shooting incident in Florida
We may never know exactly what happened in that incident
HOWEVER, what is clear is that George Zimmerman was incorrect from the beginning. In August of this year, I will have been a police firearms instructor for 30 years. We train police officers, who are actually sworn and have the legal right to be armed off duty and make arrests, to do the following when observing some crime or potential crime off duty: OBSERVE AND REPORT. Don't follow anybody. Don't confront anybody UNLESS you are acting directly to protect somebody's personal safety. Get on your cell phone and call the ON DUTY UNIFORMED cops to come and investigate whatever situation you are observing. BE A GOOD WITNESS.
That's what ANYONE should do in a similar situation. That's what George Zimmerman should've done.
Believe me, the on-duty police don't WANT the assistance of some clown who gets in the way and complicates the situation. OBSERVE and REPORT , call the cops and let them do their job.
The police dispatcher told him to back off and let the cops handle it. That was correct. On other forums, some people have made the argument: "well that was a dispatcher. that wasn't a legal order from a police officer." That is immaterial. When somebody who knows more than you do tells you to do something, that's what you should do. Under all circumstances. All the time. In every aspect of your life. Always. That's what smart people do. That's why the smart people have less chaos and drama in their life . . .
It's incidents like this that turn the well meaning but undecided members of the population into anti-gun weirdos.
As a private citizen it is NOT your job to "take care of it myself" or "handle it my own way". The same thing is true for an off duty cop, and in most situations, for an on-duty cop in plainclothes. You don't carry a gun to be James Bond or Dirty Harry. You carry a gun to protect you and yours while you get on the cell phone and call for help from the police, or the fire department, or the ambulance service, or whatever . . .