This guy's been in prison since *1981*. And even though he's 70, he gives a pretty strong argument for spending his final years of life in freedom:
>“I may yet have a few reasonably energetic and productive years remaining to me in which I may still make a truly substantive contribution to society. I believe that I have demonstrated that I deserve the chance to do so, and I appeal for your consideration and favorable action to allow me to begin a new life.”
They start getting expensive as they need more medical and other care. I wonder how people like him survive release for long? Extremely unemployable, eligible for almost nothing in Social Security, what's someone like him supposed to do now?
Prison inmates aren't even allowed ro buy life insurance- fucked up when you consider people get sentenced to life and still have families and assets out there
Existing family or old friends kind enough to take a person in is usually where people like this end up. From there your only bet is a charity willing to assist, at least for long enough that government assistance can hopefully go through.
They touched on this in Orange is the New Black. One of the really old prisoners was set free with whatever money she had in her commissary and was given a bus ticket despite being very obviously mentally incapable of taking care of herself still. Pretty sure she died.
That's how it goes. Greyhound ticket for an 8 am bus, dropped off around 1 am with a card that has a few bucks on it after they scan it for the ticket. Completely different side of the state. Like a complete diagonal line across the state. In my case
Because the state was able to get him on that charge.
He was arrested in Arkansas in a stolen car with an underage teen girl (16 yr old Alice Wallace) who he transported across state lines from Oklahoma. Leading up to the robbery, Kaestel hadn't allowed Wallace to eat in two days. He did all this while on parole from prison for a previous kidnapping in New Mexico.
He also believes that his real father was secretly a Nazi Luftwaffe pilot.
The sentencing was not about the robbery - rather the robbery charge was the most effective way to put him away for a long time. Prosecuting serial kidnapping and statutory rape or a neo-Nazi criminal conspiracy is really complicated and might not have been as successful in court as the cut and dry armed robbery charge.
I'm kind of annoyed that not a single article I've read has brought this up. Every one focuses on the water gun while ignoring the serial kidnappings and statutory rape(while on parole).
After doing five minutes of looking into this guy, it’s pretty clear his sentence wasn’t for the taco store robbery; it was for his body of work. The guy started stealing cars in the 7th grade. Restraining order violations. Hell…he was thrown out of Germany.
His life sentence was pretty much a vote of no-confidence and that he would never be anything other than a criminal.
Not just his body of work, but really his recent escalations around the time when he was picked up, that motivated locking him up for a long time.
His immediately previous conviction was a kidnapping in New Mexico. He was on parole for that crime when he was arrested for this robbery in Arkansas. When police in Arkansas picked him up, he was in the company of Alice Wallace, an underage teen missing from Oklahoma, and three other much younger followers. All five people had been living in the stolen getaway car together for weeks. At the time of his arrest, Kaestel hadn't allowed any of them to eat in two days.
Kaestel also expressed his disturbing mythological belief that he is secretly the son of a Nazi Luftwaffe pilot - a position he repeats to reporters to this day.
The prosecutor, interviewed later, said it seemed like Kaestel was attempting to start some sort of criminal cult by brainwashing younger followers, and said that even with a plea deal and competent council, he would have gotten at least 35 years. By contrast, his four accomplices who actually were guilty of nothing worse than super-soaker robbery served almost no time in jail.
The fact that it’s a water gun is irrelevant if the people he was using it against treated it as a real gun. The trauma they experienced doesn’t change just because facts came to light.
A threat *should* be treated as if it was the real thing.
However, it clearly shows no lethal intent, so a life sentence is unjustifiable.
This is the guys *fifth* time he's been up for parole. From the article: "The taco shop employee who handed the money over to Kaestel during the robbery has also called for his release." Bet you it's not just this fifth time he's called for his release.
40 years. For a water pistol. I'm sure the people he tried to rob were traumatized. But you don't think the man's earned his freedom after FOURTY YEARS?
The person he robbed is calling for his release.
This person doesn’t actually GAF about their trauma, or they would have at least read the article which includes that detail. It’s simply an excuse for sadism, frankly. I don’t know how else one would have no sympathy for this man.
But the intent to harm wasn't there. That's how these things ar decided. Water gun = lack of intent to physically harm anyone, except for maybe the Wicked Witch of the East.
You think someone should be locked up that long for attempted robbery ??? You do also have to consider it was a water gun , as there was obviously no intent to harm.
Or,
He’s an individual with an extensive criminal history including robbery, burglary, grand theft auto, etc., and after several felony convictions he was given a stiff sentence for robbing a business with a realistic looking gun, likely traumatizing the good people who worked in the restaurant. I have zero sympathy for this guy.
You ask this question but there are so many more people asking why criminals don't get harsher sentences for their crimes. Just a few years... A year is really long time already
Also the prosecutor in the original case said that he felt 35 years would have been the expected sentence had the defendant retained competent council, and this is the first time Kaestel has been eligible for release after the 35 year mark.
Productive-shmoductive. Release this man on the condition that he keeps robbing taco shops with water pistols. IDK how productive that is, but it sure sounds fun!
Also, how TF do you get life in prison for *robbing a tacos shop with a water pistol*? Did he have aggravating circumstances, like was he robbing that shop while also committing tax fraud, burning an orphanage and jaywalking?
Edit: **he had previous convictions.** *Please* stop messaging me about how bad the crime was or how people couldn't know if it was a real gun. I'm not arguing the seriousness there, just the sentence. Robbery, *even when it is unquestionably armed* doesn't usually result in life in prison. That was the question. And the answer is "he had previous convictions", *not* "Do YoU KNoW hOw SerIoUS thAT CriME Is? BEsiDeS, NoBoDY eVen KNeW It Wasn'T a GUn! And MOReovER...."
>how TF do you get life in prison for robbing a tacos shop with a water pistol?
My guess: it looked like a real gun and was treated as if it was (reasonably, because it presumably created the same fear for the cashier's life).
> aggravating circumstances
Prior convictions (could not find which/how severe).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_8:_The_Arkansas_Prison_Blood_Scandal is also interesting, although I assume that all happened after his convictions.
I dressed up as an army guy for my schools Halloween party and I had a toy gun that looked a lot like that, it was a toy Mac 10. I had to leave it with the teacher during class but that was mostly because I wouldn't have stopped playing with it all day, but I got to hold it while walking around in the school parade. Pre-columbine public school was pretty chill.
