Drug Transaction Went Sour, and Edwin Reyes was Shot

   The drug transaction went sour. The man they were selling to was shot. The sellers faced a list of charges, but not murder.

  The June 28 killing was ruled by the DA to be self defense. I do not know for certain if the Stand Your Ground law was invoked, but it seems possible. The law says that if you believe you are in danger, you are justified in using deadly force. Perhaps the investigation showed Adrian Kordell Emanuel McCleary, 22, Taylorsville, and Saivontre Isiah Jordan Spillers, 25, West Valley, were indeed acting in self defense. Or, perhaps the investigation didn't need to establish that, it only needed to establish that they claimed they were in jeopardy. With Stand Your Ground, you only need to say you believed you were in endangered.

   The man killed, Edwin B. Reyes, 17, is not alive to testify, obviously, so his side of the story cannot be so easily determined. So it is in Stand Your Ground cases, if you say you believed you were endangered, that is the end of the matter, there is no questioning what you say. 

   Another thing of interest to me in this case is that if McCleary and Spillers were selling illegal drugs, that is a crime. There is a law that says that if you are in the commission of a crime, and someone dies, you can be charged with murder. That law was not invoked.