Force less than deadly force

I am having a hard time figuring out when one would deploy force (either a strike or pepper spray) prior to the other person actually striking or attempting to strike you.
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Let me give you a real life situation that happened to me - and then YOU tell me what you would have done to NOT use physical force.

First, you have to know that at the time this happened, I was 64 years old, and was 9 months post open-heart surgery with a new heart valve, pacemaker, double bypass, and a right leg that had a nerve damaged during vein harvesting for the double by-pass. The result was that I have no feeling in my right leg from the knee down, which often causes me to misplace my foot - so running is out of the question. I was also dealing with severe (at times) ventricular tachycardia.

Now that you know that I'm older, and have a number of physical disabilities - I'll tell you what happened.

I was coming out of the office building that I work in and going to my truck that was in a parking lot across a four-lane street. As I was walking to the curb I noticed a guy in his mid-20's on the opposite sidewalk shoot me a glance out of the side of his eyes with a slight head turn.

I walked to the middle of the four lane road and stood in the median watching the guy as he slowly continued to walk down the sidewalk.

I crossed the road and proceeded into the parking lot and the guy took an immediate left turn into the parking lot two cars away from me and paralleled my movement through the parking lot.

I walked across one traffic lane, and he walked toward me. At that point we had one car between us and he continued to parallel me alongside the vehicle that separated us.

I had to cross two more traffic lanes to get to my truck and knew he could get to me before I could reach my truck.

So, I turned back toward the office building to get away from him. He proceeded to turn back parallel to me. I turned back toward my truck again. He turned back. I turned back to the office building - he turned back.

I stopped with one car between us and told him not to follow me and leave me alone. He just laughed.

I turned back toward the office and went out into a traffic lane in the parking lot. He followed me and came around the back of an automobile and started moving towards me.

I told him to stop and not to come any closer. He just smirked and continued forward.

As he approached me I moved to the uphill side of the parking lot (it slants downhill east to west). This gave me about a 4-inch height advantage.

As he continued toward me I continually told him to stop and not approach me. He just continued forward laughing.

I was watching him very carefully and timing his footsteps. As he got within 20-inches of me and lifted his lead foot up in the air putting all of his weight on his downhill, rear foot - I punched him in the sternum with a flat palm as hard as I could.

This sent him backward about 8-feet and onto his backside. As he was recovering from getting put down, I walked as fast as I could to my truck, started the truck remotely, unlocked it, got in and locked the doors.

He had followed me to my truck and was about 20-feet away when I put the truck in gear and started driving out of the parking lot. He flipped me off with his middle finger and sauntered out of the parking lot.

He showed intent that he wanted to harass me, and would not leave me alone even when told to stop and not to follow me. He would not let me get back to the office building. He aggressively continued forward toward me and would not stop.

When you're closer that 3-feet (in this case about 20-inches) and you're still moving forward - I had no alternative but to stop him. I did.

That's why you use physical force to stop someone BEFORE they have the chance to do anything to you.

Let me guess - you'd have called 911. They'd have gotten there 25 minutes after the phone call. What do you do in the meantime?

Let me guess again - you'd have somehow "known" by his looking at you that he was going to harass you - sure, you would...'cause your psychic and can "read people." Lucky you for being so prescient.

You have to deal with the situation at hand, not thirty-five alternate realities that didn't happen.
 
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In fairness Mr Cortez I am not 64 and recovering from open heart surgery. It is a factor which likely played into the situation at bare minimum on your side and likely on your aggressors as well. I find that making it clear that I am the few times people have "sized me up" (at least in my analysis) has, in every case but one, been enough to exchange nods and move on
 
In fairness Mr Cortez I am not 64 and recovering from open heart surgery.
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Yeah...well, here's the bad news - some day you WILL be 64 years old. If you're lucky, you won't have to deal with health issues.

FYI - I'm 5' 11" and weigh 225 pounds. It's not like I present a wizened, infirm appearance and simply "look like a potential victim."
 
....I am not 64 and recovering from open heart surgery. ....I find that making it clear that I am the few times people have "sized me up" (at least in my analysis) has, in every case but one, been enough to exchange nods and move on.
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Good.

