Our motto at Guns Save Life is "We defend your right to defend yourself." Our advocacy isn't just talk, or limited to the internet. We don't just talk the talk, we walk the walk. Along those lines, Guns Save Life has been assisting with the defense of a Champaign man that we saw as wrongfully prosecuted for a righteous shooting in the 900 block of Pomona Drive back in September 2017. Last night, a jury came back with a NOT GUILTY finding in the case, 18 months after the incident.
Thomas Alva, 44, a Marine Corps veteran who proudly served his nation for 16 years before receiving a medical discharge, came to us with his story of shooting a belligerent woman. We looked into it, and hearing his account and balancing that with the evidence, we believed it a righteous use of deadly force.
Of course, Champaign County State's Attorney Julia Reitz, a hard-core leftist Democrat, doesn't have a lot of warm feelings towards law-abiding good guys with guns using them in self-defense. Particularly against so-called "unarmed" attackers. So Reitz sought to put Mr. Alva into prison for a long prison term.
Yes, the same hack prosecutor who agrees to a sweet-heart plea bargain deal for a few months of "boot camp" to violent young felonious gang banger wanted to put a man who served our nation honorably away in prison for about as many years for a justifiable use of deadly force.
Yes, Julia's sweetheart deal for the ne'er-do-well Robbie Patton ended up costing an innocent nursing school graduate his life barely two days before he started his new job. See, it all began in 2014ish when Robbie Patton tried to shoot and kill another human being at the Steak N Shake on North Prospect Avenue. Why? Because someone supposedly "disrespected" one of Robbie's friends. Then, fleeing in a stolen car, he led the Illinois State Police on a high speed chase, eluding capture (temporarily).
Julia Reitz, who says we should celebrate alternatives to incarceration, signed off on Judge Tom Difanis to send this violent predator to boot camp instead of serving time life in prison.
…And sure enough, after serving 8 months and change in prison on an 8-year sentence, Robbie Patton, the "Steak 'n Shake Shooter" was released.
He wasn't out two days when he got arrested again, mixed up with drugs and who knows what else.
Not even two weeks later, he's illegally got a gun. He gets "dissed" again and what happens? He starts shooting, wounding three. Another woman gets struck by a car as she tried to flee the scene. And George Korchev. Remember that name, Judge Difanis. George Korchev. The was set to start his new job as a registered nurse at a hospital in Libertyville.
George Korchev was set to start a life as a productive citizen, helping to save lives. He would have gotten married, had kids and raised a productive family. George would have given his parents grandchildren. He would have lived probably sixty more years, contributing positive energy to making our world a better place.
You took that all away from him by giving Robbie Patton, a sociopathic predator who will never contribute anything but sewage and sadness to our society, a way to get out of prison early.
Yeah, Julia Reitz set all that up with her sweetheart plea deal for Robbie Patton – the guy with the "TOTAL LOSER" tattooed over his eyebrows. Throw away charges for felon with a gun, the stolen car, the police chase, the attempted murder, aggravated battery with a firearm, no FOID card, no CCW license, etc for a simple charge of discharge of a firearm at an occupied vehicle. (Hell why not make it "disorderly conduct" Julia?)
But in this case, little Miss "Diversions from prison should be celebrated" wanted her pound flesh from an honorable veteran and upstanding citizen.
So Guns Save Life became involved. We provided a pair of expert witnesses from GSL Defense Training to testify at Alva's trial. Attorney and firearms instructor Steve Davis and retired FBI Special Agent Frank Wright both testified for the defense, educating the jury on the judicious use of deadly force, reactionary gap considerations and a whole lot more. Both of the GSL Defense Training instructors captivated the jury with their education on the finer points of law and self-defense.
In the end, the jury didn't buy the Champaign County State's Attorney supporting a so-called victim with major credibility issues. And a prosecutor who said, "Did he reasonably fear imminent death? Was great bodily harm going to come to him right then and there? Not a chance! This is not how you act in a townhome near a college. You don't shoot someone who exchanges words with you."
But that's not exactly how it went down. In fact, that's just make-believe.
The woman, Christina Newman (now Christina Newman-Granadino) became agitated over Alva's request to quiet down and move her car out of his parking place. Instead of acting like a decent human being and complying with his reasonable and polite request, she directed harsh profanity towards Mr. Alva and threatened to get her gun to settle the matter right then and there.
(That's a clue right there!)
At that point, she went into the car and rooted around for some time before stuffing something into her waistband.
(Over at the FBI Academy, they call that another clue!)
Mr. Alva, who walks with a cane, said he couldn't have safely hoped to retreat back into his residence in time, so he instead drew his pistol.
