<p>This is incredibly distressing (for the student): Hopkins</a> student kills intruder with samurai sword - News & Features</p>
<p>badass
don’t mess with hopkins kids!</p>
<p>This is terrible. I was one of my few acquaintances who was not mugged when I was a student 30 years ago. Unfortunately, Bawlamer is still a tough town.</p>
<p>Thank God the boy is alive from quick thinking and self-defense. I googled university student deaths today to see if there is a new wave of crime in the US besides the headliners (JHU, Yale, Cornell) and found out that a lot of students were not as lucky as the JHU student:<br>
Yale student strangled last week, University of California Irvine student murdered this week on campus, Indiana University student killed while walking, Cornell student and Troy University students died of Swine Flu, Plymouth State University student died of overdose, Hofstra University (NY) woman gang raped in university dorm, and students from Texas A&M, Olathe College and East University were all killed in auto related accidents. </p>
<p>I guess you can’t be too careful in and around campus these days.</p>
<p>More info:
[Sword-wielding</a> Hopkins student kills intruder – baltimoresun.com](<a href=“http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0,114199.story]Sword-wielding”>http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0,114199.story)</p>
<p>the burglar had it coming to him and deserved any pain he felt.
the death is unfortunate, but I feel more sorry for the student than the actual deceased.</p>
<p>It should be noted that the student put himself in a situation where he needed to defend himself.
How stupid! He’s lucky to be alive. :mad:</p>
<p>I admit he had limited options once the intruder lunged at him. I remember the furor of the Hopkins murders a few years ago, and thankfully a repeat experience was avoided this year. </p>
<p>I don’t consider the student a hero at all, however. He’s a fool who got lucky. Lucky that the guy didn’t have a gun or backup.</p>
<p>I’m glad the career criminal is now dead. This student is a Hero in Baltimore and probably saved a lot of future torment in that area. The guy was robbed the night before (2 laptops) and his emotions were probably intensified as the theft had happened only hours before. He yelled at the intruder, but instead of retreating, the intruder cornered him and lunged at him. I would have come out swinging, too. To sit and wait to be a victim of a second crime is just stupid. </p>
<p>When you hear about robberies, muggings, etc surrounding campus’ like Univ of Southern California or Wash U, for example, it sort of shakes you up a little, but the good news in this case is that the student is fine and a neighborhood hero. </p>
<p>I would rather read stories like this than another story about a drunk college frat student jumping out of 3rd story building or a UNC student shot.</p>
<p>So much has happened this year. What with the Yale student dead, something else with a cornell student, unsolved murder of Northwestern student, etc.</p>
<p>I’m just happy that this one ended with the good guy intact!!
And IBClass, you’re entitled to your opinions. I personally consider him a hero just for being brave enough to face this intruder. It would’ve taken police like 15-30 minutes to respond on time and all he would’ve gotten was an “Oops, sorry, we’ll try hard to find the guy” from the police, which is common basically everywhere. I’m glad he was successful in taking this on his own.</p>
<p>I also hope it gives a message to those out there in Baltimore that civilians, especially college kids, will not always just stand back and let the scum of the earth rob them blind.</p>
<p>IBClass06:</p>
<p>Have you been through a traumatic experience like a house intrusion in your life?</p>
<p>If you hear rustling in the back of the garage, it’s completely normal to investigate with a Samurai sword.</p>
<p>(Please note that this is in the context where you had been burglarized the night before and two laptops + a PS3 is missing) You would be more prone to take precautions such as protecting yourself after a traumatic experience like that…</p>
<p>Patrolling your own territory and arming yourself with sufficient protection is better than meeting a potential foe with nothing at all. It’s that simple.</p>
<p>Even if the Samurai sword is insufficient against a gun, Maryland’s Castle Doctrine states that a home owner is not obligated to retreat from an intruder or attacker if he is within the confines of his own home. He has every right to investigate and brandish a weapon for his own protection. Especially against repeat robberies within 24 hours…</p>
<p>Christopher Elser, a SAE brother at JHU was stabbed repeatedly by an intruder (homeless man) when he confronted the man in the SAE house. Chris Elser was unarmed… I mean, John Pontillo’s case would have ended differently without the Samurai sword.</p>
<p>Hooray for him turning the tables against the attacker.</p>
<p>
Yes, I keep mine hanging beside my bed at all times.</p>
<p>The previous burglary is what puzzles me so much. Goodness knows I’d be so jumpy afterwards that I’d be dialing the police if I heard a cat screech. To those of you who respond that the police couldn’t get there in time – wouldn’t you dial the police and THEN investigate?</p>
<p>There was an police investigation prior to the encounter and slashing… and the investigation by the police turned out to be nothing. In fact, it was the police that alerted the undergraduate student that there was a suspect on the loose out in the community in the first place…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hope2getrice,</p>
<p>Were you referring to Trevor J. Boehm? If so, that’s probably not an “unsolved murder”. The police said there’s no sign of foul play. His mother said that he had depression before and that he was bipolar; it seems more likely that he committed suicide.</p>
<p>Boehm from Northwestern University? No, I think it was Northwestern University student Matthew Sunshine who died of alcohol poisoning</p>
<p>I remember reading about the Harvard student who stabbed her roommate to death one morning and then went and hanged herself in the shower. That one was pretty gruesome.</p>
<p>“If you hear rustling in the back of the garage, it’s completely normal to investigate with a Samurai sword.”</p>
<p>LOL. </p>