Don't count on it , though. Ever speak to officers who have dealt with meth heads?

What if there are more than one? ( I once had five men try to set me up for an ambush).

What's your point?

You said
I am having a hard time figuring out when one would deploy force (either a strike or pepper spray) prior to the other person actually striking or attempting to strike you.
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Have you figured it out yet?

Why would you not want to prevent yourself being struck, if at all possible?

Do you really want to try striking someone who could injure an eye or infect you at that distance?

Don't you think it would be prudent to use a different tactic?
 
What if there are more than one? ( I once had five men try to set me up for an ambush).
A clear disparity of force changes the legal situation dramatically.
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Agreed.... If set upon by mtpl assailants, there is now legal justification to draw your pistol. Mtpl attackers DOES rise to the level of deadly force.

That is not whats being talked about. ONE attacker, same size, youre not elderly or infirm. He's closing distance and screaming about how he is going to beat your rear end.
 
This brings up the point that being armed isn't the only way that you can see that a person is dangerous, and that a person can be even more dangerous when he's armed. Lots of people are unintentionally killed or crippled. A guy nearby was jumped by three "children" who were just out for a wild night and after the coma he was still neurological damaged to the point that he's completely disabled.

I can't even begin to lay out scenarios. Each is different, and just the fact that it would be you instead of me changes everything. I've had brain surgery and a beating would kill me. Whenever I find myself in a situation of someone threat, whether it's real or just posturing, I have no choice but to take it very seriously. I will not let an assailant touch me. Mace when I have it on me is great, I don't have so many concerns if I blast a guy with mace. I'd prefer not to take risks like that but life isn't safe, fair, predictable, it's chaotic and dangerous.
 
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A clear disparity of force changes the legal situation dramatically.
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When one is leaving a facility in which the possession of firearms is forbidden, that is a moot point.

I had a cane. I would not have considered waiting to be stuck before using it. Even by one of them.

And my testimony that I saw five men communicating and maneuvering would not establish the existence of a disparity of force without some other evidence.
 
I've had brain surgery and a beating would kill me.
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That's important, but as a subjective assumption it might might not suffice.

However, one could strengthen that in a defense of justification by having in one's possession a previously created, dated piece of unopened registered mail containing a statement to that effect from an undisputed medical expert.

Same thing for vertebral issues, cardiac conditions, and so on.

The triers of fact will be instructed to consider what the actor knew at the time.

I take medication that severely slows blood coagulation. I've been told by more than one doctor that even a fall in the shower could kill, but I cannot prove that I have been so advised by just saying so.
 
You are right, and for that matter, I would also be responsible for knowing in advance that the condition remains. It took a lot of time before the section of bone that was removed closed up, and of course,I should also know factually whether the area that was worked on was still at risk of serious trauma, but that still team s an issue of legal debate. When reality is that an individual makes threatening gestures and ignores your want kings, a person can only assume and act upon the worst case scenario .

It would be really nice if the bad guys clearly labeled themselves. Let their intentions be known and do it in front of witnesses. Whatever happens, if force is used, there will be a percentage of people who will refuse to accept the logic of why it happened.

A suspected thief attacked a police officer in his car without provocation. The thief was a big, powerful looking guy. The guy renewed his attack when the cop left his car, and the officer felt that he had no option but deadly force. That event sums up everything that's wrong with this issue.there are people who truly believe that a person cannot engage in preemptive measures, that the other guy must draw first, and that maybe he should even be allowed to prove his intentions by firing first.

I think I've said everything I can say. Life is chaos, and non lethal force against another is necessary sometimes just like lethal force is.
 
Here's a shooting which is quite similar to some of the scenarios under discussion.

An unarmed man continued to attack an armed citizen who retreated until he was cornered and then finally shot and killed the unarmed man when he continued to attack.

There is no clear disparity of force although the attacker is somewhat larger than the defender. The attacker is clearly unwilling to break off the attack and will not allow the defender to escape. However the attacker never makes a determined attack that seems likely to cause injury. I can't see that he ever throws a punch although he does repeatedly lay hands on the defender--pushing and pulling him around.