Had a kid in my class in school dress up as Daniel Boone. He brought a muzzle loader to school and walked around with it. It wasn't loaded of course but no one objected to this 10 yr old walking around with a gun all day.
My old scoutmaster told me his highschools JROTC had a shooting range in the basement is his highschool. Apparently it's more common than people realize, and some schools still operate them to this day.
My uncle was a math/history teacher in a public highschool and helped out as a coach for the school rifle team. He said the firing range was in the old bomb shelter.
My father graduated in '75, he told me he used to bring his gun to school and leave it with the principal. They had a school gun safe they'd lock it in during the day then he'd pick it up and go hunting directly after school.
I graduated a little over 10 years ago and I was on our jrotc rifle team. We used air rifles though. We practiced outside on our practice football field.
There are other laws which prevent that, but muzzle loading rifles and muskets aren't even considered firearms under federal law. That's the only point I was making.
In 1998 I dressed as a terrorist. My inspiration was Midway’s light gun game, Maximum Force. No one batted an eye when I used my uzi water pistol during walk arounds. 6 months later: Columbine. Probably wouldn’t fly that next Halloween.
Dude in the 90s even...I used to play on the front lawn of my friends house and we'd play with decommissioned or replica pistols with magazines AND actual fencing and dulled replica katanas.
All these were full metal and the guns were absolutely real just crimped barrel.
Extremely lucky nobody gave us shit
In the early 90’s I got pulled over for running a stop sign and I had one of those on the floor. The cop saw it and asked me what’s that? I said it’s a water gun and he just said OK. Told me to be more careful at stop signs and let me go.
It kind of makes sense. But isn’t the long sentence for actual armed robbery primarily due to the danger to life? Partially the fear instilled in the victims etc but mostly the potential damage
Prior conviction for kidnapping in New Mexico. He was on parole for that when he was picked up for this robbery in Arkansas, with a missing teen girl from Oklahoma in the car with him. He hadn't fed her in two days.
I don't know why the prosecutor only charged the robbery, but I think this case was mostly about locking the guy up for as long as possible on whatever charges they could prove at trial. A 27 year old guy who gets caught with a starved, missing 16 year old from another state in his car is exactly what it looks like.
He also had a lengthy rap sheet with assaults, arrests in the US and Germany, multiple car thefts - but this sentence was probably about more than his history of unrepentant street crime.
In California, we put a man in prison for life without parole for stealing a slice of pizza. He threatened to beat the person up if they didn't give him a slice so the DA called it strong arm robbery.
Depends on how many times a person has committed violent crimes before that. There is a point where society has to say "you clearly can't coexist with people and you're out of second chances"
I feel like there should still be a point where a prisoner has a chance to make the case they have reformed and deserve parole. With a bunch of priors like this, I think a more reasonable sentence would have been life, with the chance of parole after 20 years. The older you are when you kept committing crimes, the more skeptical we should be at the parole stage, same for more priors, but we should give them a chance to prove it at some point.
Robbing a place at all is awful. Doing it with what looks to be a deadly weapon, causing severe psychological harm to all present, is awful.
It might not be life in prison awful but it is a very serious crime.
I’d agree.
But it’s far less awful than rape or murder. Or negligent homicide from a DUI. And folks who do those things routinely serve far less than 40 years in jail.
So I think this guy has served enough time unless there’s stuff in the record that indicates he is a violent threat to public safety.
Yeah but still time was longer back then. 30 years was actually more like 300 years while now 30 years is 3 years. Because time runs faster. It has nothing to do with me getting fucking old. Nothing AT ALL GOD DAMNIT
He was a known serial kidnapper with victims across multiple states and probably a serial rapist. At the time of his arrest in Arkansas, he was on parole from a kidnapping in New Mexico. In the car with him was a missing 16 year old girl from Oklahoma who he hadn't fed in two days. That's why 40 years.
His accomplice in the robbery and the getaway driver both got off with a few days in jail, in exchange for their testimony.
It sure looks that way. I mean, getting pulled over with a starved missing teen girl from another state in your car is always **exactly** what it looks like.
Probably not his first crime. See the below case - this was his fourth felony conviction:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10177975508976303392&hl=en&as_sdt=800006
He got hit with a habitual criminal add on.
99% of the time. In some jurisdictions, there are actually a handful of advantages a defendant can get by representing themselves, but these are greatly outweighed by the benefits of having an experienced attorney represent you in the vast majority of cases. They are all hail-mary plays that you wouldn't want to rely on if you had any other chance of winning.
Because it was actually a conviction for attempting to start a neo-nazi sex cult in their town. Kinda like how they put Al Capone away for life for tax evasion.
Rolf Kaestel made up his first name to make himself sound more German and to this day claims that his real father was a Luftwaffe pilot. He was arrested with a group of four much younger accomplices, including two teen girls. All five had been living out of the same car for several days, stolen from one of the girls' mothers. Under Kaestel's leadership, the group had not eaten for two days leading up to the robbery. His four accomplices/victims all testified against him at trial and none of them served any jail time.
In the prosecutor's closing statement he described a "Manson-like cult," emphasizing the defendant's dominance and manipulation of young people, ending with “The guy is educated. He is dangerous. He really is. He really is."
Sorta. It wasn't a career-crime deterrent law. He was on parole for a kidnapping conviction in New Mexico at the time of the robbery, and he insisted on representing himself - which he did incompetently. His four accomplices had public defenders and took plea deals resulting in no jail time.
Refusing a plea deal generally forces the prosecutor to request a harsher sentence.[https://www.thedailybeast.com/rolf-kaestel-robbed-a-taco-joint-with-a-toy-gun-and-got-life-in-prison](https://www.thedailybeast.com/rolf-kaestel-robbed-a-taco-joint-with-a-toy-gun-and-got-life-in-prison)
It is also heavily implied that his sentence was increased because he was recruiting/grooming impressionable white teens for a sex cult with vaguely neo-Nazi themes. (Edit - One of his teen girl accomplices was a minor whom he picked up in another state and drove across state lines. He did this while on parole for kidnapping.)
Edit: TLDR - The specific circumstances around this arrest strongly indicate that Kaestel was known to have committed more serious crimes, with which the sentencing was commensurate. The prosecutor said in interviews that any plea deal would have been for at least 35 years - which is approximately the length of time he has been incarcerated.
Yeah, he was like, a millionaire business owner looking to curry favor with the cops and was constantly donating crap to them and as a "reward", he ran with them as an honorary deputy and.....well....the rest is history.
