Man follows GPS directions to wrong house; shot dead

[AiA in Atlanta]

I know this area vaguely. Once white and middle-class but now turned largely Hispanic. By the looks of it, this old white man is a holdout and shot a .... Hispanic. I imagine pent up racism and rage finally got the best of this old-timer when a Mexican showed up at his house.

Friends say a man in his early 20s was picking up one more of their group to go skating, when his GPS took him to the wrong house and the home-owner allegedly shot him dead, later saying he feared a home invasion.

According to friends of Rodrigo Diaz, they were all going ice skating. Diaz was driving the car, and they were going to pick up one more skater.
They pulled into a driveway, which their GPS -- at least, according to one of the friends -- told them was their destination.
Then, as WSB-TV Atlanta explains, this tale took a troubling turn.
According to Yeson Jimenez, 15, one of the passengers, Diaz pulled into a driveway; then 69-year-old Phillip Sailors peered out of a window of the house.

He allegedly came out, went back inside, then emerged again, firing a gun into the air.
Jimenez says Sailors said nothing to them but "Shut up!"
Jimenez insists they tried to drive away and that as they did, Sailors fired his .22 gun and shot Diaz fatally in the head.
Sailors has been charged with murder with malice.
Lilburn, Ga., Police Chief Bruce Hedley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "At this point we have established probable cause to charge Mr. Sailors."
Sailors' lawyer, Michael Puglise, told the Journal-Constitution: "He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence."
Among the unknowns is whether the GPS was simply programmed to the wrong address or whether it might have been in some way faulty.
Another question that might arise in some minds is that if Sailors was, indeed, defending himself, how is it that he allegedly shot a man who was reportedly driving away from his house?
Fox 5 in Atlanta offered some semblance of evidence that tire marks at the scene suggested a car that was in the process of turning away.

[AnimalMother]

This is just a really sad story, in all ways.

[Neferti]

Doncha just love "home invasion" laws in the states? Shoot first, ask questions later.

I thought that Self Defence meant that IF somebody attacked you with a "weapon" (whatever it may be, a knife, rock, bat, stick, tyre iron?) you should retaliate? If somebody turns up at your front door and you don't like the look of him ... shoot the bugger ... then claim "self defence", No Way!

MURDER regardless. Yanks and their gun mentality.

[boxy]

Unless there is more to the story, the guy is in trouble, surely. You can't just shot someone for pulling into your driveway and looking ethnic, even in US.

[Neferti]

Unless there is more to the story, the guy is in trouble, surely. You can't just shot someone for pulling into your driveway and looking ethnic, even in US.

Yanks with guns think differently!

A very good American female email friend that I have known for 15 years or so has recently introduced me via email to a old school friend of hers about the Gun stuff. He does NOT own a gun but has sent me stuff that I have had to google to make sure I am correct, about this CRAP.

He has now realised that the YouTube stuff is 17 years OLD. Now he is asking me about "home invasions" in Australia?

Y.A.W.N.

What should I do? Remind him about Pearl Harbour?