Real deal! Early A.M

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breeze

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I am hoping that I have the correct forum. I own a drinking establishment. Early this morning 12/7/11, I had two of my customers robbed at gunpoint in front of my bar. The "bad guy's" were wearing hoodys and my customers were unable to give a good desciption other than hispanic and black males. I was able to get outside and pull my weapon after calling 911. My mind was going crazy. I am in an area where there are several homes and made the decision not to fire in fear of hitting a neiborhood home or person. I was ready to do it, but I did not fire. The police told me that it was a good decision on my part. They only got a purse and $5.00 out of the ordeal. My wife and I both have a CCW and the police are aware of this. What would you have done? Thanks
 
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It is hard to say for sure what I would have done based upon your post. However I would not have shot someone over $5 and a purse for people I barely knew. So I would say you did fine given the situation.
 
You did good...

You were there had the BGs decided to do harm to the patrons, but did not engage them over the robbery.
 
friends

I guess I should have mentioned that these are good friends and I had no idea of what they had with them as far as money or anything else, thanks.
 
Shooting people over property is generally illegal. So if the assailants were fleeing the scene and you shot them in the back for example you could have been going to prison for that.

If you came outside in the middle of the robbery and your friends were being threatened with harm that would be a whole different situation,
 
I heard someone say "call the police and hide" yep that's what most cowards would do!
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I don’t know that I’d go so far as calling someone a coward for that. A purse with $5 in it, even $5000, is not worth getting shot or killed over.

Would you call the woman that handed over her purse a coward for giving it up? Money is replaceable, her life is not.

On the other hand, if I was 100% convinced that the bad guys intended to kill someone for that $5, then yes, I would get involved.
 
I take issue with the idea that "any" property is replaceable. Personally, I would not consider $5000 cash lost to a thief as replaceable(easily anyway). The robber would have to be seriously threatening me to get away with that amount and at that point, would be subject to my using deadly force.
As far as shooting a retreating criminal who robbed someone else w/o hurting them, that's pretty much frowned upon.
My take was the OP intended to confront the criminal if the threat of physical violence upon the OP's friend was imminent.
 
Mike38
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I heard someone say "call the police and hide" yep that's what most cowards would do!
I don’t know that I’d go so far as calling someone a coward for that. A purse with $5 in it, even $5000, is not worth getting shot or killed over.

Would you call the woman that handed over her purse a coward for giving it up? Money is replaceable, her life is not.

On the other hand, if I was 100% convinced that the bad guys intended to kill someone for that $5, then yes, I would get involved.
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How is $5000. replaceable?
A car with insurance is partially replaceable, but cash cant be replaced.

The fact that I am going to earn more money next month has nothing to do with the money I earned this month.
 
Breeze.
Basing my opinion on a whole lot of years in L.E., you almost did exactly the right thing. The only correction of your actions that I can offer is this.
The ONLY way to guarantee not losing a gunfight is DON'T ATTEND.
You called 911...correct
Then, take your loved ones and get behind cover. You can do more good by being a witness, than you can by being another victim. Heroism or cowardice should not enter into this discussion. The only things that count are common sense and survival.
The simple fact is, Cops are paid to put their lives on the line, let them do their job. They have been thoroughly trained in how to handle just such a situation. Have you?
 
Keep in mind that at the time of the robbery, the OP didn't know how much was in the purse, or exactly what was going down. So the expression "$5 isn't worth killing over" really doesn't work.

That being said, I get the impression these people came back into the bar AFTER getting robbed, is that correct? If so, you were wrong in running outside and drawing your weapon, because the act was completed. The robbery was finished; there was no longer a threat.

Now, if you'd stepped or looked outside and saw somebody in a hoodie pointing a gun at your friends, that would have been a different story; you would have been justified (in most states, I suppose...) in using deadly force to prevent another individual from illegally using deadly force to cause death or serious bodily injury.
 
I think the thing we need to know is whether the OP was present while the thugs were robbing the folks or after, and whether or not a weapon was displayed or at least alluded to by the robbers.
 
Then, take your loved ones and get behind cover. You can do more good by being a witness, than you can by being another victim. Heroism or cowardice should not enter into this discussion. The only things that count are common sense and survival.
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That is one view point, one taken from the eye of a police officer.

The counter viewpoint to that is living a long healthy life knowing that you could have stopped someone from killing your friends when you had the means, opportunity and ability but; you failed because you had not the personal courage and conviction to do so. I'd rather not live my life that way.

We are going to have to disagree on this point I think.
 
Since we were not there it is hard to know what the situation was, or how we would have responded. There are always some who will say they would have done something differently. It is easy to be wise, tough, and brave on the interwebz.

No one was hurt. That is a good result in this situation IMO.
 
A time line is needed before we could logically comment on the situation and actions taken.

Here in our great state, for example, I can defend myself if I’m in my car and a hoodie decides to car jack me in such a fashion that I fear said hoodie is going to cause me bodily harm; however, if I’m cleaning my windshield at the local gas station and the same hoodie jumps in my car, with the intent of driving off, woe unto me if I send rounds toward him. Our state law, as I understand it, prohibits me from protecting my property (specifically, my car) with lethal force. Your state law will vary. I think I’m still allowed to attempt to physically remove said hoodie from the car.

Another example comes to mind from a few years ago. A couple of counties over for me, a guy had some high dollar equipment stolen from his vehicle, while it was in his carport. He suspected the local dope head was the thief. He replaced the equipment and kept a good weather eye out on his stuff. Short story is he heard some noise one night, peeked out to see doper at work, whereupon the owner slipped out the backdoor with an aluminum baseball bat, rounded the house and whacked doper enough to put him down. Not the six feet under kind of down, just down enough for the local law to arrive and take over. Anyone want to guess who went to prison? Last I heard of the case, the righteous owner had been hit with two or three times more prison time than the doper.

I'm glad no one was hurt, but regret the lady lost her purse as this can be very serious – home address leading to a future visit, identity theft, banking account and credit card information, etc.
 
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I'd suggest that anyone who owns a drinking establishment and has had patrons robbed in their parking lot do a few things:

1. Invest in a good surveillance and monitoring system.
2. Have the cops patrol the area more often.
3. Private security may too expensive, but its a consideration.

Running after the BG's with a gun is probably not a good idea. I don't know about you, but I'm not trained to handle a situation where two people not related to me are being held at gunpoint.
 
Ruark said:
Keep in mind that at the time of the robbery, the OP didn't know how much was in the purse, or exactly what was going down. So the expression "$5 isn't worth killing over" really doesn't work.
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Doesn't matter if the purse was filled with gold bars. It's not worth shooting someone.
 
#1. I would not have drew my gun. The purpose of a CCW is for protection, not to play police officer. Nobody knows who you are and you could have been outside where an LE would mistake you for being one of the robbers.

#2. I would have called 911 like you and did my best to give a full description of the suspects.

Sworn LE has a duty to protect the public. Its not the job of a CCW holder to get involved with something like that. Now if an old lady is being beat to a pulp on the street, thats a different story but you have an use of force issue at hand. The gun is not always the option.
 
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