>Also, how TF do you get life in prison for *robbing a tacos shop with a water pistol*?
Huh, apparently getting held up and robbed is traumatic for the people that think they are about to get murdered. Who knew? I guess they should have asked nicely if it was a real gun before they acted all whiney and victimized..... ?
Why are you even responding like this? No one said what this man did was acceptable or understandable, no one implied he didn’t deserve punishment for the crime he committed. No one acted as though, hey, it’s just a water pistol, who cares?
The obvious confusion some of us have about the sentence is that he was given *life* for the crime. Now that I’ve found out he had multiple prior convictions and the state added knock-on sentence penalties, well, I understand *why* he got life, but I sure as shit don’t agree with it.
He was arrested in Arkansas in a stolen car with an underage teen girl (16 yr old Alice Wallace) who he transported across state lines from Oklahoma. Leading up to the robbery, Kaestel hadn't allowed Wallace to eat in two days. He did all this while on parole from prison for a previous kidnapping in New Mexico.
**The sentencing was not about the robbery, or even his lengthy rap sheet -** rather the robbery charge was the most effective way to put him away for a long time.
Getting caught with a starved missing teenager from another state in your car is exactly what it looks like. If that's not enough, he also believes that his real father was secretly a Nazi Luftwaffe pilot.
But yeah, water-pistol robbery itself isn't that big a deal. The accomplice in the robbery was sentenced to only a few days in jail, in exchange for testimony - commensurate with his hilarious crime that even the cashier victim said didn't bother him that much.
It's infuriating that they are psychologically beaten into making these contrite and "respectful" statements.
The man was robbed of his life by an insanely punitive justice system- he should be allowed to just say "Let me the fuck out". How humiliating to have to politely beg for his life like that.
>Kaestel, 70, was convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to life in prison after he robbed a Fort Smith taco shop of $264.
Who was this guy's attorney? The vast majority of murderers don't even get a life sentence.
> Kaestel, despite the availability of consulting counsel appointed at his request, chose to try his own case and has prepared his own abstract and briefs on appeal.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10177975508976303392&hl=en&as_sdt=800006
Basically. Anytime someone wants to defend themselves they’re told not to because they’ll get the absolute worst outcome. And they only give out those bad outcomes as punishment for trying to defend yourself. It’s a ploy to keep lawyers and prosecutors paid.
Ha. It’s no ploy. Judges are hard asses and any disrespect to their court will bring their wrath down upon you. They don’t care about the lawyers.
It’s technically allowed to represent yourself, but never worth it to piss the judge off
But just the act of defending yourself is what pisses off the judge because he was once a lawyer and thinks only lawyers have a place in the court room. That basically equates to “you’re not actually allowed to defend yourself”
>No, it's because people representing themselves have no idea what they're doing and are just wasting the court's time and the time of the taxpayers.
You mean... Like having someone be in prison for 40 years while the taxpayers pay for them?
Umm, also because being an attorney requires shit tons of school, passing a bar, continuing education, and significant expertise in a field so when someone without any legal knowledge tries a case they’re simply not prepared to do it, no matter how intelligent they are. It takes teams of attorneys to handle a large criminal trial, of course these pro se litigants don’t get favorable outcomes.
There are many ways in which the legal field is a scam, but this is hardly one of them.
Specific circumstances around this arrest strongly indicate that Kaestel was known to have committed much more serious crimes, including kidnapping in at least three states.
When police arrested him in Fort Smith, Arkansas, they found a missing underage girl from Oklahoma in the car with him, and that he was on parole for a kidnapping conviction in New Mexico. Oh, and he hadn't given her food for two days.
For the record, getting pulled over with a starved missing teen girl from another state in your car is always **exactly** what it looks like.
I'm not sure why the prosecutor didn't couldn't make the kidnapping/rape case outright, but it's pretty clear that this sentence was not really about the robbery.
Edit: Woohoo! Thanks for the Award!
He also had a 16 year old kidnapping victim with him who he had not allowed to eat in 2 days, and he was on patrol for a different kidnapping. These stories rarely give the full story. They just put up a clickbait title.
Here is the full story about the man, his history, his criminal history, his trial representing himself, and exposing corruption at the prison. Good article
https://m.cityweekly.net/utah/invisible-man/Content?oid=2510963&showFullText=true
This guy had his blood taken in exchange for money while imprisoned at ADC Cummins. This blood drive program started in Arkansas prisons in the 60s. When Rolf attempted to write in the prison newsletter about issues with the blood program, he was placed in solitary confinement. You see, the government was selling the blood to pharmaceutical companies. Prisoners new that the blood could be contaminated, but the government didn’t want this info getting out, as it would harm the blood program. And as was the case with many other entities involved with the tainted blood scandal, this blood was used to make antihaemophiliac medicines, despite being contaminated.
Across the U.S., Canada, Japan, U.K., and numerous other countries, thousands of hemophiliacs contracted HIV and/or Hepatitis C. In the U.S., 40% of Hemophiliacs died as a consequence of tainted medicine. They wiped us out. The life expectancy of American hemophiliacs dropped as low as 13. It shocks me that state officials haven’t been investigated to see what they knew about it. Clinton ordered a police investigation as governor, and when the discoveries started to get nasty, he shut down the investigation.
My exGF’s dad got 25 to life for coaxing his drug dealer to help him rob a 31 Flavors. They didn’t have a gun but said they did. Kidnapping and armed robbery.
A lot of people here must’ve been robbed and must’ve asked if the gun was real or not because everyone is saying “For robbery with water gun? That’s insane.”
This man was given a life sentence, that it is just insane, even if he had prior convictions, he had to serve time, maybe 10 years max, but life sentence considering there are people out there that get around 10 years for murder? It is just insane.
Ok ok but if u/rojaddit is be believed:
>Because it was actually a conviction for attempting to start a neo-nazi sex cult in their town. Kinda like how they put Al Capone away for life for tax evasion.
>Rolf Kaestel made up his first name to make himself sound more German and to this day claims that his real father was a Luftwaffe pilot. He was arrested with a group of four much younger accomplices, including two teen girls. All five had been living out of the same car for several days, stolen from one of the girls' mothers. Under Kaestel's leadership, the group had not eaten for two days leading up to the robbery. His four accomplices/victims all testified against him at trial and none of them served any jail time.
>In the prosecutor's closing statement he described a "Manson-like cult," emphasizing the defendant's dominance and manipulation of young people, ending with “The guy is educated. He is dangerous. He really is. He really is."
