CNN.com

Man killed in Amish tomato-tossing prank
Thursday, September 4, 2003 Posted: 11:53 AM EDT (1553 GMT)

MOUNT HOPE, Ohio (AP) -- It's an annual prank in this tranquil Amish community, where men wear straw hats and women bonnets and plain dresses: Youngsters hide in cornfields and hurl tomatoes at passing cars.

This year, the mischief turned deadly.

A motorist who had been pelted several times on Labor Day got out of his car and fired three to five rounds into the 7-foot-high corn, killing 23-year-old Steven L. Keim.

No arrest has been made.

My bosh is an Amish. (Behaves like one)
Hmm.

I cannot believe that adults would encourage, never mind participate in such childish behavior!!!

I hope they've learned their lesson.

"Learned their lesson"? You're fucking retarded. That idiot needs to be arrested and put in prison for the next twenty years. You don't start firing off a gun just because someone hit your car with a tomato. That anyone would even THINK of condoning such atrocious stupidity is beyond my ability to comprehend.

Yeah, I agree.
Shooting someone for pelting your car with a substance that will come off under a good rain is *not* acceptable. 'Course shooting someone, anyhow, is not acceptable.
I'd throw tomatoes at cars no matter what.

sad..

funny prank though..

Adults condoning and participating in throwing tomatoes at cars passing by is beyond my ability to comprehend. Yeah, I hope they all get a reality check and grow up a little.

I said nothing really on the case of the guy who did the shooting. Quick question Spin, is there an instance where shooting anybody -is- acceptable? Besides in the case of an officer taking down someone who is threatening a civilian and/or an officer's safety?

Frankly there's a lot of fuckwads in this world who do deserve to be shot. Whether or not the said case is one of them I suppose is up to personal opinion. Myself I don't know as I'd "shoot" them but I certainly can think of quite a number of people I'd love to shoot. But then again this is me... who thinks Ted Bundy was brilliant. And he was... but hey.

I wouldn't answer the question of who deserves to be shot, because I don't think I have the right to say.

Agreed with the statements about those people throwing tomatoes at cars. I also agree that the shooter in this case is a criminal.

But your last comment I take issue with. Does it have to be an officer to take down a dangerous criminal? Suppose it was someone like Ted Bundy that kicks in your door and rushes in at you. Do you feel that only an officer has the right to shoot him?

There are situations where shooting someone is acceptable. Anyone that could confuse one of these with kids throwing tomatoes at your SUV shouldn't be allowed to carry a pocket knife, much less a loaded gun.

I take issue with that you used Ted Bundy of all people in your "kicking down a door and rushing in" example. He's a lot smarter than that...but we'll let that slide for right now.

Taking into consideration that my mood is particularly foul, I'm also going to ignore the "do you feel that" section and go with the growing phenomenon of civilians getting jail time for killing intruders that broke into their house and attacked them.

What I "feel" becomes irrelevant to a judge in a court of law anyways. Which is awesome, means I can "feel" however I want on a subject. It's whether I choose to act on how I feel that matters.

Do you mean to say that people should be prosecuted for defending their homes, their families, their very lives against criminal home invasion?

Agreed.

I'm not saying they "should" be, but it is a fact that they are.

The tomato thrower deserved it, what right do they have to throw shit at someones property, what if they had of caused the car to run off the road and wrecked the car or the driver died, I'm sure it wouldn't have been nearly so funny then. Fuckwads who think its okay to do stupid shit like this need to be taught a severe lesson, for the safety of the rest of society. Personally I would have fired the shots into the air, or gone into the corn and beaten the shit out of them.

Amen to that. It was just a stupid prank - everybody has done something like that at some point (or almost everybody, apparently). I know it doesn't mean they <i>should</i> have, but, good God, can't the Amish have <i>any</i> fun?

You're a retard of the highest caliber. "Waaah, someone irritated me with a childish prank, I'm justified in killing them!" What the fuck are you smoking, and why hasn't it been banned yet? First of all, on the odd chance that an off-road crash resulted in a death or injury in a freakin' CORN FIELD (ignoring the fact that if you swirve off the road from a tomato hitting your car, you're a pretty janky driver to begin with), that'd be an incalcuably freakish occurence. If you smoke while you drive, there's an off chance one of the burning ashes will fly back and hit the driver behind you in the eye, causing them to swerve aside into a sixteen wheeler and cause a ten car pile up that kills a family of puppies, but that doesn't mean you can walk around shooting people in the face for smoking while they drive. It's irresponsible dickweeds like you that give the gun control lobby so much fuel; stop thinking with your fucking testicles and learn to control your fucking impulses instead of walking around all the time beating your chest at everyone that pisses you off. This is civilization, fucktard, it doesn't work well when everyone in it started killing each other off for minor irritations.

*takes a deep breath*