What would you do??

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Chadk

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Something is bothering me I saw on TV yesterday. After a long weekend and Monday night I decided to take the day off yesterday, sleep in, work on my pool game and watch a little tv and relax.
One of my favorite types of shows is the “Caught on Tape”, Cop’s, or “Most Dangerous, or Shocking” types. Yesterday was one of the Most dangerous caught on tape types showing the chases, or robberies, ect. Often while watching these situations, I have to ask myself, “what would I do?” Especially if I were carrying my CCW.

Ok, so here’s the situation……… It’s a small pizza (think pizza hut lobby or smaller) restaurant with the video camera focused on the very small lobby area. There are probably two lines of people waiting with 4-5 people in each line. The lobby is full for the most part. A large lady walks in and walks to the front of the first line, skipping everyone, waiting to be helped. A man behind her is on his cell phone, and is overheard by the lady talking about her cutting in front of the line. The lady gets irate on the man, cussing him out and even poking him in the face with her finger. Manager tells her ro leave. Woman switches attention to manager and winds up spitting in his face.
The man never makes any kind of reaction towards her and basically ignores. Woman stickers her head out the door and yells to boyfriend. Boyfriend comes in and is a 350lb convicted X felon on drug charges. After Boyfriend finds out who she’s really mad at and out of the blue swings a tree trunk at the mans face and of course he goes down. It doesn’t stop there. Thug continues to pick the guy up and fire again and again into the mans face. Man winds up with concussion, broken eye socket and looked really messed up. The entire waiting room never moved a muscle. There were I would guess at least 5-7 men including staff at least. A few other women. No one lifted a finger….


This was not the only situation that makes me wonder “what would you do”, but this one stuck with me more than any yesterday and today.


What would you do…………
 
Drawn my weapon. Told him to stop. Put him down if he didn't.


This is assuming the situation went down as I am picturing in my mind.
 
that seems to be the simpilest answer i can come up with in my mind, but I wonder about the legalaties of this course of action. Also because of the size of the person and the small area it would have taken multiple shots to get this person down before he could charge me and take the gun away.

I also didnt see why every man in there just didnt jump on the guy at the same time. Strength in numbers.
instead, no one did anything. What would they have done if they guy would have died and they stood there and did nothing.
 
Here's why I answered the way I did:

I have always stood by the belief that engaging physically with an aggressor (by choice) is a supremely bad and irresponsible idea. Far too much chance of losing the weapon in the ensuing fight. Therefore, I feel I have two choices, stand by or engage. I don't know if I could stand by and watch someone beat a man to death or to the point of needing reconstructive surgery....
 
People doing nothing to help is nothing new... see the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

As to your scenario, I would first need to know who I am? Am I the victim or a bystander?

As for the victim, the first thing is not to become one. As this situation illustrates, there are people out there who will kill you for nothing. What we should glean from that is to keep our mouths shut, our hands off the car horn, our middle fingers in-line with the rest of them and our sneers to ourselves.

If you end up getting pummeled like this, your only real remaining hope is to be able to draw and fire from a retention position. Specifics are impossible, depends on what you know of hand-to-hand, how badly you're hurt by the surprise attack... whatever.

If you're a bystander, well, there are lots of options here too. Depends on what you saw, what you know, what you're carrying, who's in the way... too many variables. We could all come up with a reasonable answer that fits our assumptions but sounds completely unreasonable to people reading it because they're not sharing our assumptions.
 
People doing nothing to help is nothing new
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This is true, and it brings me to another observation: lack of response is often due to shock factor rather than cowardice or unwillingness to help. It's happened to me before, nothing that severe, and I thought later, why didn't I do it this way? And I've had the exact opposite happen, where my my reaction was instant and correct. Hard to know how you'll react without being there, only what you think you would do.
 
i was thinking as if I were a bystander for the most part. There were 8 or so customers in the area. All would have seen every word and move made as the space was small and they were being very loud. Obviously with drawing a weapon, bystanders would certainly be a concern, including the victom. certainly not an easy question to answer i realize. Even if you had seen the tape as I did, it's still a tough question. But one of those situations you certainly could be faced with in todays world. Whatever I did. I very much hope that i would not have been one of the people who just stood there and did nothing.

Watching this show and others like it make you realize there are situations around the country every day that would make you asker yourself the same question.


Another situation I wonder about often is if I am a witness to an armed robery in a store of some type and you had the opportuity to draw and fire basically without being noticed. Do you do this or try to diffuse the situation.
 
I'm moving this to the Tactics and Training forum. Most all of these issues have been addressed at length over the years. Nothing necessarily wrong with discussing them again, but there's only so many suggestions out there, as I say, all assumption based so different from one person to the next. You should spend some time browsing other threads in that forum.
 
Both very tough questions.

The beating I would have probably have had to try to stop as I picture it if I could have done so without getting anyone else hurt.

The armed robbery is different. If the robber shoots, I may draw if possible. If he is just brandishing to scare I would probably let him go and take the money. Depends on the situation.We can speculate all we want, but you can't really know until it happens. Even then, did you do the right thing?
 
I have rule that I've never tested. It says don't use your gun to defend anyone but yourself, your family or your friends. I'm not a cop. I'm not paid or trained to defend the public in general.