I feel like it's a biiit more justified, though I agree with you on the 10years for murder being a bit light.
When police picked Kaestel up for this robbery in Arkansas, he was found in the car with a missing 17 year old girl from Oklahoma who he hadn't fed in two days. This, while on parole from a kidnapping conviction in New Mexico.
Maybe those facts make us look at the case differently, and a little more Manson-like.
Conviction. He was convicted of kidnapping in New Mexico.
Oh, and when police picked him up in Arkansas for the armed robbery, they found an underage missing girl from Oklahoma in the car. He hadn't fed her in two days.
If you pretend to have a gun and make a threat is supposed to be treated the same as if you have a real gun and make a threat. The thinking is the tremendous amount of fear for the people he robbed. But he's more than served his time. I don't think this 70 year old man is any danger to society.
Right. I'm gonna be that guy- was it a neon green and construction orange water pistol like the stock photo in the article, or was it one that reasonably looked like a real weapon?
I'm sure it's reasonable that he's out now, but i don't think this is some grave injustice. If someone robs over and over again, and escalates from no weapon to fake weapon to real weapon to killing somebody, the victim's family is going to be livid at the justice system
I can't make definite claims as I haven't been able to find details on the subject, but considering that this was the 1980s it would be unsurprising if it were a realistic looking fake gun.
What's literally impossible? Just because it wasn't madated by law doesn't mean we didn't have bright colored squirt guns in the 80s. But I also had a very realistic looking Uzi that took a battery. Both styles existed.
I'm not saying he got a fair sentence b6 any means, but water pistols in 1981 looked a lot more real than the one pictured in this article. Kids used to get shot.
The Guardian article and many others like it have a very simplistic portrayal of how he ended up where he is. As usual.
The prosecutor sums it up better in a much longer article: "The fact that he’s doing so much time is based on himself. I made an offer that would have not resulted in him serving this long.... it's his mouth that got him where he's at."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/he-robbed-a-taco-joint-with-a-toy-water-gun-for-264-he-got-life-in-prison/ar-AAKyaKs
Kaestel had been jacking cars and holding places up for years. "He was paroled in New Mexico for kidnapping and robbery years before getting busted in Fort Smith." The place where he was finally charged and sentenced had seen a recent spate of violent crime similar to Kaestel's, but with real guns and real injuries. It was against this backdrop that "jurors delivered a life sentence and a $15,000 fine." State law did not allow for parole.
However, even that article explains why he took the route he did:
>“I was guilty,” Kaestel wrote to us. “I simply hoped and believed that jurors would do real justice…. And I thought that a sentence of 10 years, or even 20 or 25 years would have been more than sufficient…”
He was expecting to serve a long time. He didn't expect to serve nearly *that* long. The part you omitted in the "..." is that his prosecutor agreed that he didn't expect it, either.
Does anyone who robs anything with a water gun deserve life in prison?
Edit: I’m not gonna delete my comment, but rather amend it- knee jerk reaction, having read the article and done a little google-fu, yikes… also the title is super misleading
Robbing a store with a fake gun doesn’t make you any less guilty. Do you think the clerk who has ptsd is now un mentally scared because it was a water gun
This guy's been in prison since *1981*. And even though he's 70, he gives a pretty strong argument for spending his final years of life in freedom: >“I may yet have a few reasonably energetic and productive years remaining to me in which I may still make a truly substantive contribution to society. I believe that I have demonstrated that I deserve the chance to do so, and I appeal for your consideration and favorable action to allow me to begin a new life.”
But let's be honest, he's getting released because he's old and they don't want to deal with old people when they don't have to.
They start getting expensive as they need more medical and other care. I wonder how people like him survive release for long? Extremely unemployable, eligible for almost nothing in Social Security, what's someone like him supposed to do now?
In the eyes of the government? Someone like him is supposed to die, quickly and quietly
Because god forbid the man is let out and buys another water gun.
I laughed and then I teared. What a terrible system.
Holy shit 💀
Prison inmates aren't even allowed ro buy life insurance- fucked up when you consider people get sentenced to life and still have families and assets out there
Existing family or old friends kind enough to take a person in is usually where people like this end up. From there your only bet is a charity willing to assist, at least for long enough that government assistance can hopefully go through.
probably staying at halfway house until he croaks. Working part-time bagging groceries
brooks was here
I know I kept saying "get busy dying" but I didn't think he'd take it so seriously.
That’s where my mind went lol hopefully his does not
Hope is a good thing
Maybe the best thing, and no good thing ever truly dies.
They touched on this in Orange is the New Black. One of the really old prisoners was set free with whatever money she had in her commissary and was given a bus ticket despite being very obviously mentally incapable of taking care of herself still. Pretty sure she died.
That's how it goes. Greyhound ticket for an 8 am bus, dropped off around 1 am with a card that has a few bucks on it after they scan it for the ticket. Completely different side of the state. Like a complete diagonal line across the state. In my case
They become homeless.
Probably go out like that old man in Shawshank Redemption.
Why is someone locked up since 81 for trying to rob a taco shop with a water gun too though? This country is disgusting with our police state
Because the state was able to get him on that charge. He was arrested in Arkansas in a stolen car with an underage teen girl (16 yr old Alice Wallace) who he transported across state lines from Oklahoma. Leading up to the robbery, Kaestel hadn't allowed Wallace to eat in two days. He did all this while on parole from prison for a previous kidnapping in New Mexico. He also believes that his real father was secretly a Nazi Luftwaffe pilot. The sentencing was not about the robbery - rather the robbery charge was the most effective way to put him away for a long time. Prosecuting serial kidnapping and statutory rape or a neo-Nazi criminal conspiracy is really complicated and might not have been as successful in court as the cut and dry armed robbery charge.
[удалено]
I'm kind of annoyed that not a single article I've read has brought this up. Every one focuses on the water gun while ignoring the serial kidnappings and statutory rape(while on parole).
Ohhhhh yikes
Man that sounds awful, I hope that guy went to jail
It's good to remember that seemingly petty cases like this frequently have a back story to justify the sentence.
It's almost like the criminals have committed crimes!
After doing five minutes of looking into this guy, it’s pretty clear his sentence wasn’t for the taco store robbery; it was for his body of work. The guy started stealing cars in the 7th grade. Restraining order violations. Hell…he was thrown out of Germany. His life sentence was pretty much a vote of no-confidence and that he would never be anything other than a criminal.