<p>There was a recent news story about a bank employee who stopped a robbery from occuring. He took down the suspect himself, don’t remember if it was in the bank or just outside the bank. </p>
<p>By confronting the thief, he endangered himself, and everone around him. Even though he was “the hero” he was fired.</p>
<p>Slightly different circumstances, but still, this kid is an idiot for confronting this guy. Not to mention, he has to live the rest of his life with the memory of killing someone…with a sword. All to stop a minor theft???</p>
<p>Another LOL worthy quote, incase you missed it. </p>
<p>"The police spokesman said the student who wielded the weapon had no advanced sword training. “He wasn’t a ninja,” Guglielmi said. “He may have been moderately trained or on the intermediate level.”</p>
<p>That’s assuming the thief was armed and dangerous.</p>
<p>So you are saying, if a thief came into your house, you wouldn’t brandish a weapon for protection just in case he attacks you?</p>
<p>What do you recommend that I do huh? Sit there while he steals my stuff (again) and potentially invade my inner sanctuary where my housemates, friends, and family are open and vulnerable to attack?</p>
<p>I guess you have never been in a situation where you became threatened and felt the need to be safe from attack.</p>
<p>It is too easy to point fingers and say “what if” in these types of situation. </p>
<p>You act with your safety in mind first, then the safety of your housemates. It’s because you don’t know if the thief has a gun or not that you bring out a badass weapon like a samurai sword to protect you.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be so quick to judge - to defend or point fingers without knowing all the facts. As of now, he’s innocent but there’s a possibility he may face a trial. None of you can really say whether whether he felt his life was in danger or whether he became the aggressor. Personally, I’d instinctively feel a slight creep about the person if I find him having a sumurai sword in his own room.</p>
<p>I guess you aren’t from Texas or certain hunting states where most people own hunting rifles or guns and some openly display them in their homes. I don’t know anyone who didn’t own a gun where I grew up. Did I know people who owned huge knives? Yes. Everyone. Everyone I knew had a block of knives in their kitchen. And most kids had bats. So I think it is weird to be creeped out by a samurai sword unless you were raised in a culture and/or country where most people don’t have those things in their homes. Pretty common in the USA.</p>
<p>Yea, I wasn’t raised in such culture. But that’s besides the point anyway.</p>
<p>based on what the article says, you really can’t conclude one way or another. It’s easy to think it’s all about self-defense. On the other hand, there are reasons to suspect otherwise that warrant further investigation:</p>
<ol>
<li>that the student owns a sumarai sword and that he seemed confident to use it could possibly means he had some training in martial arts and the use of that deadly weapon.</li>
<li>the student went out of his apartment through the backdoor, headed toward the garage and the noise to investigate. in other words, he took the initiative to confront the intruder. consider this on top of point #1, you now have a question on how much “fear” he really had. remember some of you just assumed he did it out of fear for his life. personally, if it were me and if i were really scared, i would have got out of my aparmtent through the front door or stayed in my room/apartment, locked the door (remember the noise was from the garage at the back, NOT inside the apartment), called the police, and just had my sword with me just in case the intruder went on to force his way into my apartment or my room. that seems to be a more natural response. the guy that was interviewed said the same thing. the intruder was not inside the place and you don’t have a family to protect.</li>
<li>since his place got robbed the day before, it’s possible he got fed up and had a chip on his shoulder.</li>
<li>the student said “the intruder lunged at him”. everyone would say the same thing because it means “self-defense”. we don’t know if that’s what really happend. if there were some separation between the two when they first saw each other, it seemed incredibly stupid for the intruder to head staight toward someone with a huge sword. the intruder carried no weapon (reasonable assumption because if he did, the news would likely have mentioned it) so it’s reasonble to question if the intruder was really that confrontational.</li>
</ol>
<p>I disagree. I do not believe the intruder was not that confrontational… he has a history of burglaries and break-ins. This was his life. His career. How much more confrontational do you want? </p>
<p>It is perfectly normal and natural for someone to check out the house and yard if one hears a strange noise in the middle of the night. It is also very reasonable for someone to pick up a bat, knife, gun, mace, or other weapon in the house (why do people own guns anyway… to protect themselves) just in case they need to protect themselves. That is the American Culture. That is the response on practically every American TV show or movie and so the America people are culturally trained to react in that manner for self defense. </p>
<p>I think it is too bad the student didn’t own a dog because dogs will usually warn the homeowner early and sometimes drive away unwanted predators. Dogs also go sniffing around and have no fear in protecting their owners if necessary. </p>
<p>Since you are from another culture, you should probably learn that in the USA, this is the typical reaction. That he grabbed the first thing he saw, a centerpiece sword he probably displayed as decor, was not out of line. What would you grab? I grabbed a large rock once and was not afraid to use it. Your adrenaline rushes so fast a person doesn’t have time to sit and think rationally as you are suggesting. It happens fast. Reaction is from fear and protection. </p>
<p>If it ever happens that you are a potential victim of an aggressor, I doubt that you won’t grab something to protect yourself, as you suggest. Most victims are not assaulted from behind as was the chemistry student who was stabbed this week in the UCLA chem lab by another UCLA student. Most people have some sort of warning to try to protect themselves.</p>