West allis, Wisconsin. Sounded real bad - kid gets tire-ironed to death, guy who did it walks.

My wife had a chance meeting (her brother is in the Secret Service, she runs into various law enforcement types a lot) with one of the cops on the case (he also helped clean out Dahmer's apartment a while back) and he said the "victim" had already assaulted the guy with the tire iron twice that day, and came at him with a 6 foot 2X4. So the guy threw his tire iron at him, at about a 10 foot range.

The media version sounded like a kid was bludgeoned to death during a fight. The other version sounds like the message of the tire iron wasn't so much "die" as "leave me the hell alone, I really, really mean it."

And, of course, the kid who died had been a great gentle kind-hearted kid with lots of friends and a great future ahead of him who never would have done such a thing. The kind of kid who never got into any trouble, except for when he did. I've noticed that the kid who got killed is never a punk who pushed too hard and got what he should have expected.

I don't like it that anybody gets killed. It isn't some kind of justice. But actions have consequences, not always in proportion to the action, but more or less predictable.