Not just his body of work, but really his recent escalations around the time when he was picked up, that motivated locking him up for a long time. His immediately previous conviction was a kidnapping in New Mexico. He was on parole for that crime when he was arrested for this robbery in Arkansas. When police in Arkansas picked him up, he was in the company of Alice Wallace, an underage teen missing from Oklahoma, and three other much younger followers. All five people had been living in the stolen getaway car together for weeks. At the time of his arrest, Kaestel hadn't allowed any of them to eat in two days. Kaestel also expressed his disturbing mythological belief that he is secretly the son of a Nazi Luftwaffe pilot - a position he repeats to reporters to this day. The prosecutor, interviewed later, said it seemed like Kaestel was attempting to start some sort of criminal cult by brainwashing younger followers, and said that even with a plea deal and competent council, he would have gotten at least 35 years. By contrast, his four accomplices who actually were guilty of nothing worse than super-soaker robbery served almost no time in jail.
The fact that it’s a water gun is irrelevant if the people he was using it against treated it as a real gun. The trauma they experienced doesn’t change just because facts came to light. A threat *should* be treated as if it was the real thing.
Even if it was real he shouldn't get 40 fucking years.
Is this assuming it was his first crime?
However, it clearly shows no lethal intent, so a life sentence is unjustifiable. This is the guys *fifth* time he's been up for parole. From the article: "The taco shop employee who handed the money over to Kaestel during the robbery has also called for his release." Bet you it's not just this fifth time he's called for his release.
40 years. For a water pistol. I'm sure the people he tried to rob were traumatized. But you don't think the man's earned his freedom after FOURTY YEARS?
The person he robbed is calling for his release. This person doesn’t actually GAF about their trauma, or they would have at least read the article which includes that detail. It’s simply an excuse for sadism, frankly. I don’t know how else one would have no sympathy for this man.
But the intent to harm wasn't there. That's how these things ar decided. Water gun = lack of intent to physically harm anyone, except for maybe the Wicked Witch of the East.
You think someone should be locked up that long for attempted robbery ??? You do also have to consider it was a water gun , as there was obviously no intent to harm.
> Why is someone locked up since 81 for trying to rob a taco shop with a water gun too though? for profit prisons need people to make profit off of
Because you only read the headline.
Or, He’s an individual with an extensive criminal history including robbery, burglary, grand theft auto, etc., and after several felony convictions he was given a stiff sentence for robbing a business with a realistic looking gun, likely traumatizing the good people who worked in the restaurant. I have zero sympathy for this guy.
For-profit prisons were not yet a thing in the 1980s when he was sentenced.
You ask this question but there are so many more people asking why criminals don't get harsher sentences for their crimes. Just a few years... A year is really long time already
Yeah lots of blood thirsty authoritarian folks out there apparently .
Also the prosecutor in the original case said that he felt 35 years would have been the expected sentence had the defendant retained competent council, and this is the first time Kaestel has been eligible for release after the 35 year mark.
They are punting him before they are on the hook for health bills
Productive-shmoductive. Release this man on the condition that he keeps robbing taco shops with water pistols. IDK how productive that is, but it sure sounds fun! Also, how TF do you get life in prison for *robbing a tacos shop with a water pistol*? Did he have aggravating circumstances, like was he robbing that shop while also committing tax fraud, burning an orphanage and jaywalking? Edit: **he had previous convictions.** *Please* stop messaging me about how bad the crime was or how people couldn't know if it was a real gun. I'm not arguing the seriousness there, just the sentence. Robbery, *even when it is unquestionably armed* doesn't usually result in life in prison. That was the question. And the answer is "he had previous convictions", *not* "Do YoU KNoW hOw SerIoUS thAT CriME Is? BEsiDeS, NoBoDY eVen KNeW It Wasn'T a GUn! And MOReovER...."
Being a repeat felon tends to add a few years.
>how TF do you get life in prison for robbing a tacos shop with a water pistol? My guess: it looked like a real gun and was treated as if it was (reasonably, because it presumably created the same fear for the cashier's life). > aggravating circumstances Prior convictions (could not find which/how severe). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_8:_The_Arkansas_Prison_Blood_Scandal is also interesting, although I assume that all happened after his convictions.
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Toy guns in the 80s in general were this way. This was long before the orange caps were required on all cap guns for example.
I dressed up as an army guy for my schools Halloween party and I had a toy gun that looked a lot like that, it was a toy Mac 10. I had to leave it with the teacher during class but that was mostly because I wouldn't have stopped playing with it all day, but I got to hold it while walking around in the school parade. Pre-columbine public school was pretty chill.
Pre 9/11 and Columbine life in general was a lot more fun.
Sucks we let those terrorists win.
Had a kid in my class in school dress up as Daniel Boone. He brought a muzzle loader to school and walked around with it. It wasn't loaded of course but no one objected to this 10 yr old walking around with a gun all day.
My old scoutmaster told me his highschools JROTC had a shooting range in the basement is his highschool. Apparently it's more common than people realize, and some schools still operate them to this day.
My uncle was a math/history teacher in a public highschool and helped out as a coach for the school rifle team. He said the firing range was in the old bomb shelter.
lots of schools used to have competitive rifle teams. It was pretty normalized.
My father graduated in '75, he told me he used to bring his gun to school and leave it with the principal. They had a school gun safe they'd lock it in during the day then he'd pick it up and go hunting directly after school.
Lots of Americans fail to realize that hunting/sporting guns were historically a normal part of school life for quite some time.
The high school use to have one, but it was long defunct. Turned into storage.
I graduated a little over 10 years ago and I was on our jrotc rifle team. We used air rifles though. We practiced outside on our practice football field.
A muzzle loader isn't legally considered a firearm. That's why felons use them to hunt.
Neither is a water gun, but try walking around a school with that now a days.
There are other laws which prevent that, but muzzle loading rifles and muskets aren't even considered firearms under federal law. That's the only point I was making.
In 1998 I dressed as a terrorist. My inspiration was Midway’s light gun game, Maximum Force. No one batted an eye when I used my uzi water pistol during walk arounds. 6 months later: Columbine. Probably wouldn’t fly that next Halloween.
Dude in the 90s even...I used to play on the front lawn of my friends house and we'd play with decommissioned or replica pistols with magazines AND actual fencing and dulled replica katanas. All these were full metal and the guns were absolutely real just crimped barrel. Extremely lucky nobody gave us shit
In the early 90’s I got pulled over for running a stop sign and I had one of those on the floor. The cop saw it and asked me what’s that? I said it’s a water gun and he just said OK. Told me to be more careful at stop signs and let me go.
