Source: foxnews.com 2/6/24
[ACSOL is posting this as a warning to members of our community]
A Houston man allegedly lured a convicted sex offender to his death in what is being described as a possible case of vigilante justice.
James Lewis Spencer III, 24, is charged with murder in connection with the shooting death of Sean Connery Showers, 37, who was found unresponsive, lying in a ditch near a park on Northwood Street, in the early morning hours of May 29, 2023, according to the Houston Police Department.
Spencer allegedly told someone “he believed the police were not doing enough to keep pedophiles incarcerated,” and he wanted to “rob and harm those types of men [because] they would do bad things to little children and other people,” an affidavit filed in Harris County last week states.
Surveillance camera footage shows a vehicle slowing down near the victim and then “a string of rapid gunshots” coming from the vehicle before it speeds off, according to Houston police.
I wonder how the accused found out his target was previously convicted for sex offenses and got his phone number…
ACSOL posted this tragic story on its website in order to let registrants and their families know that it can be dangerous to meet a stranger at an outdoor location especially when it is dark outside. To answer Dustin’s question, I am certain the man who killed Mr. Showers found his name on the state’s public website and then looked for his phone number online where many private phone numbers can be found.
Odd that James Lewis Spencer III said he was angry, worried, or whatever about men who “would do bad things to little children and other people” because he was talking about himself. It would’ve been a lot more efficient for him to have murdered himself. Saved a lot of hassle.
But no. Now society must deal with the dipsh*t. What a problem. How long will we have to carry his ass and take care of him? Rest of his life? I guess I hope so.
The good news about this is that with any justice, James Lewis Spencer III will not be able to procreate and spread his defective genes. Society is helped by ending that gene line.
According to the article, the vigilante lured the victim to a park by posing as a minor…if that is true, then I would say any registrant communicating with minors online is an extremely bad idea, which will almost always have terrible consequences.
That said…the vigilante is just one more self-righteous coward, who contributed nothing to society through his craven actions, and the world would be much better off without him and his ilk.
Of course, as per the usual practice, the victim is “villainized” as much as possible, in a lazy attempt to “justify” the murderer, solely because the victim was a registrant. They tout his previous conviction as if it were somehow worse than what the vigilante did to him (apparently, most people seem to think that looking at images on a computer screen is now a crime deserving of death.)
Bottom line is, the registry gives all these pathetic, lonely little vigilantes a list of “soft targets” to project their own insecurities and failures onto, and everyone on the registry will continue to be at risk so long as the registry exists.
A 100 years ago in Texas, James Spencer probably would have hung that man because of his race, instead of gunning him down for being on the registry over some dirty pictures police found on his computer. That says a lot about how far we’ve come as a country.
Sometimes people with very violent urges seek ways to indulge their hateful desires in manners they might be easily forgiven, perhaps even celebrated, and this rarely works out. Jack Ruby certainly thought he’d be hailed as a hero for killing Lee Harvey Oswald, and thought he’d get, at most, five years. Instead he got the death penalty, but died while appealing the verdict. Governments seem to enjoy owning their monopoly on violence, and that’s one reason I think our government will, eventually, get rid of a public registry, and why no other government has one.
I’m less disturbed by events in the Fox News article, than comments posted under it. MAGA voters no doubt, celebrating the act of vengeance.
Lured him to a park, that’s a new trick. Usual these monsters come right to your home. Nobody else asked so…
…and had this murder been witnessed by a passerby? If somebody, totally unrelated to this trap, had walked/drove by just in time to see the result? If Showers (victim) had taken an Uber to the scene, and the driver lingered there waiting on their next gig just long enough to see too much? Do these people get to spend the rest of their natural life with the memories of what they saw, or does Spencer (murderer) take care of that for them?
Which horrible, trauma befalls the innocent bystander? What risk to your life and well being has the State decided is acceptable to place everyone in at all times?
Another question…. How good a shot is Spencer? Never, ever misses his target, sending the bullets flying off to, God knows where? Remember the 80’s… all those news reports about young kids getting shot in their homes as a result of drive-by shooters missing their targets? Those were drug related, but now we have a whole new way to produce those results!
Only a matter of time before somebody needs to be silenced. Only separate matter of time before there are collateral unintended victims.
Yeah! Yet another way this abomination can get anyone, absolutely anyone, murdered! We certainly don’t have enough ways you can get shot at any moment, for any reason or none at all!
I wonder if this will be mentioned in the trial? How this man, Spencer, actually engaged anyone and everyone near this murder? How, careful as he may have been setting this up, things go wrong. Case in point, he got caught, which I assume was not part of his plan.
Go to the original story and go to comments. You won’t believe the ignorant hate printed there.
Stop equating Justice with vigilantism. There is no justice at the hands of a vigilanty, only death, misery, suffering and evil injustice. Justice is paying a proportional sentence for the crime committed after having been duly convicted by a perponderance of evidence. Vigilanties do not bother with evidence, they do not bother weighing whether the punishment fits the crime and they most certainly do not apologize when they are proven to have harmed an innocent.
Maybe I am reading too much into their actions, but it seems rural and southern communities have a rather violent reaction to offenders. Is it the whole Pseudo Christian philosophy ( which is preached but not practiced ) that makes them act this way? Or maybe a chosen lack of exposure to anything even remotely progressive, such as rehabilitation? The amount of self loathing these people have about their own lives must be staggering in order to project so much physical hate towards someone they have never met. I always wonder what would be the outcome if the action was reversed. When the vigilante attempts to “draw out” the offender, have a group meet the vigilante and confront him. Unfortunately the offender is often willing to meet, showing that they are in fact still in that offender mind set. I’m glad I learned from my mistake.
What a drooling moron.
Remember that vigilante in Detroit that was killed by the young man be lured in?
We need more of that.
Warning to vigilantes – things went your way this time
But they won’t always
I never knew that praising one’s murder and wanting to give a murderer a medal was law abiding. I may not like what someone does or says but I’d never wish any ill will towards another human being. People who support the murderer for killing a registrant are the ones who need to be monitored. I would rather live next to a registrant than one of these ” law abiding” citizens who cheer injuring or murdering a registrant for being on a government list. Another case to show the registry needs to be abolished!
To be fair, the victim was not a member of our “community.” Our community consists of former offenders and their associates and families who are prominently dedicated to the elimination of the registry to allow former offenders to live fruitful, event-free lives after paying for their crimes.
Now, don’t get me wrong: the basis for this crime is wrong. “To Catch a Predator” was bad when it first came out but at LEAST it had the “imprimatur” of law enforcement direct involvement. But lately police and district attorneys have been charging individuals who were caught by these vigilantes, using the vigilantes’ “evidence” to convict these individuals. As far as I know, this is the ONLY time individuals have been charged and convicted of schemes that do not involve actual victims that were not organized by local law enforcement. (And if some of those victims had a lawyer like Norm Pattis at their side, they probably wouldn’t get convicted, but that’s another point for another post.)
The only problem with this murder is that it incentivizes vigilantes to now attack people on the registry, through both illegal and through legal means like city bans on residences, travel, education, employment, and living with families. This really needs to be nipped in the bud, and this murderer should see plenty of time in prison, if not life.