OSU fraternity shooting victim says sentence was too light

[depakid]

A man shot in the leg while looking for cans in an alley behind an Oregon State University fraternity when he was homeless says he feels the student who shot him got too light a sentence.

Dennis Sanderson told The Corvallis Gazette-Times that if the situation were reversed and a college student was shot at a homeless camp, he believes the judge's sentence would have been much more serious.

"If a college kid came snooping around my camp, and I shot him? I'd be doing 25-to-life," he said.

A former member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, Josh Grimes, served 150 days in jail after he was convicted of assault and unlawful use of a weapon for shooting Sanderson in October 2006. Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson asked for five years in prison for Grimes but a judge reduced it to jail time and community service.

The student claimed he was aiming for a trash bin behind Sanderson because he just wanted to scare the man away. Sanderson was shot in the leg. This week, Sanderson won a $41,000 jury award in a lawsuit against Grimes and the fraternity.

"I'm satisfied with the verdict," Sanderson said, but added that he felt the shooting revealed a "culture of animosity towards the homeless" at the fraternity. "If I'd have died, no one would've even known what happened," he said. "But I lived; and I wouldn't let go of it."

According to Robert Kerr, the Oregon State University coordinator of Greek Life, the campus chapter of Alpha Gamma Rho banned guns shortly after the shooting. Every fraternity and sorority associated with OSU already had banned firearms.

Sanderson said Corvallis police Detective Mark Posler apologized to him on behalf of Corvallis after the shooting. "He said, 'I'll get the guy who did it,'" Sanderson said.

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/osu_fraternity_shooting_victim.html

[barbtries]

1. 150 days in jail

for shooting a person. yep. that's wrong.

[joeybee12]

2. Yeah, let's just shoot at people to scare them...

...after all, the Second Amendment gives us LIMITLESS rights, correct?

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

3. Who has made that argument?

[TheWraith]

4. Funny, you seem to be the only one saying that. nt

[Euromutt]

5. Yes, that sentence does strike me as overly lenient

This was clearly criminal misuse of a firearm, and frat boy twats like this Grimes guy give responsible gun owners a bad name. Makes you wonder whether the judge was a former frat boy himself.

[depakid]

6. This case is probably worth a year or two under the facts

but the things that disturbed me is that if the tables were turned (assuming a clean record)- the sentence wouldn't have been a year or two- the homeless guy is right- he'd be looking at 10-15 years for nearly the same behavior.

Also interesting that the civil suit netted $42,000 (I think they're saying net). Goes to show how stingy Oregon juries are, to be certain, but if the tables were turned, my bet is that the judgment would have been double (though there wouldn't have been any pockets).