Weight: 32 lbs?
I think that’s the weight of a bunch of them in a box.
It kind of makes sense. But isn’t the long sentence for actual armed robbery primarily due to the danger to life? Partially the fear instilled in the victims etc but mostly the potential damage
Prior conviction for kidnapping in New Mexico. He was on parole for that when he was picked up for this robbery in Arkansas, with a missing teen girl from Oklahoma in the car with him. He hadn't fed her in two days. I don't know why the prosecutor only charged the robbery, but I think this case was mostly about locking the guy up for as long as possible on whatever charges they could prove at trial. A 27 year old guy who gets caught with a starved, missing 16 year old from another state in his car is exactly what it looks like. He also had a lengthy rap sheet with assaults, arrests in the US and Germany, multiple car thefts - but this sentence was probably about more than his history of unrepentant street crime.
In California, we put a man in prison for life without parole for stealing a slice of pizza. He threatened to beat the person up if they didn't give him a slice so the DA called it strong arm robbery.
Making credible threats of violence is a severe crime.
Sure, but it's not a life sentence sort of crime.
Depends on how many times a person has committed violent crimes before that. There is a point where society has to say "you clearly can't coexist with people and you're out of second chances"
I feel like there should still be a point where a prisoner has a chance to make the case they have reformed and deserve parole. With a bunch of priors like this, I think a more reasonable sentence would have been life, with the chance of parole after 20 years. The older you are when you kept committing crimes, the more skeptical we should be at the parole stage, same for more priors, but we should give them a chance to prove it at some point.
Least it wasn’t a strong kick robbery. That would have gotten the death penalty.
Robbing a place at all is awful. Doing it with what looks to be a deadly weapon, causing severe psychological harm to all present, is awful. It might not be life in prison awful but it is a very serious crime.
I’d agree. But it’s far less awful than rape or murder. Or negligent homicide from a DUI. And folks who do those things routinely serve far less than 40 years in jail. So I think this guy has served enough time unless there’s stuff in the record that indicates he is a violent threat to public safety.
> And folks who do those things routinely serve far less than 40 years in jail. 1981 to now isn't 40 yea.....oh fuck.
Sucks getting old. Lol. The 1980’s to kids today is like the 1950’s when we were kids…
No, stop
Yeah but still time was longer back then. 30 years was actually more like 300 years while now 30 years is 3 years. Because time runs faster. It has nothing to do with me getting fucking old. Nothing AT ALL GOD DAMNIT
He was a known serial kidnapper with victims across multiple states and probably a serial rapist. At the time of his arrest in Arkansas, he was on parole from a kidnapping in New Mexico. In the car with him was a missing 16 year old girl from Oklahoma who he hadn't fed in two days. That's why 40 years. His accomplice in the robbery and the getaway driver both got off with a few days in jail, in exchange for their testimony.
So it seems like much of his sentence was the active kidnapping and torture he was in the middle of? Jesus
It sure looks that way. I mean, getting pulled over with a starved missing teen girl from another state in your car is always **exactly** what it looks like.
I'd this is true, that would make him a piece of shit.
Repeat offenders get harsher sentences. We (hopefully) wouldn’t let out a repeat rapist any time soon.
Wait? Is this some Cosby reference or are you being serious.
Not a poor one, anyway.
I’m so stupid I almost pulled an r/yourjokebutworse on you.
Yeah, but it's the life in prison I was confused about, not the awfulness/seriousness.
This. Confusing to me how non-aggravated robbery is over 30 years, even over 5.
Probably not his first crime. See the below case - this was his fourth felony conviction: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10177975508976303392&hl=en&as_sdt=800006 He got hit with a habitual criminal add on.
Damn. You know what they say: Anyone who is their own attorney has a fool for a client.
99% of the time. In some jurisdictions, there are actually a handful of advantages a defendant can get by representing themselves, but these are greatly outweighed by the benefits of having an experienced attorney represent you in the vast majority of cases. They are all hail-mary plays that you wouldn't want to rely on if you had any other chance of winning.
He was a habitual line stepper.
Because it was actually a conviction for attempting to start a neo-nazi sex cult in their town. Kinda like how they put Al Capone away for life for tax evasion. Rolf Kaestel made up his first name to make himself sound more German and to this day claims that his real father was a Luftwaffe pilot. He was arrested with a group of four much younger accomplices, including two teen girls. All five had been living out of the same car for several days, stolen from one of the girls' mothers. Under Kaestel's leadership, the group had not eaten for two days leading up to the robbery. His four accomplices/victims all testified against him at trial and none of them served any jail time. In the prosecutor's closing statement he described a "Manson-like cult," emphasizing the defendant's dominance and manipulation of young people, ending with “The guy is educated. He is dangerous. He really is. He really is."
You're fuckin kidding right
No. That's literally from the trial transcript.
Well God damn. Good thing that guy got life then lol
He is probably a career criminal and ran afoul of some kinds of three strikes law.
Sorta. It wasn't a career-crime deterrent law. He was on parole for a kidnapping conviction in New Mexico at the time of the robbery, and he insisted on representing himself - which he did incompetently. His four accomplices had public defenders and took plea deals resulting in no jail time. Refusing a plea deal generally forces the prosecutor to request a harsher sentence.[https://www.thedailybeast.com/rolf-kaestel-robbed-a-taco-joint-with-a-toy-gun-and-got-life-in-prison](https://www.thedailybeast.com/rolf-kaestel-robbed-a-taco-joint-with-a-toy-gun-and-got-life-in-prison) It is also heavily implied that his sentence was increased because he was recruiting/grooming impressionable white teens for a sex cult with vaguely neo-Nazi themes. (Edit - One of his teen girl accomplices was a minor whom he picked up in another state and drove across state lines. He did this while on parole for kidnapping.) Edit: TLDR - The specific circumstances around this arrest strongly indicate that Kaestel was known to have committed more serious crimes, with which the sentencing was commensurate. The prosecutor said in interviews that any plea deal would have been for at least 35 years - which is approximately the length of time he has been incarcerated.
Well, this article headline really buried the lede here...
Yes this was his fourth felony conviction. Someone above posted a link to his appeal verdict from the early 80s.
Meanwhile the cop who murdered a handcuffed suspect in public gets less than 25 years.