I would also be reluctant to use a gun when the other guy doesn't have one. That's because I know someone who tried to defend a woman, managed to divert attention to himself and was beaten badly enough that it was tough to recgonize his face as something human. During this last beating, he drew a gun and shot the guy in the foot. He was charged, tried and acquitted for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon (or something like that). He lost a civil suit for damages. Two or three jurors were asked why and they said he had a gun and the other guy didn't.

Another rule I have - also untested - is don't get involved in a physical altercation if you are armed. It risks getting to the point where you may have to use the weapon just to prevent yourself from losing it.

So being armed makes me timid to some extent. If I wasn't armed in this situation, I'd probably wade in. Not with the idea of winning (I'm only 5' 9" and about 175 pounds) but with inspiring the rest of the crowd to intervene.
 
I'm surprised that call 911 hasn't come up yet.

I also didnt see why every man in there just didnt jump on the guy at the same time. Strength in numbers.
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The situation is probably evaluated by the individual at the time in terms of me vs him, not us vs him. I would not jump in just hoping others would follow suit.

Given the basic description of the space and amount of people, it would be difficult to state a course of action beyond calling 911.
 
There's a well studied area of psychology around the "bystander effect" and diffusion of responsibility. Broadly speaking, each bystander might have looked to the others around him to step in (of course resulting in no one stepping in).

If I wasn't armed in this situation, I'd probably wade in. Not with the idea of winning (I'm only 5' 9" and about 175 pounds) but with inspiring the rest of the crowd to intervene.
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This has been shown to be effective, but not foolproof. And it's certainly personally risky.
 
Drawn my weapon. Told him to stop. Put him down if he didn't.


This is assuming the situation went down as I am picturing in my mind.
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This would likely be my answer as well.

but I wonder about the legalities of this course of action
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Depends on your state law - stopping a felony in progress and preventing grievous injury or death of another is covered under mine.

ORC 2903.11 Felonious assault.
(A) No person shall knowingly do either of the following:

(1) Cause serious physical harm to another
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Being beaten by a 6x6 thug sure sounds like felonious assault to me
 
Stressfire do you have a cite for the ORC regarding the use of deadly force in general and in protection of another?

Fists alone are often a grey area when it comes to using deadly force.
 
Almost all state laws (I'd be surprised if it WASN'T all) either directly or indirectly allow for use of force to protect another, including deadly force when necessary. This situation seems cut and dry, as described. It's clearly an unjustified assault that will obviously result in grievous harm or death. I know of no place in the US that intervening with extreme force would be prosecuted. Maybe some jurisdiction somewhere, but not on any large scale.
 
Almost all state laws (I'd be surprised if it WASN'T all) either directly or indirectly allow for use of force to protect another, including deadly force when necessary. This situation seems cut and dry, as described. It's clearly an unjustified assault that will obviously result in grievous harm or death. I know of no place in the US that intervening with extreme force would be prosecuted. Maybe some jurisdiction somewhere, but not on any large scale.


I sure hope your right.
 
From the description given, this appears to be the incident in question:
CLICK HERE

There appeared to be an extreme disparity of force in operation. I'll bet it could be reasonably argued that one punch doesn't amount to threat to life or grievous injury, but picking up a man who is already down and continuing to beat him in the head certainly carries a risk of death or permanent injury.

My response starts with shouting "STOP!". I am gifted with a good set of pipes augmented by theater training, and this results in something the wife refers to as "the VOICE". No brag, just fact ... it has stopped people in their tracks on more than one occasion. Even if I didn't have that going for me, I'd probably scream like a banshee.

I don't know about anyone else's circumstances, but "the VOICE" will absolutely get the BGs attention. If he stops, he stops. That would be a happy ending as far as I am concerned. God please let it go no further. My hand is on the gun at this point, but it isn't drawn.

If he continues the beat-down, the gun comes out and he gets ONE warning shout. That was warning shout, not warning shot. It will be something like "STOP OR I WILL SHOOT YOUR ASS!!!"

If I perceive that the victim is at risk of death or a hospital stay ... 350lb guy gets as many as it takes.
 
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I'm just curious as to what the OH law says. When he stated the situation was covered under OH law he cited the definition of felonious assault not the portion that covers use of deadly force. I don't doubt that the OH(or other states) law allows for use of force, I'd still like to know how it's written.
 
Stressfire do you have a cite for the ORC regarding the use of deadly force in general and in protection of another?
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Sure, sig:

Can't really find ORC at the moment except:
2901.05
(B)(1) Subject to division (B)(2) of this section, a person is presumed to have acted in self defense or defense of another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if the person against whom the defensive force is used is in the process of unlawfully and without privilege to do so entering, or has unlawfully and without privilege to do so entered, the residence or vehicle occupied by the person using the defensive force.
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Though, that one seems more geared towards a home invasion scenario.

Ohio Concealed Carry Manual lays it out a bit more clearly, but without citation:

pg 22 said:
A person may defend another only if the protected person would have had the right to use deadly force in self-defense himself. Under Ohio law, a person may defend family members, friends, or strangers. However, just asif he were protecting himself, a person cannot use any more force than isreasonable and necessary to prevent the harm threatened.
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