Check out this weird account of Maye’s trial proceedings from a January 23, 2004 article in the Hattiesburg American:

When asked by defense attorney Ronda Cooper if he would have shot at the officers had they announced they were police officers, Maye shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I would have let them in.”

Maye said he shot his Larson .380 caliber handgun to defend his and his daughter’s life.

But on cross examination, District Attorney Buddy McDonald questioned Maye’s concern for his daughter.

“You were so concerned about your daughter, but you left her on the bed?” McDonald asked. “Don’t you think it was a tad dangerous to open fire with your daughter laying right there?”

What a bizarre question. It’s a small apartment. Maye says he felt someone was breaking in to his apartment to do him harm, enough so that he was ready to fire a weapon in self-defense. His daughter was on the bed. What was he supposed to do? Fire while carrying his daughter in his arms? Move her to the front room, where the intruders had already been banging on his door? I find it hard to fathom how leaving his daughter where she was somehow shows that Maye wasn’t really all that concerned about her. And I think any gunowner with children would reject the idea that firing on someone who’s breaking down your door is endangering your kids. I think most gunowners would agree that it’s an act of protecting them.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 12th, 2005 at 8:39 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Cory Maye. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.