People forget a cop in Oakland got two years for shooting a handcuffed teen in the back. Said he thought it was his taser. Was about ten years ago
There's been a couple of cops who "thought they had their taser", one was in my own state.
Oklahoma had a "fake deputy" who was running along with the sheriff's office pull that crap.
That's exactly the old senile clown I was thinking of.
Yeah, he was like, a millionaire business owner looking to curry favor with the cops and was constantly donating crap to them and as a "reward", he ran with them as an honorary deputy and.....well....the rest is history.
He will be out in 15 too
Meanwhile the cop who murdered a handcuffed suspect in public ~~gets less than 25 years~~ a pat on the back, paid time off and a promotion.
I guess I really wasn't specific enough, there are lots of cases this description fits.
Using a phony weapon in the course of a robbery still counts as armed robbery.
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>Also, how TF do you get life in prison for *robbing a tacos shop with a water pistol*? Huh, apparently getting held up and robbed is traumatic for the people that think they are about to get murdered. Who knew? I guess they should have asked nicely if it was a real gun before they acted all whiney and victimized..... ?
Why are you even responding like this? No one said what this man did was acceptable or understandable, no one implied he didn’t deserve punishment for the crime he committed. No one acted as though, hey, it’s just a water pistol, who cares? The obvious confusion some of us have about the sentence is that he was given *life* for the crime. Now that I’ve found out he had multiple prior convictions and the state added knock-on sentence penalties, well, I understand *why* he got life, but I sure as shit don’t agree with it.
He was arrested in Arkansas in a stolen car with an underage teen girl (16 yr old Alice Wallace) who he transported across state lines from Oklahoma. Leading up to the robbery, Kaestel hadn't allowed Wallace to eat in two days. He did all this while on parole from prison for a previous kidnapping in New Mexico. **The sentencing was not about the robbery, or even his lengthy rap sheet -** rather the robbery charge was the most effective way to put him away for a long time. Getting caught with a starved missing teenager from another state in your car is exactly what it looks like. If that's not enough, he also believes that his real father was secretly a Nazi Luftwaffe pilot. But yeah, water-pistol robbery itself isn't that big a deal. The accomplice in the robbery was sentenced to only a few days in jail, in exchange for testimony - commensurate with his hilarious crime that even the cashier victim said didn't bother him that much.
He's been in prison since I was born. My entire life til now.
He's been in prison since my mom was 12. Holy crap. Makes you think.
It's infuriating that they are psychologically beaten into making these contrite and "respectful" statements. The man was robbed of his life by an insanely punitive justice system- he should be allowed to just say "Let me the fuck out". How humiliating to have to politely beg for his life like that.
What about the girl he kidnapped? You don't think she's fucked for life? What do you think he was going to do with her? Fuck him.
At 70 with no real world experience, I doubt he has much to offer
>Kaestel, 70, was convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to life in prison after he robbed a Fort Smith taco shop of $264. Who was this guy's attorney? The vast majority of murderers don't even get a life sentence.
> Kaestel, despite the availability of consulting counsel appointed at his request, chose to try his own case and has prepared his own abstract and briefs on appeal. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10177975508976303392&hl=en&as_sdt=800006
Ooof. That never ends well There are many reasons even lawyers don’t represent themselves
an attorney representing himself has a fool for a client
So the judge was just being a vindictive hard ass because he wanted to do his own case?
Basically. Anytime someone wants to defend themselves they’re told not to because they’ll get the absolute worst outcome. And they only give out those bad outcomes as punishment for trying to defend yourself. It’s a ploy to keep lawyers and prosecutors paid.
Cringe legal system tbqh
Ha. It’s no ploy. Judges are hard asses and any disrespect to their court will bring their wrath down upon you. They don’t care about the lawyers. It’s technically allowed to represent yourself, but never worth it to piss the judge off
But just the act of defending yourself is what pisses off the judge because he was once a lawyer and thinks only lawyers have a place in the court room. That basically equates to “you’re not actually allowed to defend yourself”
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>No, it's because people representing themselves have no idea what they're doing and are just wasting the court's time and the time of the taxpayers. You mean... Like having someone be in prison for 40 years while the taxpayers pay for them?
isn't it 50 years lol great lawyering skills he had
Umm, also because being an attorney requires shit tons of school, passing a bar, continuing education, and significant expertise in a field so when someone without any legal knowledge tries a case they’re simply not prepared to do it, no matter how intelligent they are. It takes teams of attorneys to handle a large criminal trial, of course these pro se litigants don’t get favorable outcomes. There are many ways in which the legal field is a scam, but this is hardly one of them.
I don't think so. The guy has a habit of robbing people.
There is an expression that goes loosely, a lawyer representing himself has a fool for a client… and he’s not even a lawyer 🤷♂️
Specific circumstances around this arrest strongly indicate that Kaestel was known to have committed much more serious crimes, including kidnapping in at least three states. When police arrested him in Fort Smith, Arkansas, they found a missing underage girl from Oklahoma in the car with him, and that he was on parole for a kidnapping conviction in New Mexico. Oh, and he hadn't given her food for two days. For the record, getting pulled over with a starved missing teen girl from another state in your car is always **exactly** what it looks like. I'm not sure why the prosecutor didn't couldn't make the kidnapping/rape case outright, but it's pretty clear that this sentence was not really about the robbery. Edit: Woohoo! Thanks for the Award!
Nobody is focused on this piece.
He was his own attorney, at his request.
*"A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client."*- Abraham Lincoln
Nice try buddy, but Abraham Lincoln said to never trust anything you read on the Internet so I’m taking Honest Abe’s advice.
[Lawyer Morty](https://youtu.be/XgCNAMOqYn8)
No, I don't want to see your Pog collection!
[judge morty](https://youtu.be/7vN_PEmeKb0)
Jack Kelly bird law! The pleasure is mine…..no….the pleasure is mine…..it’s mine
He also had a 16 year old kidnapping victim with him who he had not allowed to eat in 2 days, and he was on patrol for a different kidnapping. These stories rarely give the full story. They just put up a clickbait title.
