They mugged the wrong man…

[robotech_master]

Found via BoingBoing: A 70-year-old military veteran killed a mugger in self-defense in Costa Rica.

Costa Rican officials interviewed the Americans, and said they wouldn't charge the U.S. tourist with any crime because he acted in self defense.

"They were in their right to defend themselves after being held up," Hernandez said. He said Segura had previous charges against him for assaults.

But Ligia Herrera Mendez, the mother of the dead assailant, claimed the tourists of took the law into their own hands.

"We want justice, this can't go unpunished, because they could have saved him," she said in an interview in Limon. "If this had happened in the United States, the suspect would have been detained and wouldn't have left the country."

She's probably right—he probably would have been detained, charged, gone to trial, and so on, even if he later ended up being acquitted for self-defense. Not really sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing in this particular case, though.

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[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

Whoops. Originally thought it was Puerto Rico, then found it was Costa Rica, thought I'd removed all of the Puerto Ricos from the entry before posting it.