CRIME WATCH : Balanced Justice

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office made the right decisions Thursday in the case of the Sun Valley pedestrian who fatally shot a graffiti vandal who was menacing him.

You will undoubtedly recall William Masters II, who was taking his normal midnight walk on an isolated and dangerous street when the shooting occurred early Jan. 31. He saw two taggers defacing a highway overpass, wrote down their license plate number in their full view and then told the vandals what he was doing when they asked him.

The district attorney’s office did not charge Masters, who says he was threatened with a screwdriver by the vandals and believed his life was in jeopardy when he shot both, wounding the second. But there remained the matter of the concealed handgun he had been carrying.

Now, City Atty. James K. Hahn has rightfully charged Masters with two misdemeanors--carrying a concealed weapon and carrying a loaded gun. Few people, including Masters, have a permit to carry a hidden weapon, and with good reason.

The wounded tagger should not have and did not escape scrutiny either. David Hillo has been charged with a misdemeanor count of vandalism.

That puts everything in this case in proper perspective. Graffiti taggers are just vandals, pure and simple, and Masters is no hero to be lionized for his own disregard of the law. “There’s no excuse for anyone in this tragedy to say that they were any more entitled to break the law than another,” Hahn said.

Enough said. And well said.