Man shoots another man who is attacking a woman

[JohnKSa]

In the OP/object case ... a man repeatedly stabbing a woman while simultaneously pursuing/continuing to stab her as she fled...

In the case I described, a group of people were coordinating an attack against a single man. He turned out to be the aggressor although the officer who arrived on the scene didn't realize it. That gave the aggressor the opportunity to severely injure one of the members of the group.

Would it be reasonable to use deadly force to stop a group from attacking someone, knocking him to the ground repeatedly and hitting him with a large rock? It's important to know what's going on before intervening.

So, in the OP's case, without knowing what led up to the situation, you don't really know what's going on. In TX, for example, under certain circumstances, a person may legally pursue a person who has robbed them, and even use deadly force to recover the property--again, under certain circumstances.

There was a case not too long ago in TX where a man chased and then killed a prostitute who took his money and left without providing services. He was acquitted.

I'm not saying that either person in that situation was exactly an upstanding citizen, but the point is that if you had intervened in that situation with deadly force--a situation where a man pursued a woman and ultimately killed her, you might have killed someone that was found to have been justified in his use of deadly force.

....You have got to be kidding.

Absolutely not. The world is a complicated place. If you try to oversimplify it and use deadly force based on an overly simplistic view of reality, you can cause a lot of damage get yourself into a lot of trouble.

As I said before:

The bottom line is that you'd better get it right and you'd better be able to take full control of the situation and all the people in it if you're going to intervene. It is definitely possible to make things worse than they already are and also to get yourself into a lot of trouble.

 

[davidsog]

Would it be reasonable to use deadly force to stop a group from attacking someone,

Yes it would. This is part of the destruction of our society attorneys have led us down.
In your example, the cop did the right thing in stopping the violence. End of Story.

The fact some attorney thought it he should posses some super-human insight outside of what the reality of the here and now presented is ridiculous.
The only person responsible for the violence is the attacker not the individual who intervened to stop the attacks.
That your profession would muck up that fact in the safety/security of a conference table sipping coffee does not speak highly of the direction you are sending society.

 

[WyMark]

Besides the obvious factor of having no idea what's really going on in that situation, I have no way of knowing whether another witness has already called 911 and the police are going to arrive any second. Now when they pull up to the scene of a reported knife attack they discover an active shooter situation instead. I really don't want to be the guy with a gun in my hand at that moment.

 

[davidsog]

Besides the obvious factor of having no idea what's really going on in that situation, I have no way of knowing whether another witness has already called 911 and the police are going to arrive any second. Now when they pull up to the scene of a reported knife attack they discover an active shooter situation instead. I really don't want to be the guy with a gun in my hand at that moment.

You can "what IF" any scenario to death. If frogs had pockets, would they carry pistols and shoot snakes?

If you haven't thought about your reaction to LE showing up on scene as a CCL holder I highly suggest you do. Life is full of risk. Doing nothing and hiding is definitely the less risky path in life. it is a matter what you can live with and subjugate yourself too. Personally, I do not want to live in a society where my fellow citizens do not come to my aid when I am in trouble.

Our legal system is predicated upon a "reasonable man" standard. My mind reading ability and crystal ball did not work very well in the Q-course. I simply had my ability to think, act, and my judgement to lead me forward in life. So far...it's been successful.

If you do not think this deterioration of that "reasonable man" standard and the advancement of logical fallacy concocted in the safety of an office after an event....
Then I suggest you take just about any Human Resources training being given out by our corporations to see the dangerous path this is leading our society down.

 

[OldMarksman]

Yes it would[be reasonable to use deadly force to stop a group from attacking someone].

But suppose the group were engaged in self defense, as in the example cited.

In your example, the cop did the right thing in stopping the violence. End of Story.

You apprently misread John's post. The cop stopped the people from defending themselves, and allowed whim to continue and violently injure someone.

The fact some attorney thought it he should posses some super-human insight outside of what the reality of the here and now presented is ridiculous.

John did not mention an attorney, but quite obviously, what "the here and there" presented did not identify the actual perpetrator of the criminal act. The officer mistakenly stepped in on the side of the criminal.

The only person responsible for the violence is the attacker not the individual who intervened to stop the attacks.

The initiator of the confrontation, or perhaps a provocateur, is the person responsible for the violence.

John's account is an excellent example of why one should never step into a violent incident without understanding what is going on.

 

[davidsog]

I did not misread John's post.

The police officer was not responsible for the homeless man's attack on the woman regardless of the woman actions in defending herself.

There are many examples of a good Samaritan attempting to stop violence and things do go wrong.

