from CBC

On February 4th, about 3 a.m., Peter Khill observed a man who was in the act of stealing his truck, in his driveway.  Peter had been a reservist in the military.  He prudently armed himself with a shotgun before confronting the car thief.  During the confrontation, Peter feared for his life and shot the criminal.  In Texas, a grand jury would have investigated the shooting; most likely they would have "no billed" Peter and no charges would have been filed.  But this was not Texas; it was Ontario, Canada.  The police arrested Peter and charged him with second degree murder. From brantfordexpositor.ca:

Police said Khill confronted Styres in his driveway, next to Khill's pickup truck.

Homicide Det. Dave Oleniuk said Khill and Styres did not know each other.

Khill served as a reservist in the Brantford 56th Field Artillery Regiment. He was a student at Waterford District High School and Mohawk College and worked for GE Power in Mississauga.

His lawyer, Derek Martin, has said that his client felt threatened. A Facebook page calling for Khill to be freed has more than 9,000 signatures.

Martin told the Hamilton Spectator, that his client will make a case of self-defence, saying his client was protecting his property and himself.

Martin said Khill has no criminal record and will plead not guilty to the murder charge.

Social media is changing the cultural landscape everywhere.  It appears that the elite no longer control what is to be thought of a situation like Peter Khill's in Ontario.  Sympathetic Canadians have flocked to the petition to free Peter.  He is now out on $100,000 bail.  The petition to drop charges is approaching 15,000 signatures. Donations to his legal defense fund are increasing daily. From the change.org petition:

We the undersigned citizens of Canada and people of the world, beseech Her Majesty the Queen of England in the Right of Ontario, Madeleine Meilleur the Attorney general of Ontario to unconditionally withdraw the 2nd degree murder charge against Mr. Peter Khill of Binbrook Ontario for acting in reasonable defense of himself and his property warding off a thief in the night on his property at 3:00 a.m., February 4, 2016 that regrettably led to the criminal succumbing to his injuries while committing a crime.

There has not been a lot of information released about the alleged truck thief,  Jonathon Dwight Styres. From theglobeandmail.com:

Overlaid on the dispute is the issue of race. Police said Mr. Styres came from Ohsweken, a village on the Six Nations reserve about a 20-minute drive from Binbrook. When Mr. Khill was brought to a Hamilton court for a bail hearing on Friday, Mr. Styres’s group sat on one side of the courtroom, Mr. Khill’s group on the other. The court reserved judgment on the bail issue until next Thursday.

Binbrook locals say the area has seen a rash of break-ins and car thefts perpetrated in many cases, some believe, by native people.

From brantfordexpositor.ca:

One friend said he and his children will miss Styres.

"He lived hard, played hard and died hard and he wouldn't have it any other way," said the friend.

Most people believe that Peter Khill did the right thing, that thieves should be confronted and stopped; a minority believe that thieves should be allowed to steal without hindrance by property owners; such matters should be strictly left to police.

It is a basic difference in the way that cultures approach dealing with law breaking.  In the anglosphere the long historical approach has been that the primary responsibility to uphold the law came from the citizen; the sheriff and later, the policeman, were there to back up and add structure to the law.  It is one of the reasons that Englishmen were reluctant to arm police.  The idea that citizens are merely spectators in the enforcement of the law is a late addition that "progressives" have tacked on to the anglosphere tradition.  On the Continent of Europe, the idea that enforcing the law is only the business of the government, has a much longer history. 

But that history flies in the face of human nature.  Property and the defense of it is as much a part of human nature as it is in the animal world.  It is easily observed by any in the defense of territory by nearly all animals and birds. 


We have not seen all the evidence from that early morning confrontation with a truck thief; I suspect it will be a jury that decides if the shooting was justified.  That too is an anglosphere innovation designed to protect the citizen from an arbitrary and indifferent state.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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