BOOGIE the oily
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Nope, he didn't. There's a difference between having a gun in your hand, and shooting a gun.
Video of thwarted ATM mugging -- your tactical thoughts?
- Thread starter OhioGuy
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Nope, he didn't. There's a difference between having a gun in your hand, and shooting a gun.
The problem with that reasoning is that there is only a fraction of a second of difference between the two. You will never have the time to react to the movement of a trigger finger, but you might have time to react to the appearance of a handgun. Someone who has introduced a handgun into a confrontation cannot be trusted not to shoot. If you are going to act at all, you can't wait any longer.
I think BOOGIE makes a very good point above, and it's what still bothers me about this video, although all other points are valid too...
Had anything gone wrong in his well-executed maneuver here, a bystander could have been shot easily. He could have missed the bad buy and had a stray round ricochet off the floor. The bad guy could have fired unintentionally as he fell from being hit. He could have not gone down so easily and dumped his magazine in the general direction of the good guy and hit Lord-knows-how-many people. My guess is that a robber hopes to escape with whatever he stole, and isn't looking for a gunfight. Opening fire on him definitely risked escalating the situation.
Of course, it's all speculation because all we have is this video in which everything went right. And we'll never know how many people could have been killed anyway, had good guy just run away when he had the chance...robbers just kill people sometimes. Maybe there was an accomplice or two, who fled when they heard the gunfire, and nobody will ever know what their intentions could have been.
As LE, he has the duty to protect the citizens there. I guess he made the call that this was the best way to protect the greatest number of them. An armed citizen has no such duty (in a legal sense), and the cost to the citizen of something going wrong is likely far higher, because he'd be acting beyond what he's required and expected to do.
I dunno...but I have to say, if something like this happened in my town and I were the armed good guy...given the crowds and total uncertainty about how many accomplices could be outside my field of view, I'd probably have escaped or at least gone to a place of cover while calling the cops. There are SO MANY ways for something to have gone wrong.
Or what if I were the bystander who'd just been hit in the chest by a stray round? Would I feel better knowing an armed citizen had stopped a robber who may never have been a threat to me?
Had anything gone wrong in his well-executed maneuver here, a bystander could have been shot easily. He could have missed the bad buy and had a stray round ricochet off the floor. The bad guy could have fired unintentionally as he fell from being hit. He could have not gone down so easily and dumped his magazine in the general direction of the good guy and hit Lord-knows-how-many people. My guess is that a robber hopes to escape with whatever he stole, and isn't looking for a gunfight. Opening fire on him definitely risked escalating the situation.
Of course, it's all speculation because all we have is this video in which everything went right. And we'll never know how many people could have been killed anyway, had good guy just run away when he had the chance...robbers just kill people sometimes. Maybe there was an accomplice or two, who fled when they heard the gunfire, and nobody will ever know what their intentions could have been.
As LE, he has the duty to protect the citizens there. I guess he made the call that this was the best way to protect the greatest number of them. An armed citizen has no such duty (in a legal sense), and the cost to the citizen of something going wrong is likely far higher, because he'd be acting beyond what he's required and expected to do.
I dunno...but I have to say, if something like this happened in my town and I were the armed good guy...given the crowds and total uncertainty about how many accomplices could be outside my field of view, I'd probably have escaped or at least gone to a place of cover while calling the cops. There are SO MANY ways for something to have gone wrong.
Or what if I were the bystander who'd just been hit in the chest by a stray round? Would I feel better knowing an armed citizen had stopped a robber who may never have been a threat to me?
BOOGIE the oily
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OhioGuy said:
To be honest, what bothers me about this video is... everything. It seems like an exercise in stupidity, on both parts.
First, the robber, goes on to mug a guy inside an ATM when everybody knows they're full of security cameras everywhere. Now, I've never been to Venezuela, but, for what can be seen in the video, that ATM could easily be in Buenos Aires, and that is NOT how a bank mugging is done. A guy gets in the bank/ATM and marks people leaving with a lot of money, and guys OUTSIDE do the mugging.
Then, the robber goes to rob inside a room full of people WITH NO BACKUP? Seriously?
And finally, when the "victim" drops the cash, he forgets he's in a room full of potential threats, and, instead of making his "victim" pick it up, he bends over to pick up the stuff?
And then, the "cop" (if he indeed is one):
He's in a room full of strangers, yet until the robber is able to get right next to him and grab him, he's completely oblivious to what's going on around him. Talk about "situational awareness".
Then, once the BG bent over to pick up his cash, he could have ended the whole deal with a whack to the back of his head (with or without his pistol). No shots fired, end of story.