That is life. It is not risk free.

The man hailed as a hero for preventing further bloodshed after a gunman fatally shot a police officer in Arvada, Colorado, on Monday was himself fatally shot by police, Arvada police said in a statement Friday afternoon.

Police say Johnny Hurley, 40, confronted the gunman, identified as Ronald Troyke, after Troyke had shot and killed Arvada police officer Gordon Beesley near Arvada's Olde Town Square on Monday afternoon.

As Troyke ran toward the square with a long gun, Hurley shot the suspect with a handgun, according to Arvada police.
"A responding Arvada Police Officer then encountered Mr. Hurley, who was holding the suspect's AR-15," the statement said. "The officer shot him."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/26/us/arvada-colorado-police-shot-good-samaritan/index.html

There are many more examples of things not going wrong.

How Often Do Good Guys Save Lives?
Good guys with guns do save lives. An often-cited study was done in 1995 by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. It was titled, “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun.” It found that guns are used for self-defense in America about 2.1 to 2.5 million times per year. In contrast, in 1997, David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center, determined that Americans use guns defensively about 55,000–80,000 times per year.

Those numbers are wildly different, but like many such studies, they used different methods to measure self-defense gun use. But then, even if the lowest number here (55,000) is the most-accurate, this would mean that Americans use guns to defend themselves at more than four times the homicide rate (there were 13,252 homicides in the U.S. in 1997, according to FBI data). This begs the question: How many more murders would there be if more law-abiding Americans were prevented from defending themselves?

American gun owners also clearly aren’t shooting first and asking questions later, as many in the mainstream media claim. According to the FBI, there were 299 “justifiable homicides” with a firearm in the U.S. in 2017. Whichever number regarding self-defense is the most accurate, justifiable homicides are clearly a very small portion of self-defense gun uses by legal gun owners in America.

Even when good guys with guns save lives—many lives—the mainstream media focuses almost exclusively on the criminals. They seem to purposely ignore the good guy or gal who saved lives.

for example, after a murderer killed 26 worshippers in November 2017 at a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church. A neighbor (a good guy with a gun) heard the shots and screams. That neighbor, former NRA firearms instructor Stephen Willeford, grabbed a rifle, ran to the scene, confronted the attacker and shot him several times. The murderer, who was hit in the upper torso, dropped his rifle and began shooting back at Willeford with a pistol. The now seriously injured attacker then fled the church, jumped into his vehicle and sped away from the scene. Willeford and another citizen gave chase, but soon found the attacker had wrecked his vehicle and was dead.

https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/articles/2019/10/27/the-truth-about-good-guys-with-guns/

Again, one must exercise a reasonable man standard and make your own decision as to what kind of society you wish to live in. One can "What IF" anything with logical fallacy leading to a rabbit hole. It is a fact that our Judiciary is the watchdog against such occurrences. It is what allows that reasonable man to move forward in freedom and forms the foundation of a social contract that says, "If you need help; someone will help you."

What I said is not a personal attack on John or his profession. There is a appeals process for a reason as we are all endowed with the fallacy and grandeur that forms humanity.

In both of these instances, the Police Officer reacted reasonably to the threat he encountered based upon the information he had in the moment. For that to be picked apart in the safety of a conference room simply adds to the tragedy.

 

[OldMarksman]

The police officer was not responsible for the homeless man's attack on the woman regardless of the woman actions in defending herself

His making it possible for him to resume his attack resulted in her severe injury.

There are many examples of a good Samaritan attempting to stop violence and things do go wrong.

When they do go wrong, , innocent people suffer, and the so called "good Samaritans" are prosecuted as criminals and sued in civil court--and quite rightly so.

In both of these instances, the Police Officer reacted reasonably to the threat he encountered based upon the information he had in the moment.

if you are referring to John's example, the officer acted on the basis of that he assumed to be going on. and he was wrong. Someone else will decide what was reasonable, after the fact.

For that to be picked apart in the safety of a conference room simply adds to the tragedy.

All use of force incidents are judged after the fact on the basis of whatever evidence and testimony can be gathered. that's why we have a criminal justice system, and a system for addressing torts. What the actor assumed at the time is not the deciding factor.

The rest of your post is irrelevant. The Kleck study had nothing to do with defense of third parties.

You have a lot to learn on this subject. I suggest taking courses from Massad Ayoob and Andrew Branca

 

[JohnKSa]

Besides the obvious factor of having no idea what's really going on in that situation, I have no way of knowing whether another witness has already called 911 and the police are going to arrive any second. Now when they pull up to the scene of a reported knife attack they discover an active shooter situation instead. I really don't want to be the guy with a gun in my hand at that moment.

