Some Consequences of Carry Seen In Pizza Delivery Case
June 10, 2004

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Carrying a firearm for self-defense is not a choice most people make lightly. Those who do must accept the fact that if they have to actually use the gun in what they reasonably believe is a life-threatening situation it will have to be a split-second decision; and that decision will be subject to legal and public opinion challenges.

They know there are grave consequences. In essence, they are deciding that it is better to be tried by 12 than buried by six. When the gun is drawn and used, it is long past 9-1-1 time.

They also know that when a life is on the line, you aren’t allowed any mistakes.

Some people make the decision to carry and do it all their lives without ever having to draw and display the gun, let alone pull the trigger. In most armed citizen encounters—reported and unreported—the gun is not actually fired to terminate a threat and prevent serious injury or death.

But there are enough examples of deadly encounters where a gun was used successfully by the intended victim of an aggressive predator, that tens of thousands, if not millions of people, believe that carrying a firearm for protection is a reasonable and prudent choice.

After every incident in which a gun is fired to incapacitate or kill an attacker, there will be a careful investigation by police, coroners, prosecutors and usually a grand jury. There will also be a public “trial” conducted by the media.

Sifting Facts
During all of these siftings of facts by people who were not present when the fateful encounter took place, every detail of the reasonableness of the shooter’s action will be examined thoroughly. Reporters will actually ask absurd questions. Among them will be queries like: Why didn’t the shooter only wound the assailant? Why did he/she fire so many shots? Why did he/she shoot the assailant in the back? Did the assailant really pose a risk of serious injury or death?

There will be statements made by the dead or injured assailant’s friends and relatives intended to show that the aggressor was really a gentle person who never intended any serious harm.

Seldom asked by the media or prosecutors is whether the assailant bears any responsibility for the deadly encounter.

In a recent New Jersey incident, a policeman had to shoot and wound a 17-year-old male who brandished and pointed what proved to be a looks-real airgun at the officer and told the policeman to drop his own gun. Many people blamed the cop for the shooting rather than the youth who knew the gun was not real but made the mistake of challenging someone he knew carried a real gun.

At least in that case, the authorities wisely remanded the wounded youth to psychiatric examination.

But then there is a recent case from Indianapolis.

Shots Cost Job
A 38-year-old pizza deliveryman in Indianapolis, IN, used 15 shots to stop a man who was apparently trying to rob him on May 17, but Ronald B. Honeycutt, of nearby Carmel, may have had insult heaped upon his injury when his employer, Pizza Hut, fired him for packing a pistol on the job.

Honeycutt, like many other workers faced with a similar situation, chose to accept the consequences.

Also Honeycutt perhaps didn’t help his case any by emptying his magazine at the dead man, identified as 20-year-old Jerome Brown. There were no witnesses to the shooting.

According to earliest report from The Indianapolis Star, Marion County prosecutors were looking hard at the case, because of the number of shots he fired.

Honeycutt told the newspaper, “I’m just satisfied it was him and not me.”

According to WAVE 3TV in Indianapolis, Honeycutt said he was returning to his van after making a delivery at an apartment on the city’s far east side when he heard someone say “Hey, my guy” and turned to see a man approaching with a gun. As the man raised the pistol, Honeycutt drew his own 9mm handgun and opened fire, emptying the magazine.

During the confrontation, Brown never got off a shot. It was later discovered that the chamber of his gun was empty, but Honeycutt reportedly told police that he heard Brown’s pistol “click” twice. When Brown fell, he reportedly told Honeycutt, “I just wanted a pizza.”

But after facing Brown’s gun, Honeycutt stated, “That’s not what he wanted.”

The delivery man said he fired all of his shots because Brown did not appear to be affected by the shots. He just kept coming. When Brown went down, Honeycutt grabbed his gun, because he feared the gunman had an accomplice. He drove back to the Pizza Hut and called police.

He was fired not for the shooting but because he violated Pizza Hut policy by carrying a gun on the job.

He told The Star, “I like delivering pizzas. It’s a fair job, but I don’t plan on dying for it.”

Questions and the probing of all aspects of the shooting soon followed.

The Star reported a few days after the incident that preliminary autopsy results indicate that Honeycutt, “who claimed he killed a would-be robber in self-defense,” may have fired many of the shots after his alleged assailant fell to the ground.

“It’s believed the majority of those (bullets) may have gone into him while he was on the ground,” Acting Chief Deputy Marion County Coroner John Linehan said on May 21, according to The Star.

Linehan said Dr. Stephen Radentz has completed his autopsy but is reviewing his notes before submitting his findings to investigators and Marion County prosecutors.

Roger Rayl, a spokesman for Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, said prosecutors are waiting on additional information, which he declined to discuss, before deciding whether to file any charges.

Honeycutt said he continued to fire his gun because Brown just stood there. He said he couldn’t tell whether the bullets were even striking him.

However, Linehan said that would have been impossible.

“There’s no way someone could be standing up after being shot so many times,” he said, according to The Star.

Linehan said the angles of entry led examiners to conclude that Honeycutt fired some of his shots after Brown had fallen.

But Honeycutt said the bullets entered Brown’s body at a downward angle because he was standing on the floorboard of the van when he fired.

“I’m 6-foot-2, and I was elevated because I was halfway in the van,” Honeycutt said. “I was maybe 7&Mac251; feet up in the air, with my arm over the top of the door, shooting downward.”

Honeycutt reiterated that all his bullets were spent before he even approached Brown to grab the victim’s gun. He said Brown remained standing until the last bullet was fired.

“He fell down on his left side, and his arm was the last to hit the ground because his gun was pointed upward at me the whole time,” Honeycutt said.

He said he was disappointed that the coroner had reached another conclusion.

“I thought that in this world in this day and age they would be able to figure this out,” he said. “That is their opinion, but they are wrong.”

The same Star report quoted relatives of the would-be robber, including a sister who said after hearing the corner’s report that: “He (Honeycutt) deliberately set out to murder my little brother.”

Thus it appears that relatives at least have raised the prospects of a murder or other charge against the man who defended himself from what he reasonably believed was a deadly threat.

Future developments in this case may prove instructive for all who carry.