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BB Gun Marauder Pleads Guilty in Aberdeen Central Terror

Update on the radical, liberty-crushing lockdown at Aberdeen Central for a bogus threat a couple weeks ago—one of the three knuckleheads involved has pled guilty:

Carson M. Fridrich, 18, of Sioux Falls pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession of a BB gun on school premises. He was fined $397 and sentenced to 60 days in jail with 58 days suspended and credit for two days served [Elisa Sand, “One Admits to Charges from Central Lockdown Incident {paywall},” Aberdeen American News, 2020.11.30].

Guy comes all the way from Sioux Falls to twirl his BB gun in the Aberdeen Central parking lot? Good grief—just stay home, and you’ll avoid coronavirus and court appearances.

The other knuckleheads involved await their moments before the judge:

Carson Liebig, 18, of Aberdeen is another person charged. He faces two felony counts of simple assault against a law enforcement officer and misdemeanor charges of possession of a BB gun on school grounds and disturbance of school. He has yet to enter pleas.

Jillian M. Kiefer, 18, of Aberdeen faces misdemeanor charges of making a false report to authorities and disturbance of school. She is set to make her first appearance in court today [Sand, 2020.11.30].

BB guns can kill, but they don’t kill often. A BB gun did kill a teenager back in February. A 1997 study found that 71% of air gun shootings were accidental and found three instances out of 101 shootings that resulted in death. A 1998 study found that air guns killed an average of one person a year in the United Kingdom.

14 Comments

  1. mike from iowa 2020-11-30 08:45

    FYI, Currently the biggest animal hunted with an airgun is a cape buffalo in South Africa on 15 April 2018. The final results are the . 458 Rhino Air rifle caliber, it is modified it to use monolithic and copper jacketed bullets you can buy off the shelf.Jul 10, 2018

    Must admit this gun was modified, but, it is still in the same species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, domain, etc. as said b-b gun.

  2. Mark Anderson 2020-11-30 11:58

    Gee I used to leave my 20 gauge double barrel shotgun in my 63 Ford for a quick duck hunt after school. I never wanted to shoot my eye out with my Daisy Red Ryder so I never brought it to school. It is near Christmas so they should pardoned for their stupidity or maybe forced to put their tongue on a frozen flagpole. A triple dog dare for sure.

  3. mike from iowa 2020-11-30 13:57

    Nearly 60 years ago, an older sib shot me in the nose with what he swore was an empty bb gun. He called the shot, right between the eyes, but the bb was a little low and family doc had to scalpel it out and gave me a couple of stitches. I still have the indentation where the bb struck.

  4. John 2020-11-30 17:20

    Likely the far bigger threat was to the life of the BB gun dolts from an officer in a rush of adrenaline, shooting the brandisher dead, mistaking a BB gun for a gun and a threat to the officer’s life, other officers, or specific members of the public.

    Creative sentencing could be appropriate – assist with gun / hunter safety courses for x number of courses and y number of hours. Etc.

  5. bearcreekbat 2020-11-30 19:05

    John is right. One of the more tragic police killings in recent years was 12 year Tamir Rice who was simply playing with a toy gun in a public park. Although the call about Tamir to the police dispatcher twice stated that the gun was “probably fake” and that Tamir was “probably a juvenile,” the dispatcher did not report that to the officers, and a video of the killing reveals that the child was shot and killed immediately by police as soon as they arrived on the scene.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/nov/26/cleveland-video-tamir-rice-shooting-police

    Police officers reportedly also assaulted Tamir’s young sister, and threatened his mother. The officer, who had a history of emotional instability, was not indicted nor apparently held criminally accountable for the killing of the child. The family recovered $6 millon in a civil suit against the city of Cleveland. the dispatcher that failed to tell the officer that the caller said the gun was “probably a fake” and the boy was “probably a juvenile” received an 8 day suspension from work.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Tamir_Rice

  6. mike from iowa 2020-11-30 19:11

    What percentage chance the perp was a person of color in South Dakota. Might go a long way in explaining why no shots were fired by police.

  7. Terra Metzinger 2020-12-01 21:16

    I would have to say you are a complete moron for name calling. There were no liberty crushing anything going on. There are probably alot of kids that have some sort of gun in their vehicle at Central high school as well as every school. Alot of them hunt. So If a parent has a fire arm on school property in their car, should they be arrested too? The 3 made mistakes but you have no right to belittle them.

  8. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2020-12-02 07:02

    Um, Terra, the “liberty-crushing” to which I refer is the school’s lockdown over a non-existent risk. Do you support such restrictions on student liberty—in this case, being able to leave the school at the appointed time for their normal home and work activities—in the face of an alleged threat? If so, do you support similar restrictions on students and teachers to respond to actual public health threats?

    We do have a right to belittle, shame, and punish people, public officials and citizens alike, who do dumb things with bad consequences for others.

    I also revel in the logical analysis of the statement, “I would have to say you are a complete moron for name calling.”

  9. bearcreekbat 2020-12-02 11:28

    I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at Cory’s comment:

    I also revel in the logical analysis of the statement, “I would have to say you are a complete moron for name calling.”

    Out of the park!

  10. Donald Pay 2020-12-02 11:57

    As a former school board member in Rapid City, I voted to expell two students for weapons possession on school grounds (both at Central High, one s knife and one a rifle). The rifle was in full view in a car in the parking lot. Any student could have grabbed that gun and used it.

    Both incidents violated state and federal law as well as school policy, which called for expulsion. Both of these instances could have led to the maiming or deaths of student and staff.

    It is NOT common for students to have weapons on school property. It is well known by students and parents what the law and policy is. Parents, in fact, want this policy, as do students.

  11. bearcreekbat 2020-12-02 13:26

    mfi, just a quick response to your specific post as I don’t want to encourage comments that are off topic. Send me a personal email if you want to explore this topic further and I willy gladly discuss it with you.

    The non-delegation doctrine is an interesting legal theory and can cut both ways if applied in good faith. But for its past burial, it would have provided a solid legal basis for challenging almost all of Trump’s more pernicious executive orders. As Slate points out that doctrine has been pretty much frozen in time since the 1930’s.

    Given the two edged nature of that doctrine I doubt that conservatives on the SCOTUS want to bring the doctrine back to restrict the Biden adminisration. Indeed, as Kagan pointed out in the Slate article, the doctrine opens the door to challenging a ton of administrative (think most actions by the executive branch under Trump as well as under other Presidents) executive orders, rules and regulations, whether conservative or liberal.

  12. bearcreekbat 2020-12-02 13:43

    As an aside, mfi’s inquiry about the SCOTUS and the Slate article would make for a very interesting post for Cory. The topic is intellectually and legally obtruse, which Cory seems to like, and very timely given the current changes on the Supreme Court. Indeed, such a change would have an enormous impact on existing and future public policies. I would encourage Cory to consider such a story and post for the benefit of DFP readers. Nuff said about it from me on this thread.

  13. mike from iowa 2020-12-02 13:59

    My humblest apologies to both Master and bcb for the off topic post. I will chastise myself bigly in later years starting tomorrow.

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