This just happened not long ago. A man killed an active shooter and when the police arrived, they killed the good samaritan when they saw him at the scene with a firearm.

The only person responsible for the violence is the attacker not the individual who intervened to stop the attacks.

This COMPLETELY misses the point.

Because of his actions--specifically failing to take full control of all the people involved in the situation, he created a situation where a "bad guy" was able to hurt a "good guy". That is, an innocent person was harmed because of his actions. The point of one of us intervening would be to help those who need help, not to increase their chances of being injured. There's a lesson to be learned there.

The fact some attorney thought it he should posses some super-human insight outside of what the reality of the here and now presented is ridiculous.

1. I'm not an attorney.

2. There's no need for "super human insight". We can look at real-world examples that were at the time they happened, PRECISELY the reality of the here and now. We can ignore the examples and the lessons they teach, or we can learn from them.

The point is that the world is a complicated place.

There are no white hats or black hats to tell good guys from bad guys. In fact, both of the parties in a situation can be bad guys. Or maybe both sides may be good guys and there could just be a horrible misunderstanding like the shooting that happened awhile back in TX where cops were given the wrong address on a falsified no-knock warrant and a law-abiding homeowner ended up in a gunfight with officers just trying to do their job.

If you're going to make it part of your CONOP to intervene in confrontations, you need to be aware of the potential pitfalls.

You can end up on the wrong side of the law. (Such as would have happened had someone used deadly force to stop the guy from shooting the prostitute since his actions turned out to be legal.)

You can make it possible for an attacker to hurt a victim. (As happened in the situation where the police officer intervened in the situation where a homeless man attacked a victim after the officer stopped them from defending themselves.)

You can end up getting killed or seriously injured by an accomplice, or maybe even by one of the primaries.

You could be killed or seriously injured by responding law enforcement--or by another person who thinks they are helping but doesn't understand the entire situation.

You could be sued for intervening, even if you didn't do anything that was criminal.

That is life. It is not risk free.

EXACTLY.

People need to understand this. Not just on a level of "Oh yeah, I guess it can happen." but on the level of "Oh wow, this could end my life, or destroy my life and others, or cause an innocent person harm! I should be very sure that I know what is going on before I act." In the case of the officer who intervened in the group being attacked by the homeless guy, he wasn't even using deadly force--he just tried to break things up and instead a victim ended up being severely injured because the officer didn't correctly assess the situation, and more importantly because he failed to control everyone when he intervened.

There are a lot of people out there who view the world as very uncomplicated. As in:

"Oh look, a wrong is being done to an innocent. Because I am a good person, I will intervene and stop the bad guy and then there will be medals and hugs."

1. It may not actually be a wrong.
2. It may not be an innocent.
3. Being a good person has nothing to do with good tactics or legality.
4. Your intervention could harm an innocent (or multiple innocents) instead of helping.
5. You may not be able to tell who the bad guy is and therefore you may intervene on the side of the bad guy.
6. Your intervention could result in you being killed/injured by participants, by responding law enforcement or by someone trying to help who doesn't know what's going on.
7. Instead of medals and hugs there can be prosecutions and lawsuits. Or even in addition to medals and hugs there can be lawsuits.

If you look back at my posts, I haven't said not to ever help anyone, what I said was very clear.

The bottom line is that you'd better get it right and you'd better be able to take full control of the situation and all the people in it if you're going to intervene. It is definitely possible to make things worse than they already are and also to get yourself into a lot of trouble.

 

[ghbucky]

foundation of a social contract that says, "If you need help; someone will help you."

I don't know where in the world you got the idea about this 'social contract'.

The laws are written to DIS-courage this behavior. The law is very specifically written so that if you involve yourself and end up shooting someone, you have better have gotten it 100% right, or you will pay the consequences. There is no pass for getting it wrong.

I know Kentucky law so I'll reference it. If I'm defending myself, MY perception (reasonable man) standard applies. If I'm defending someone else, there is no reasonable man standard. The standard applied is the reality of the situation. My perception is now completely irrelevant.

Maybe you should consider a LEO career so you will then have cover of law for helping people.

 

[davidsog]

I don't know where in the world you got the idea about this 'social contract'.

From a life spent mostly in the third world. It is unique to only a few nations and those without it are very aware of not having it.

If you want to see it in action...Dial 911

I know Kentucky law so I'll reference it. If I'm defending myself, MY perception (reasonable man) standard applies. If I'm defending someone else, there is no reasonable man standard. The standard applied is the reality of the situation. My perception is now completely irrelevant.

