Vinnie Tamburello's girlfriend had some sort of prior relationship with some friends of Kyle Bolaski (the shooter); Vinnie & Kyle didn't know each other as far as I know before the shooting. One of these friends that had a past relationship with Vinnie's girlfriend sent her sexually derogatory text messages and Vinnie got pissed about it. He went over to the house that this guy was staying at to confront him, but he wouldn't come out. Vinnie entered the house on his own and took some money off the table and left. The men in the house pursued Vinnie back to his girlfriend's place where a fight broke out that resulted in Vinnie beating one of the guys unconcious. The cops were called to the scene but no arrests were made.
The animosity boiled over to the next day and threats were made back & forth on the phone before they arranged to meet at a softball field to have it out. When these guys arrived, apparently Vinnie had a taser in his possession. When they approached the vehicle that he was in, he pulled out an axe and pursued them back to their truck. He took several swings at their truck with the axe when he was shot in the leg by Kyle Bolaski. After being shot, a good chunk of his thigh was missing and he was reported by witnesses to have said that he was done and tried to seek cover. That is when Bolaski shot him in the back. After being shot in the back, the exit wound in the front opened up a pretty big hole in his stomach. As he was laying down bleeding severely from both shots & with some of his insides hanging out, Bolaski's friends began to kick him. Some witnesses say they saw Bolaski smash the butt of the rifle into his face, and that would appear to be true since the autopsy showed significant damage to Vinnie's left eye socket.
I've seen the cased discussed on a couple "Right to Carry" forums and many of the people, people who are hunters & support the right to carry guns and are similar to Kyle in that regard, believe that he is guilty of murder. While the first shot to the leg was justified in their eyes & in the eyes of many, the shot to the back was uncalled for, as was the subsequent beating when he was on the ground.
Here is the thing that I think will screw Kyle over in court. They were going to take one truck to the altercation (the truck had guns in the back) but decided not to because it was low on gas. They then knowingly transferred the guns from the truck that was low on gas into the truck that they were going to drive to the softball field to meet Vinnie with. The fact that Kyle lied about both why the guns were in the truck & how long they had been in the truck for are going to really hurt his defense. It should also be pointed out that his statements were contradicted & proven to be lies after the police questioned one of his friends, and cooincidently, it is the same friend that Vinnie had the most problem with and one of the main kids that started the whole thing.
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