Or if, as the situation did call for (because the robber could've had an accomplice), he needed to kill the guy, he could've done it right from where he stood (instead of doing that dance around the woman, that would've been a loud wake up call for the potential accomplice), again with a bullet to the back of his head, or to his spine. At that range, a .22 would've been enough. And he wouldn't have put the woman at risk.
To be honest, the more I watch that video, the more it looks like a very badly scripted training vid to me...
FireForged
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Perhaps you feel that the presentation of a firearm during the commission of a forcible felony doesn't warrant a deadly force response but I suspect that a good many people would disagree. Clearly this guy disagrees.
You may also see no threat of this offender continuing to commit a forcible felony against others in the same venue but again, I think many would disagree.
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FireForged
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Please.... he was as good as gone when he turned to engage him. He likely would have engaed the badguy no matter what. I have no problem with his response but at the same time I wont pretend that it would not have been "easier" to just keep on truckin. I think the goodguy did the right thing but he also chose to put himself in significant danger in the process. More danger than if he would have fled.
BOOGIE the oily
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FireForged said:
No, I don't.
What I do feel is that the killing of a felon, however warranted it may be, does not justify putting innocent people at risk.
This guy got lucky, but the outcome here could've been very different, and if it was, it would've been his fault.
whats "easier" is not the same as whats safer, you didn't answer my question. Many bad guys have turned and shot their victims after they have given them what they wanted. As long as the bad guy still has his gun drawn in the commission of a forcible felony he is the one putting innocent people at risk, regardless of the outcome.
FireForged
New member
You are seemingly clinging to fringe possibilities which may favor your argument but are not supported by any statistics , evidence or value mentioned in this thread thus far. There is always a fair amount of conjecture in these discussions but I tend to not celebrate it to the degree that some do. If you can support your point with reasonable probabilities rather than possibilities, I will be glad to debate it further, otherwise I would consider it fruitless.
So I know we have both active and retired LE on this forum. Can anyone comment on what an officer in this scenario would have been trained to do in the US? Or would've been expected to do? Whether a plainclothes officer being robbed or maybe simply being nearby when it went down? When do you pop the mugger to ensure he won't shoot anyone, vs do everything possible to get him away from bystanders, etc?
Perhaps not legally responsible, but in some sense one could argue he would've still been ethically at fault.
Counterbalanced by the case that, had he not acted and the robber killed someone else, he may have been somehow ethically at fault also.
BOOGIE the oily
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FITASC said:
Could you please elaborate?
venezuela is one of the worlds most violent places, the murder rate is phenomenal, it is possible that he prevented a killing. he was probably well within his responsibilities as an leo. the venezualan constitution is a joke, it is run by a dictator, and it's just as likely that the guy was part of a gang and there would have been a killing in the process; note the way he dropped the guy and then scanned the crowd for other criminals. He fired directly into the perp and had chosen his background well.
legally this guy was probably on solid ground, he was ethically on solid ground as well, and given the situation in his country, he acted in what may have been a situation that would have ended in death. it's possible if not probable that the guy had killed before.
Think about the war in mexico, and then think about the war in chicago, which is even worse. venezuela tops them both, and in mexico they cut innocent people's heads off and throw firebombs into casinos.
this isn't omaha or seattle, this is a literal war zone of crime.
legally this guy was probably on solid ground, he was ethically on solid ground as well, and given the situation in his country, he acted in what may have been a situation that would have ended in death. it's possible if not probable that the guy had killed before.
Think about the war in mexico, and then think about the war in chicago, which is even worse. venezuela tops them both, and in mexico they cut innocent people's heads off and throw firebombs into casinos.
this isn't omaha or seattle, this is a literal war zone of crime.
BOOGIE the oily
New member
Ok, first, here's some extra data:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3325775/The-sickening-moment-thief-shot-dead-point-blank-range-undercover-police-officer-tried-rob-Venezuelan-bank.html
So, yeah, the robbery took place in the Los Jarales shopping mall, in San Diego, Venezuela. The shooter was William Ferreire, an undercover cop. And there was an accomplice outside, in a motorcycle.
Now, briandg, I'm gonna reply to some of your comments. I apologize to everybody for derailing this thread, but somebody may take issue with briandg's comments (just as I did), so I feel this must be done.
Venezuela is NOT one of the world's most violent places. In fact, the only Latin American countries among the world's 20 most dangerous places are Colombia and Mexico.
http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-countries-in-the-world.html
Caracas is Venezuela's (and the world's) most dangerous city, followed very closely by Acapulco (Mexico) and San Pedro Sula (Honduras), However, this robbery was in the city of San Diego, 122 km (76 miles) away.
http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-world.html
As a country, Venezuela's murder rate is 57.15 murders per every 100000 people, which makes it LESS DANGEROUS than St. Louis, Mo (60.37), and just a bit more dangerous than Baltimore, Md (51.14).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country
About the Venezuelan Constitution, I'm not a constitutionalist, so I'm not qualified to decide whether it's good or bad, but it's been ratified by popular referendum, which is much more than can be said for many others, including the Argentinian and American ones.