Florida law:

776.012 Use or threatened use of force in defense of person.—
(1) A person is justified in using or threatening to use force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. A person who uses or threatens to use force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat before using or threatening to use such force.
(2) A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using or threatening to use the deadly force

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0776/0776.html

Maybe you should consider a LEO career so you will then have cover of law for helping people.

I have served in a Federal LEO capacity with all the legal use of force training that it implies.

 

[davidsog]

JohnKSa says:
The bottom line is that you'd better get it right and you'd better be able to take full control of the situation and all the people in it if you're going to intervene. It is definitely possible to make things worse than they already are and also to get yourself into a lot of trouble.

Agreed. This is the risk you are shouldering. Some states are not correct in their legal thinking on this. Then again, some states have a duty to retreat while others do not. We are on the same page and I even stated:

davidsog says:
Reasonable Man standard applies.

Much of time, your wording and expression of the situation makes all the difference. Intervening to stop an attack by using deadly force or the threat of deadly force might not be the best approach or even legal in many states....

ghbucky says:

If I'm defending myself, MY perception (reasonable man) standard applies.
If I'm defending someone else, there is no reasonable man standard.

Which is exactly why I wrote your articulation of your reasoning to get involved may make all the difference.

davidsog says:

Much of time, your wording and expression of the situation makes all the difference. Intervening to stop an attack by using deadly force or the threat of deadly force might not be the best approach or even legal in many states....
Most states have a good Samaritan Law to protect as well as encourage others to render reasonable aid.

In this case, I would not have intervened with deadly force in defense of another. I would have confined my use of force to my own self defense.

I would simply state that I attempted to render aid to the injured woman when her attacker turned upon me placing me in fear for my life.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6903898&postcount=56

 

[JohnKSa]

A person can reasonably believe the wrong thing and that would, assuming the courts agree that their belief really was reasonable, keep them from being prosecuted. It wouldn't change what actually happened in the situation if they ended up killing the wrong person or creating a situation where someone was injured or hurt because of their intervention. Nor would it make them any less dead if there's a misunderstanding and they are shot by LE or another person trying to help. It wouldn't prevent them from being sued by participants who feel like things didn't go the way they thought they should have, or by survivors.

The point is that when people's lives--including potentially yours--are on the line, you owe it to everyone to make sure you know what's going on before you act AND that you understand the possible negative outcomes that can result from acting without fully understanding the situation.

I have served in a Federal LEO capacity with all the legal use of force training that it implies.

Ah, well then you already understand all the potential problems--I'm sure that was covered in your training.

 

[davidsog]

JohnKSa,

I edit'd my short response, adding more detail and during that time you responded.

A person can reasonably believe the wrong thing and that would, assuming the courts agree that their belief really was reasonable, keep them from being prosecuted. It wouldn't change what actually happened in the situation if they ended up killing the wrong person or creating a situation where someone was injured or hurt because of their intervention. Nor would it make them any less dead if there's a misunderstanding and they are shot by LE or another person trying to help. It wouldn't prevent them from being sued by participants who feel like things didn't go the way they thought they should have, or by survivors.

Correct. Know your state laws. Many states have liability protection for anyone who was not prosecuted if the use of force was deemed lawful.

(1) A person who uses or threatens to use force as permitted in s. 776.012 , s. 776.013 , or s. 776.031 is justified in such conduct and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use or threatened use of such force by the person, personal representative, or heirs of the person against whom the force was used or threatened, unless the person against whom force was used or threatened is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14) , who was acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using or threatening to use force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer.  As used in this subsection, the term “criminal prosecution” includes arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting the defendant.

(2) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use or threatened use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using or threatening to use force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used or threatened was unlawful.

(3) The court shall award reasonable attorney's fees, court costs, compensation for loss of income, and all expenses incurred by the defendant in defense of any civil action brought by a plaintiff if the court finds that the defendant is immune from prosecution as provided in subsection (1).

https://codes.findlaw.com/fl/title-xlvi-crimes/fl-st-sect-776-032.html

Ah, well then you already understand all the potential problems--I'm sure that was covered in your training.

There is some weirdness at the Federal Level. You can have a completely justified use of force. In many situations you are even covered in lawful use situations for collateral injuries or death. For example, an innocent is killed in a hostage rescue in a confined space of an aircraft.
You can easily have a situation where the officer is deemed to have used deadly force lawfully and deemed not responsible for the collateral death even though he pulled the trigger.
The Federal Government is immune from lawsuits. In this case, a Federal judge will dismiss the civil lawsuit but order the Government into arbitration and settlement of the damages. The officer holds no liability.