Little (or not so) Christina came out of the car with a hand behind her waist, still shouting threats and profanity. She then advanced on a drawn gun, while continuing to hurl invectives.
(Hello! The "CLUE" sign is flashing red!)
Sound reasonable and rational? It wasn't. But then again, she was drunk. (Go figure, right?)
She continued her advance, blading her body to conceal what she had her hand on behind her waist. Bang. Alva fired a warning shot over her shoulder as he'd been trained to do in the Marines. (Yes, I have a real gun and real bullets and it works!)
Even after Mr. Alva fired a warning shot, the potty-mouthed Christina Newman continued advancing whereupon she earned a round in the gut.
"I wasn't trying to kill her. I was trying to stop her advancement," Alva told the jury.
Cops showed up and Ms. Newman claimed that she hadn't been drinking and than Alva had poked and prodded her for no good reason. And then, he shot her. Again, for no good reason. Oh yeah, and there was the issue of the knife cops found that Newman claims she didn't have.
At the hospital, she continued to tell medical folks she hadn't been drinking. However, when the anesthesiologist explained the facts of life (and death on an O.R. table) to her, she admitted she had been drinking. Imagine that.
Yeah.
Earlier this year, she filed suit against Alva. Given the acquittal in the criminal case, her hopes of hitting the dubious lawsuit lottery probably just took a nosedive. In fact, she might face a civil suit herself in the coming months. Time will tell.
Anyway, the News-Gazette has buried the story in their online version. However, a search found it.
Jury acquits Champaign man who shot woman outside his apartment
URBANA — A Champaign County jury has acquitted a man who shot a woman outside his apartment in 2017, accepting his explanation that he thought she was going to shoot him first.
A jury deliberated about 7 1/2 hours before acquitting Alva Thomas, 44, of aggravated battery with a firearm and reckless discharge of a firearm in connection with a confrontation he had with a woman outside his home in the 900 block of Pomona Drive about 3 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2017.
Although assistant state's attorneys Lindsey Clark and Chris McCallum and defense attorney Matt Lee of Champaign called several witnesses in their respective cases, the 26-year-old victim and Thomas were the key witnesses.
The woman's account
The woman said she was standing next to her car arguing with another woman about a mutual friend who was also present in the lot but not directly involved in their exchange.
She became aware of someone "poking" her in the shoulder, neck and head, telling her loudly and in coarse terms to leave.
"I flailed my arm to brush him off while I was standing on the door frame of my car," she said.
She said she then loudly cursed at the man, identified as Thomas.
"I stepped down and when I turned around, he was holding a black gun with both hands. He was still yelling, telling me to get the (expletive) out. He shot in the air," she said, describing him as "very close."
She said she did nothing to provoke Thomas before he fired a second time several seconds later as she stood there with her cellphone in hand.
"I was shot. After I realized I couldn't move, I sat down. That's when the defendant approached me," said the woman, who had been shot in the abdomen. "He told me he was a paramedic. I could not physically move my legs."
She testified she had parts of her intestines and colon resected and still has the bullet lodged in her hip area.
After being shot, she said she took her cellphone from her hand, removed the battery and threw the pieces under her car tire.
Thomas remained nearby as she lay on the ground waiting for help. She said she never told Thomas she had a gun and never displayed a knife that she said she kept in her waistband.
Police learned that the woman, who is licensed to carry a gun, did not have one that night. She did have a pocketknife, which she said was never open.
On cross-examination by defense attorney Matt Lee of Champaign, the woman called Thomas' actions "crazy."
"He said, 'You don't live here. Get the (expletive) out of here,'" she said.
The woman denied that after Thomas fired the first shot in the air, she said: "I'm not scared of your gun." She announced she was going to call police and said he responded by saying, "You ain't calling (expletive)."
Keep in mind how the News-Gazette completely failed to report on how the defense utterly shredded the credibility of the prosecution's "star" witness, Christina Newman. Along with her friends. Their make-believe stories conflicted with one another and had zero physical evidence to support them.
In fact, all of the evidence supported Mr. Alva's recollection of events. Go figure.
And a jury agreed.
Click on over to read their reporting of Alva's version of the events.
Takeaways:
The Democrat Champaign County State's Attorney Julia Reitz has no love for good guy gun owners.
Get yourself some concealed carry insurance. Because you don't want to have to spend $50,000-100,000 on criminal defense legal fees if life gives you a crap sandwich and you have to take a bite.
Avoid confronting intoxicated idiots because you may get more than you bargained.
And plenty more…
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