In spite of that, according the news article the DA indicated that they believed the shooting was justified and that charges would not be filed.

http://www.guns.com/2016/06/01/no-c...7fa&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
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I'm not saying that every shooting that fits this description will get the same response from the DA, but it's still interesting.
 
I understand it. This guy gave no clear indication that he was going to kill or seriously injure the victim, right? The problem is that there was no clear indication of what this mentally unstable guy was planning to do or where that encounter might go. By the time his intentions were made absolutely clear, his victim might have already been incapacitated and maybe dead.

This brings up the idea of defense zones, or the line in the sand. NOBODY should ever cross that line at the desk, and the clerk would have been clearly justified in using non lethal force if an aggressive person pushed through that barrier, in a sense, trespassing, since he probably crossed an "employees only"sign, and maybe it would be illegal entry. He had an armed man up against a wall and was hitting him. This guy wasn't the employee, and I'm sure th a people could play the vigilante game or mess up justice otherwise, but it seems pretty clear to me. I would have pulled the trigger at that point too. I think that it would have worked better if deescalation techniques would have been effectively used, but without audio, I'm lost.

For me the bottom line was that a guy with a gun was being beaten, and at any minute he was going to lose control of it and lose the fight.

I sure as hell would not have wanted to be there. I'm not sure if I would have handled it well.
 
I think that this is an absolutely perfect example of where the stand your ground laws come in.The shooter had done nothing to provoke a physical attack. An aggressor backed him to the limits of escape, and he fired when he began to fear for his safety. Understand a stand your ground law, he could have fired a disabling round into the guy's thigh before it went so far that he had no other option.

I'm curious, how many rounds fired? I think that there may have been one shot that didn't stop him and he came back.
 
And AGAIN, I say a blast of OC in that guys face would have been a better option then the shoving match and potential gun take-a-way situation we watched.

Its NOT the perfect tool, there is NO such thing. But, if it keeps me from having to shoot that guy....its a better option. More tools in the toolbag, means a better outcome
 
I think that this is an absolutely perfect example of where the stand your ground laws come in.The shooter had done nothing to provoke a physical attack. An aggressor backed him to the limits of escape, and he fired when he began to fear for his safety. Understand a stand your ground law, he could have fired a disabling round into the guy's thigh before it went so far that he had no other option.
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First, I don't think that "stand your ground" enters into this at all. Louisiana has no duty to retreat, but the fellow could not do so safely anyway.

Second. a "disabling round into the guy's thigh" would require the same justification of deady force as a shot to the chest.
 
http://m.wdsu.com/news/gunman-arres...t-at-mandeville-gas-station-mpd-says/38855596

Yes, apparently the guy was shot three times. Once, and he was pushed back. Then he came back and renewed the attack and was shot two more times.

I see a few things that may have helped, but maybe not.

The shooter was an instructor
http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/04/05/open-carrying-firearms-instructor-attacked-kills-assailant/

Neither the police chief nor da had any plans to charge. The family appears to believe that the shooting was unjustified, and the family appears to be planning a suit.

The guy was an army veteran who had five kids. Mental health problems, probably. Makes the whole situation harder, since it turned out that he wasn't really a villain, just some messed up guy who went off the deep end.


http://m.waff.com/waff/pm_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=od:8QDIZ11A
 
I never disagreed with the use of other nonlethal approaches. That is what it came down to. If the shooter hadn't followed him, it might have ended differently. If he had maced him, it might have been different. If a cop had used a taser, on and on, it may have ended with the guy alive. The circumstances worked out this way.there are never going to be nice, elegant solutions when crazy people go off the rails. Just because now we can look back and say "he ! Should have used mace" doesn't change anything. For that matter, when that guy was down on his knees, whether he put the gun against the guy's thigh or his belly, the difference is that maybe, just maybe, this guy would still be alive, and if the clerk himself was carrying his own mace, once again, more variables.

There are literally hundreds of variables, and maybe if his buddy hajd gotten out of the car and stepped in, it may have never happened.
 
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