It gets even weirder in certain situations were you are expected to apply immediate deadly force without warning or identifying yourself as a LEO.

 

[OldMarksman]

I have served in a Federal LEO capacity with all the legal use of force training that it implies

Then you are surely aware that "reasonably believes" means that reasonable persons in similar circumstances, knowing what the actor knew at the rime, would have reached the same conclusion.

it does not mean "I came upon the scene and saw some people pounding on a man, so I naturally assumed, having no actual knowledge of what had previously transpired, that the apparent victim was an innocent person entitled to defend himself, so I acted."

That is not untested theory,

There is enough case law on that to fill a law school course.

 

[davidsog]

it does not mean "I came upon the scene and saw some people pounding on a man, so I naturally assumed, having no actual knowledge of what had previously transpired, that the apparent victim was an innocent person entitled to defend himself, so I acted."

State laws can vary so know yours.

Force is on a scale. It would be reasonable in that situation to stop the violence. Non-deadly force can always be met with non-deadly force and at a minimum verbal commands. Verbalizing and verbalization skills matter.

If you reasonably become in fear for your life, you have every right under the law to defend it.
There is a plethora of case law backing that up to fill a law school course too.

Again, how you articulate makes all the difference.

 

[OldMarksman]

If you reasonably become in fear for your life, you have every right under the law to defend it.

Provided that you meet all of the requirements of lawful self defense.

However, we have been discussing the defense of a third person.

Again, how you articulate makes all the difference.

Much more important is the evidence gathered after the fact.

Again, I suggest taking courses from Massad Ayoob and Andrew Branca.

 

[davidsog]

Much more important is the evidence gathered after the fact.

Again, I suggest taking courses from Massad Ayoob and Andrew Branca.

Noted.

And what if a frog had wings?

https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=270787

 

[JohnKSa]

Many states have liability protection for anyone who was not prosecuted if the use of force was deemed lawful.

That is true, but it won't undo things that went wrong as a result of intervening without understanding the situation. Injuries will remain, dead people will still be dead, etc.

And if the use of force was not justified because the reasonable belief turns out to not have been reasonable in court, then the protection doesn't apply.

In many situations you are even covered in lawful use situations for collateral injuries or death. For example, an innocent is killed in a hostage rescue in a confined space of an aircraft.

LE has some additional protections that the rest of us don't. The biggest one is that their department goes to bat for them in court while we have to foot our own bill.

The situation you describe--where a person is acting properly and is fully justified and a bullet goes somewhere it shouldn't have is generally not going to be a problem from a prosecution standpoint because humans aren't superhuman. They can't stop bullets after they go through a target. They all miss sometimes. But it's important to keep in mind that there can be collateral damage--that should be something that is factored into a determination of whether to intervene or not.

It would be reasonable in that situation to stop the violence. Non-deadly force can always be met with non-deadly force and at a minimum verbal commands.

I think it's almost always wise to control a violent situation and stop it--IF, and that is a huge IF--the intervening person truly has the capability and situational awareness necessary to ACTUALLY control the situation.

The incident with the cop and the group of people attacked by the homeless guy underscores what can happen if a person steps in without understanding the situation and doesn't (or can't) really take control of the situation. In that case, well-meaning intervention resulted in an innocent person being badly injured because the officer failed to control what happened after he stopped what he perceived to be an attack.

 

[davidsog]

That is true, but it won't undo things that went wrong as a result of intervening without understanding the situation. Injuries will remain, dead people will still be dead, etc.

And if the use of force was not justified because the reasonable belief turns out to not have been reasonable in court, then the protection doesn't apply.

Absolutely. One's reaction should almost never be to immediately go to deadly force. Take a deep breath, assess, and act appropriately.

Also keep in mind you cannot bring back the dead in scenario's you should have intervened. That is the nature of not having a crystal ball and why a reasonable man standard is limited to what that individual would have known IN THE TIME.

I think it's almost always wise to control a violent situation and stop it--IF, and that is a huge IF--the intervening person truly has the capability and situational awareness necessary to ACTUALLY control the situation.

The incident with the cop and the group of people attacked by the homeless guy underscores what can happen if a person steps in without understanding the situation and doesn't (or can't) really take control of the situation. In that case, well-meaning intervention resulted in an innocent person being badly injured because the officer failed to control what happened after he stopped what he perceived to be an attack.

Good summary.