In defense of others

F

floydpink

New member
If this is a taboo topic or one that has run its course, I am sorry, but as a new CCW license holder, it is on my mind.

If you come across a violent felony in progress, involving a stranger, is it generally a better idea to try to intervene passively by calling 911 and never by drawing your weapon if it doesn't involve you or your family?

I realize I am not a freelance LEO now but a few weeks ago the convenience store was held up at gunpoint and a customer drew his weapon and shot the robber. It was repeated in a similar situation a week later.

Reading about it in the paper had me wondering what I would have done.

I suppose it depends on the individual and my feeling is most would like to avoid the legal fees and time required to defend themselves in a civil suit, as well as the moral issues coming with a shooting, but I am not so sure I could walk away from a helpless person being assaulted and am not physically blessed to do it with my hands.
 
this can keep a person thinking.

my simple philosophy is 1)protect me/mine from threat 2)if a felony (assualt, rape, armed robbery, etc) is happening right near me but I'm still a little distance away, I probably will take some kind of cover first then assess what is going on.

If I can be of significant help and stop someone or make someone run and then assist the victim. I'll do what I can.

that doesn't mean I'm walking towards armed robber point weapon at them and giving LEO commands. That's not what I am.

I know of two situations when people I know (one a friend, the other family) did step in and here are the situations...

1) my friend was driving home and slowed down at a light. He witnessed a women on her knees being kicked around (literally) by a man. She was screaming and bleeding. My friend got out of the car, got fairly close with his snub .357 and fired a shot into an empty muddy drainage ditch. The kicker stopped and turned around and my friend called 911 and the kicker complied and backed off the woman. The cops arrested the kicker, helped the woman, and just interviewed and released my friend.

2) my brother was at a home depot late one evening. walking to his truck he witnessed a man pushing a woman up against a car and choking her. My brother dropped his bag at his truck, and walked toward the couple. When about 20 feet away, he yelled at the man to stop. At that moment, both the man and the woman turned and began to walk towards my brother. They kept coming until he crouched down and pulled out his ccw when they were about 12 feet away and increasing their pace. They stopped moving and he briskly backed to his vehicle and left. He did not call anyone. Nor was he ever questioned or called.
 
When you pull & use a gun, you are gambling literally everything you own on getting it right and being legally justified. You are gambling your job, your home, and every penny you have in the bank. You are gambling your marriage and your ability to watch your children grow up in person instead of from jail. You are gambling every friendship you've ever made, every dollar you've ever earned or will earn, and your family's future happiness. You are risking sleep disturbances, flashbacks, nightmares, impotence, anorexia, alcoholism, drug reliance, and a long and bitter lifetime of regret if you get it wrong.

To take a gamble that big, it's a good idea to be overwhelmingly certain there's no other way out.

Is the life of a stranger worth a gamble that size? Depending on your personal morals, maybe he is. But never ever ever in an ambiguous situation, especially when you didn't see the prelude and don't know the players.

Personally, I'm not taking that gamble unless I am overwhelmingly sure of who the players are, who's the good guy, who's the bad guy, and what provoked the whole thing. A scene that I just stumbled on, where I don't know either one of the participants, simply cannot meet that standard.

This might sound as if I don't believe in intervening at all, but that's not true: I'll intervene in unambiguous situations where I'm certain of my ground. In situations where I'm not overwhelmingly certain, I'll still intervene -- by calling the cops. Calling the cops IS acting. It's just not quite as macho as rushing in.

pax
 
Gun or No Gun...

Right or wrong I am goin' in to help the underdog. I would prefer to peaceably end the situation verbally but will go to any and all means available to me to do so. I am not positive the person getting kicked/beaten/stabbed don't deserve punishment but I am going to try to break it up and let the official umpires of life LEO and Judges decide. Having owned bulldogs for hunting and pets for many years I know sometimes they just gonna scrap. I "choke" them apart and get down to the brass tacks of who wanted a piece of who and why. Just natural for me to intervene.
Do I worry about my own well being? YESSS!!! I would be crazy not to... But I do not consider any legal ramifications for being involved. Seems if you try to do right for others and stay neutral, it works out in the end. Lucky so far to never have been in a bind since I was 17 and in a "Kettle's Restaurant" when a crazed boa wearin' individual sissy slurred expletives at the waitress, slung hot coffee at her and threw the coffee mug at her but missed. I sprayed him down with "Halt" mailman mace to slow his escape and found out the cops were called on ME...:eek: Burned rubber on the Moto Guzzi right on outta there too!
Brent
 
Wow! That last one (Pax's post) got me overwhelmingly thinking. Very good food for thought, considering I am the sole breadwinner for my family and a stepfather of a girl who came from a broken past with very little future and also, I believe, the light in a 4 year old's life, my little girl.