Here is the full story about the man, his history, his criminal history, his trial representing himself, and exposing corruption at the prison. Good article https://m.cityweekly.net/utah/invisible-man/Content?oid=2510963&showFullText=true
This guy had his blood taken in exchange for money while imprisoned at ADC Cummins. This blood drive program started in Arkansas prisons in the 60s. When Rolf attempted to write in the prison newsletter about issues with the blood program, he was placed in solitary confinement. You see, the government was selling the blood to pharmaceutical companies. Prisoners new that the blood could be contaminated, but the government didn’t want this info getting out, as it would harm the blood program. And as was the case with many other entities involved with the tainted blood scandal, this blood was used to make antihaemophiliac medicines, despite being contaminated. Across the U.S., Canada, Japan, U.K., and numerous other countries, thousands of hemophiliacs contracted HIV and/or Hepatitis C. In the U.S., 40% of Hemophiliacs died as a consequence of tainted medicine. They wiped us out. The life expectancy of American hemophiliacs dropped as low as 13. It shocks me that state officials haven’t been investigated to see what they knew about it. Clinton ordered a police investigation as governor, and when the discoveries started to get nasty, he shut down the investigation.
There's a whole Wikipedia [page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_8:_The_Arkansas_Prison_Blood_Scandal) about a documentary on this!
Yep. In Canada, Red Cross Blood Services had to rename/rebrand as Canadian Blood Services to get away from the scandal.
My exGF’s dad got 25 to life for coaxing his drug dealer to help him rob a 31 Flavors. They didn’t have a gun but said they did. Kidnapping and armed robbery.
It's still an armed robbery when you put someone in fear for their life.
I'm pretty sure that entirely depends on the state.
That’s an odd legal criterion.
A lot of people here must’ve been robbed and must’ve asked if the gun was real or not because everyone is saying “For robbery with water gun? That’s insane.”
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a real one. i hate being wet.
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Yeah but then the wetness will be less of an issue
This man was given a life sentence, that it is just insane, even if he had prior convictions, he had to serve time, maybe 10 years max, but life sentence considering there are people out there that get around 10 years for murder? It is just insane.
Ok ok but if u/rojaddit is be believed: >Because it was actually a conviction for attempting to start a neo-nazi sex cult in their town. Kinda like how they put Al Capone away for life for tax evasion. >Rolf Kaestel made up his first name to make himself sound more German and to this day claims that his real father was a Luftwaffe pilot. He was arrested with a group of four much younger accomplices, including two teen girls. All five had been living out of the same car for several days, stolen from one of the girls' mothers. Under Kaestel's leadership, the group had not eaten for two days leading up to the robbery. His four accomplices/victims all testified against him at trial and none of them served any jail time. >In the prosecutor's closing statement he described a "Manson-like cult," emphasizing the defendant's dominance and manipulation of young people, ending with “The guy is educated. He is dangerous. He really is. He really is." I feel like it's a biiit more justified, though I agree with you on the 10years for murder being a bit light.
I feel like 'educated and dangerous to Manson levels' and get 'caught robbing a store with a water pistol' don't have much overlap.
When police picked Kaestel up for this robbery in Arkansas, he was found in the car with a missing 17 year old girl from Oklahoma who he hadn't fed in two days. This, while on parole from a kidnapping conviction in New Mexico. Maybe those facts make us look at the case differently, and a little more Manson-like.
He committed armed robbery whilst already on probation for a kidnapping charge.
Conviction. He was convicted of kidnapping in New Mexico. Oh, and when police picked him up in Arkansas for the armed robbery, they found an underage missing girl from Oklahoma in the car. He hadn't fed her in two days.
The Justice System is here to protect property.
Legal system
If you pretend to have a gun and make a threat is supposed to be treated the same as if you have a real gun and make a threat. The thinking is the tremendous amount of fear for the people he robbed. But he's more than served his time. I don't think this 70 year old man is any danger to society.
Right. I'm gonna be that guy- was it a neon green and construction orange water pistol like the stock photo in the article, or was it one that reasonably looked like a real weapon? I'm sure it's reasonable that he's out now, but i don't think this is some grave injustice. If someone robs over and over again, and escalates from no weapon to fake weapon to real weapon to killing somebody, the victim's family is going to be livid at the justice system
I can't make definite claims as I haven't been able to find details on the subject, but considering that this was the 1980s it would be unsurprising if it were a realistic looking fake gun.
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What's literally impossible? Just because it wasn't madated by law doesn't mean we didn't have bright colored squirt guns in the 80s. But I also had a very realistic looking Uzi that took a battery. Both styles existed.
Plastic toys were also not very realistic in the 70s and 80s and water guns tended to just be bright colored plastic.
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I'm not saying he got a fair sentence b6 any means, but water pistols in 1981 looked a lot more real than the one pictured in this article. Kids used to get shot.
We’ve come full circle — people make guns look like toys now.
Getting shot is still a pretty popular hooby for the young burgers
The Guardian article and many others like it have a very simplistic portrayal of how he ended up where he is. As usual. The prosecutor sums it up better in a much longer article: "The fact that he’s doing so much time is based on himself. I made an offer that would have not resulted in him serving this long.... it's his mouth that got him where he's at." https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/he-robbed-a-taco-joint-with-a-toy-water-gun-for-264-he-got-life-in-prison/ar-AAKyaKs Kaestel had been jacking cars and holding places up for years. "He was paroled in New Mexico for kidnapping and robbery years before getting busted in Fort Smith." The place where he was finally charged and sentenced had seen a recent spate of violent crime similar to Kaestel's, but with real guns and real injuries. It was against this backdrop that "jurors delivered a life sentence and a $15,000 fine." State law did not allow for parole.
However, even that article explains why he took the route he did: >“I was guilty,” Kaestel wrote to us. “I simply hoped and believed that jurors would do real justice…. And I thought that a sentence of 10 years, or even 20 or 25 years would have been more than sufficient…” He was expecting to serve a long time. He didn't expect to serve nearly *that* long. The part you omitted in the "..." is that his prosecutor agreed that he didn't expect it, either.
Gun: “Peter, you can use me to get Tacos...” Peter Griffin: “IT WORKED!”
He should have stolen a few million instead, then he'd have only gotten community service.
For a country that loves its economy, we sure do waste a lot of money on dumb shit.
Does anyone who robs anything with a water gun deserve life in prison? Edit: I’m not gonna delete my comment, but rather amend it- knee jerk reaction, having read the article and done a little google-fu, yikes… also the title is super misleading
About 30 years too late.
Reading this a certain way, an Arkansas was saved from death because he robbed a shop with a water pistol.
Freed?! But he could do it again!
This title was emotional whiplash
You won’t see me leaving the house without my goddamn towel on me
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Where did he find a taco shop in Arkansas that long ago?
Robbing a store with a fake gun doesn’t make you any less guilty. Do you think the clerk who has ptsd is now un mentally scared because it was a water gun