Good Guy with a Gun #73: Bartlesville, OK
Original incident: January 12, 2024. If you’re stupid enough to fall for a Internet sex scam, you might be stupid enough to get yourself killed. And there’s SO MUCH stupid here.
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. If you bought or received a calendar, contact me for a complementary subscription. Today’s post is somewhat updated from the calendar version.
The path to 23-year-old James Allen’s death is paved with stupidity.
First, he paid a Snapchat scammer for sex.
Second, he went to the wrong address. The scammer told him where to go to get his carnal reward, and he went somewhere else instead. (Not that anyone at the “correct” address was willing to have sex with him, either, but still.)
Finally, when he banged on the homeowner’s door — at 8:30 in the morning, looking for sex! — and demanded that she open up for him, he didn’t listen when she said she was armed and would shoot him. He escalated instead.
The County DA described the result: “Door is off hinges, a broken door chain is located embedded into the door, broken chain locks are found inside the apartment, wood splinters from the door are found in the kitchen and dining room area.”
Think about the violence with which he entered the apartment. The woman was just 25 years old, working on her laptop, alone. And suddenly that happens. It’s terrifying.
Thank God she had a gun. One round ended the incident.
So now, when people ask you, “Why do you have a gun? What are you afraid of?”,1 your answer can include, “The psychotically angry stranger who kicks down my door demanding sex on a random Friday morning.” As one of the neighbors said, “You live in a place, and you think ‘oh, we’re safe here,’ ‘It’s fine.’ But the world is just getting more and more crazy every day.”
The DA later said, with sublime legal understatement, “It is clear the actions are a justifiable use of deadly force.”
The scam aspect of the Snapchat interaction came out later: They identified the account Allen was communicating with, traced it overseas, and associated it with a Bitcoin account that had over two million dollars in it.
A fool and his money are soon parted. And sometimes their lives are, too.
Captain Elkins delivered this life lesson: “I think at the moment any relationship starts off with digital currency, probably is not the most healthy relationship.” Indeed.
Sources
There’s some really good local coverage on this story. I like the attention to details, the sympathy for the victim, and the links to primary sources.
Overall, I think Fox News did the best. Through their local affiliate Fox 28, they covered the initial shooting and got neighbor reactions, helping to show what this must have felt like. They followed up with an extensive follow-up piece after the DA’s decision. Both of these gave airtime to the story — almost three minutes in the follow-up, which is a lot in TV-land — and the follow-up also provides a link to a PDF of the DA’s decision.
News Channel 8 did a really good job, too, covering the DA’s decision. Their editorial choices were excellent: They included the life lesson from Captain Elkins, gave details on the fraud, and discussed Oklahoma’s Stand-Your-Ground law.
The Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise showcases some excellent writing in their description of the story.
We got radio coverage, too. I assume that the story made it on the air, but I don’t see recordings of the on-air commentary.
KGGF Radio covered the initial incident, but I don’t see a follow-up. I like the fact that they embedded audio of Chief Elkins’ description of the incident.
Bartlesville Radio also gave it some coverage. I liked the fact that they also included a link to the PDF of the DA’s decision.
Finally, in the specialist 2A space, Brandon Curtis covered the story at Concealed Nation.
Beth, I know you’re reading this. How would you punctuate it?
Wow, I can't imagine the terror of that poor young woman. As to punctuation, I'd do it the way you did, except to put the comma inside the quote marks. You could reverse the clauses: So now you can say "x," when people ask you "z?"n It's a bit more comfortable for the question mark, but doesn't carry quite the punch of the original.