Without me, I can't imagine what would become of them and I can't imagine my girl growing up without me.
 
All these situations you happen upon a scene and assume what is occurring. You have no idea of the specifics of the situation. The man with the tattoos and long beard choking the woman in the parking lot may be an undercover police officer struggling with a woman he is trying to arrest for gun possession. Your interference may cause him to loose control of a criminal and she may shoot him or you. If you are going to react to a situation you happen along you better be very sure of what is occurring. Your CCW is for the protection of yourself and the people who are with you. If you want to protect innocent crime victims, become a police officer. That being said, if that bearded, tattooed man is chasing a woman down the street in his underwear caring a butcher knife, he is probably not the police. If you can stop him without causing yourself undue harm, that may be OK. If you are in a party store that is getting robbed, give the bad guys the money and they will leave. Don't turn a robbery into a shootout or you may be the one suffering the negative unintended consequences.
 
Actually, hogdog, your post DID get me thinking..

I got to thinking about whether or not the Kettle restaurant you mentioned was the same one on the way to Tampa, in Thonotosassa I think, that serves the best country fried steak i have ever had
 
This'n was Lafayette Louisiana in about 1985 or so...
And yes the country fried steak was GRAND as was the Biscuits and Gravy...
Brent
 
To take a gamble that big, it's a good idea to be overwhelmingly certain there's no other way out.
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Morally and legally as well. In Texas, if you are anywhere other than your home, you may not have access to "self-defense" justification for your lethal actions if you could have retreated safely from a dangerous situation.

Flapjack is right - It is extremely dangerous to get involved with lethal firepower unless you are 100% sure of what is going on. If you are not in danger yourself, you may be far more help to someone by calling the cops.

Personally, if I am unarmed and engaged in some kind of struggle with a BG and a civilian pulls a gun on him, I will probably be glad for the chance to escape - but I could very easily get killed in the crossfire regardless, or end up getting dragged away to some unknown location in the BG's attempt to escape the threat.

There are just too many variables, in my opinion, to jump into an unknown situation with a gun. My .02 - I know a lot of people will disagree with me, and I respect that.
 
wow one point where florida gives us more lee way than texas... Our castle doctrine stand your ground is extended to "anywhere I am legally allowed to be" and defense of others is granted the same protection from suits as if defending my self. The shoot just has to be deemed "justifiable"...
Brent
 
One point where florida gives us more lee way than texas
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:D I take it back! The 2007 Texas legislature edited out the retreat provision - shame on me for using a 2006 penal code! Ours basically reads the same as yours now, probably.

Even before, however, the penal code only required retreat if a reasonable person in the actor's situation would have retreated. And reasonableness is a jury issue. And a jury of one's peers in Texas is likely to have more than a handful of individuals who think that not retreating in most instances is perfectly reasonable ;)
 
last I checked Texas is the same way... you do NOT have to retreat. As a matter of fact if I see a person raping a woman, I can shoot. If I see a man beating the heck out of a woman, I can shoot. Any crime that is considered felony aggrevated assault is basically justified. Read your CHL handbook, and I mean a current one. If I remember correctly alot of things have changed recently. In texas we can now use lethal force on trespassers. I personally would not, but you can. I have had to draw my weapon on a guy that was literally almost twice my size and charging me down, the reason is simple. If he punches me, or knocks me down, he now has access to my firearm. When I get time I will find the Chapter, and subsection on these things and post em up.
Clay
 
you already corrected it by the time I got my response typed out. Texas is by far the best state to live in when it comes to backing the CHL holders and giving them the most leeway.
Clay
 
If you come across a violent felony in progress, involving a stranger, is it generally a better idea to try to intervene passively by calling 911 and never by drawing your weapon if it doesn't involve you or your family?
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How violent is the felony? What kind of stranger? Can you intervene in ways besides 911 or drawing your gun? Is it worth losing everything you and your family have? Lots of questions to look at that might make a difference. Personally I teach intervene when it will not put you in great danger or when the intervention will not make the problem worse, and using deadly force only when you or your family/friends are in danger of death or great harm. The legal ramifications are to great to ignore or disregard when you intervene, and there are lots of really questionable problems out there that can backfire in a minute and you end up doing time.
 