About the LEO, his primary responsibility is to protect the innocent, and he failed miserably at that. And the law doesn't take "possibility" into account, only "proof" matters.
And finally, Venezuela is not worse than Mexico (take a look at the second link), and Mexico is not at war. NORTHERN Mexico is being controlled by a gang of narco-terrorists. But I have a cousin living in Veracruz, and she has told me repeatedly that central and southern Mexico are as peaceful as it gets.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3325775/The-sickening-moment-thief-shot-dead-point-blank-range-undercover-police-officer-tried-rob-Venezuelan-bank.html
So, yeah, the robbery took place in the Los Jarales shopping mall, in San Diego, Venezuela. The shooter was William Ferreire, an undercover cop. And there was an accomplice outside, in a motorcycle.
Now, briandg, I'm gonna reply to some of your comments. I apologize to everybody for derailing this thread, but somebody may take issue with briandg's comments (just as I did), so I feel this must be done.
Venezuela is NOT one of the world's most violent places. In fact, the only Latin American countries among the world's 20 most dangerous places are Colombia and Mexico.
http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-countries-in-the-world.html
Caracas is Venezuela's (and the world's) most dangerous city, followed very closely by Acapulco (Mexico) and San Pedro Sula (Honduras), However, this robbery was in the city of San Diego, 122 km (76 miles) away.
http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-world.html
As a country, Venezuela's murder rate is 57.15 murders per every 100000 people, which makes it LESS DANGEROUS than St. Louis, Mo (60.37), and just a bit more dangerous than Baltimore, Md (51.14).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country
About the Venezuelan Constitution, I'm not a constitutionalist, so I'm not qualified to decide whether it's good or bad, but it's been ratified by popular referendum, which is much more than can be said for many others, including the Argentinian and American ones.
About the LEO, his primary responsibility is to protect the innocent, and he failed miserably at that. And the law doesn't take "possibility" into account, only "proof" matters.
And finally, Venezuela is not worse than Mexico (take a look at the second link), and Mexico is not at war. NORTHERN Mexico is being controlled by a gang of narco-terrorists. But I have a cousin living in Veracruz, and she has told me repeatedly that central and southern Mexico are as peaceful as it gets.
Comparing the overall murder rate for an entire country to the murder rate of an urban area doesn't provide an accurate picture. For example, although there are urban areas in the U.S. with high murder rates, overall, the national murder rate in the U.S. is 4.88, almost 12 times lower than that of Venezuela.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Venezuela's national murder rate of 57.15 murders per 100K, gives it the dubious standing of having the third highest murder rate in the world, topped only by Honduras (63.75 murders per 100K) and El Salvador (108.64 murders per 100K).
If we use murder rate as the criterion for violent places then Venezuela is one of the three most violent places in the world.
Country-----Intentional homicides per 100K
El Salvador-----108.64
Honduras -----63.75
Venezuela-----57.15
This source places Venezuela's national murder rate as second in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela
Looking at the murder rate by city, Venezuela tops the list with Caracas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate
BOOGIE the oily
New member
Absolutely.
I didn't compare it to give an accurate country-by-country picture, I did it to make it understandable that Venezuela is not some apocalyptic hell-hole, but it's actually not more violent (in average) than some cities in the US.
Which clearly shows that's not the right criteria to be used.
Let me put it in perspective:
Like I said, Caracas is the most violent city in the world. Now, contrarily to the US, where population is spread more evenly, Venezuela has 31 milion people (give or take), while Caracas (the whole metropolitan area) has over 5 million. That means about 1/6 of Venezuela's population lives in the "most dangerous city in the world", so when you're saying "Venezuela's murder rate", that number is highly influenced by Caracas' murder rate. Same happens in Colombia (for what I've been told), and in Argentina (and I can testify for it). So that murder rate is not really representative of what life is like, in most of the country.
Right, that's true of pretty much all decent sized countries. The urban areas, which are also large population centers, tend to have much higher crime than the more rural areas with lower population densities.
However, I'm a little skeptical about the idea that Caracas is the sole reason for Venezuela's high overall murder rate given that it's not just Caracas that has a high murder rate. In fact, 4 out of the top 10 most violent cities in the world and 7 out of the top 50, are in Venezuela.
It makes perfect sense that the urban areas have more violent crime, but the idea that there's just one urban area in Venezuela that's giving the wrong picture overall doesn't seem to match with the facts.