What’s on trial in Washington County is paranoia
`Oust Stefanik” lights will light up Glens Falls Friday
By Ken Tingley
It was a horrific story that brought me to the Washington County courtroom Thursday morning.
Something that should not have happened.
Something that should never happen in a civilized society. Yet, it happened twice in a matter of days last April.
Two people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time were shot.
Once when a Kansas City teen went to the wrong address to pick up his brother, and again in little Hebron in Washington County when a 20-year-old Schuylerville woman was shot to death as her boyfriend turned his vehicle around in Kevin Monahan’s driveway.
The television stations are calling it the “driveway shooting trial.”
You may have forgotten about the incident.
It was national news for awhile.
The description painted of Kevin Monahan in court Thursday morning is not one I recognize nor understand.
Chris Morris, the Washington County assistant district attorney, said Monahan was awakened at 10 p.m. last April 15 by a motorcycle and two SUVs in his driveway. He exited his home armed with a 20 gauge shotgun and fired two shots, one that entered Kaylin Gillis’ neck on one side and exited on the other. She died a short time later.
What happened during the three minutes the young people were in Monahan’s driveway is what this trial is all about.
Arthur Frost, Monahan’s defense attorney, said, “This was a terrible accident. Someone should have realized that by now.”
Frost said Monahan exited his home and stood on a wrap-around deck with his shotgun. He pointed it into the air and fired a warning shot, then as the vehicles drove off, stumbled and the gun accidentally went off a second time without him touching the trigger.
Frost said he will call an expert witness who got the gun to fire “at least once” without pulling the trigger.
“The gun was broken,” Frost said to the jury. “It is defective.”
But what was really on trial Thursday was paranoia.
Frost portrayed his 66-year-old client and his wife as frightened senior citizens.
He referred to it over and over again.
Monahan kept a shotgun next to his bed.
His lawyer said when he heard the vehicles in his driveway, he told his wife to get dressed and hide in the closet with a revolver, then went outside with his shotgun to check on the noise.
Frost theorized Monahan saw the motorcycle rider talking on his cell phone at the end of his driveway and was concerned he might be calling for “reinforcements.”
That’s when Monahan started to walk forward, his lawyer said, “walking, looking, then stumbling and bang, the gun goes off.”
Someone in the vicinity of the Gillis family coughed loudly after hearing that description. Others were shaking their heads. Monahan, dressed in a jacket and tie, sat quietly and occasionally nodded during his lawyer’s opening statement.
Frost said after the gun was fired and the vehicles left, Monahan went back inside to comfort his wife.
To let her out of the closet.
To relieve her of the revolver.
“No one here is to blame,” Frost argued.
He suggested Monahan was guilty of nothing more than being a a “dumb, scared old man.”
At 66.
Who was still getting up at 4 in the morning to work.
Who was armed.
Who still looks like a vibrant man.
I am the same age as Kevin Monahan.
I do not have a shotgun by my bedside.
I have never ordered my wife into a closet because I feared for her safety even when I had a rural residence.
I have never fired a warning shot on my property, even when hunters shot perilously close to my house during deer season.
I don’t understand grown adults who are so frightened.
There is little crime in our rural communities.
There is little reason for rational people to be afraid.
As I sat in court Thursday, I wondered how many others in rural parts of our community worry about strange cars in their driveways.
I wondered how many feared renegade motorcycle gangs.
Many argue that sleeping with a shotgun by their bedside is done to assure their family’s safety.
From what, I wonder.
From who, I ask.
Arthur Frost argues that being that being paranoid is not a crime.
But there is a dead woman because of it.
Nobody can dispute that.
The Light Brigade
I heard from a group this week that calls itself “North Country Light Brigade.” It announced its first election year action is Friday.
It plans on stringing lights over a main road in Queensbury with the message “Oust Stefanik.”
In the past, the group has assembled at the five-way intersection in downtown Glens Falls with various messages such “Freedom.”
Lots to say
My column on Wednesday, “The Fantasyland of Elise Stefanik” was one of the most read pieces since I started writing the newsletter three years ago.
Nearly 200 comments have been registered as of late Thursday night. Most showed concern, but more accurately contempt for the woman who represents them in Congress.
The column criticized Stefanik for her comments Sunday on Meet the Press that those convicted on Jan. 6 were “hostages.”
Next event
I will be speaking at the Chapman Museum on Wednesday, Jan. 17 at 7 p.m. about my latest collection of columns.
The Last American Editor, Vol. 2 was published late last year and includes 90 more columns culled from nearly 30 years of writing for The Post-Star.
I have stories about Glenn Merkosky, Rep. Scott Murphy, downtown business owner Kyleen Wade, World War II veterans Floyd Dumas and some of my own personal columns.
There are also columns about the Finch, Pruyn strike in 2001 and the funeral of Rep. Jerry Solomon.
I hope you can make it. I’ll be signing books afterward.
While the event is free, the Chapman requests that you register for the event at 518 793-2826.
Fully one half of our electorate is addicted to a story of America as a dystopian state. To hear it told, we are in the midst of rampaging gangs of migrants out to breed white folks out of existence all the while coming for your guns and to shutter your churches. Obama said it best, "If I listened to Fox news I wouldn't like me either". So therein lies at least part of the blame. I listen to right wing talk once a week or so and I am astounded by the picture painted of our current moment. And that portrait of us is spoon fed to an audience that is perhaps not up to the task of seeing it for what it is, and these incidents are results of that. So this guy might actually feel like it's a roving gang of woke socialists is in his driveway, and he might actually fear for his safety and that of his wife. I doubt it, but it might have something to do with this all. Or just as likely, he's a belligerent jerk standing his ground against some perceived danger that does not exist. Why I would ask is someone like he armed? The Second amendment mentions defense of the state, not of one's self, and if we allow guns to be owned by all comers, then this is what we get. It breaks my heart that a young woman has lost her life to this, and her fellow passengers marred for life. This is the price of our out of control gun laws.
I recently went to lunch with 3 old friends. I was the only one at the table who did not own a gun or feel the fear of the "crime here on the streets in Glens Falls". One of my friends said she no longer carries a purse or wears any jewelry. The other keeps a gun near the bedside in a locked box that opens using a fingerprint. I sat there dumbfounded while my opened purse was on the back of my chair and admiring my wedding diamond. I told them I felt sad that they have so much fear and they said they weren't fearful, just prepared. Well, let me just say, I felt a little fearful while sitting with these people who I used to know.