I think a person is taking a big chance, trying to stop a crime in progress.
I guess if I faced a decision when I knew an innocent person was going to be killed, I would intervine, as long as I didnt have my kids with me. I would hate for my children to get in the crossfire of a gunfight. If they were with me I would go to a safe place and call police. I dont want to sound like a coward, but I would put my famlies saftey in front of a strangers anyday.
 
Been there, done that.

I see two completely different scenario types:

1) I >>know<< what's going on. In other words, I'm dead certain as to who the bad guy is. I'm in a grocery store, guy comes in wearing a ski mask, shoots the register clerk in the leg. No hesitation, I'm going to draw and fire on anybody who is a lethal threat to myself or others.

2) I don't. And that's one hell of a lot more likely.

I've actually been in one of each of these - except the "type 1" involved two dogs as the assailants, which means the potential legal problems are far less. (Armed with only a knife, I got between the two dogs and their human victim - the dogs ran off.)

In the "type 2", I walked onto a subway car (BART in Oakland Cali) to find four lunatics trying to kick a guy to death. I thought the nutcases were women. I pushed them off of their down-on-his-belly victim while yelling "it's over" repeatedly, rocked 'em a few steps back, the downed party ran to the next car back, I retreated to cover his exit. Which was a damned good thing - at about 18 paces out I get two nasty surprises: two of the loonies had claw hammers (one dripping blood) and then one of the bystanders said "hey, those are guys!".

So I ended up staring down four homicidal transvestites with my hand on a belt knife ready to draw it at their first approach. Backed into a corridor it would have been ugly but possible to do 4:1 odds.

They backed off, got caught, prosecuted, the innocent (it turned out) victim shook my hand at the DA's office, charges dropped to misdemeanors(!), nine months later one of these jackarses tried to kill an Oakland cop with a knife, a year later the deputy DA blew his brains out.

I faced no legal problems whatever other than testifying as a witness.

What I did RIGHT was to act immediately yet not go to lethal force until it was absolutely no-other-choice. And it never got there.

What I did wrong was not watching their hands. I focused on the boots they were stomping him with, but it's the hands that kill a lot quicker. I survived that blooper because I was in, did the rescue and broke close contact all within a second or two tops. They didn't have time to "nail" me (pardon the pun). Classic case of "stupid but FAST response still worked".

Had I seen the hammers (again, one dripping blood), I'd have pulled that knife but held off and given a verbal challenge first. I might have also pulled the 4-shot 22Magnum minirevolver in my front right pocket and faced an illegal CCW bust...as it was nobody ever found out I had a wee little backup plan on me :).

Remember: for all I knew, the downed party had at least some of it coming for purse snatching or whatever. Turns out not, but I had no idea.

He recovered just fine by the way...passed out with a concussion on scene but he was fine by the time we met at the DA's office.

I also decided on a new rule after this event and doing more study: never get between two parties who still want a piece of each other. Only when a fight is totally one-sided is it at all smart (not very but what the hell) to intervene.
 
ar15, Please understand this is not a jab at your post. I just have to use this line as it fits so well with much of the situation... On both sides of the spectrum...
I think a person is taking a big chance, trying to stop a crime in progress.
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I agree whole heartedly! But taking chances for others' benefit is an age old American thing to do. Not being forced to do so is the key. Some will and some won't. I bet when the few decided to separate from england they were well aware of the risk they were taken if they failed and/or were caught. I am also sure many others would have the same belief but not the fortitude to take the risks.
Two things I live by are... "If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything." In this case I stand for the right to live in happiness without the threat of being preyed upon by human vultures and hyenas.

Second one is... "If you aren't living on the edge, you are just taking up space." This one is a little out there for typical day to day business but witnessing violent crime is not business as usual for the most part either.
Brent
 
I think Pax nailed it. You'd better understand what's at risk, which is EV-A-REE-THING and you'd better be certain that you're right.

So far as the moral question, I don't think it can ever be morally wrong to help someone who needs help.
 
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