Get on the other side of the car. So she's loading groceries. Is he going to steal the groceries? Even if he did it would have cost less than bonding out for aggravated assault.
Things to Not Do
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bdickens
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There's so much testosterone in the air here that I'm choking on it.
I have it on good authority that women do NOT like being approached in the parking lot. How about men get that through their thick skulls and quit doing that? Get your own damn lighter!
I have it on good authority that women do NOT like being approached in the parking lot. How about men get that through their thick skulls and quit doing that? Get your own damn lighter!
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Pudge
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Tough to claim she was so threatened she needed to pull a gun to defend herself, but not so threatened that she needed to call the police.
1nighttrain
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I have to wonder how long ago this event happened?
I can’t remember the last time a stranger walked up to me while on the street or in this situation a parking lot and asked for the time or a light.
I can’t remember the last time a stranger walked up to me while on the street or in this situation a parking lot and asked for the time or a light.
Gordon
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Yeah and ask for the ambulance for the stabbed woman who didn't draw .
entropy
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Classes on non verbal communication are offered in every college that has any sort of Psycology program. LawE was my major, and Psyc was my minor as a freshman in college, so I got a good double dose of it. Being raised by a cop helped, too.
Not everybody has that kind of education or background, however, and her lack of situational awareness put her behind the 8 ball to the point where she apparently believed she was justified in drawing.
I believe putting one hand on the gun and the other out while backing up might have been sufficient, but even though it's not Monday, I am sitting in an armchair.
old lady new shooter
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That was your reply to "What we don’t know is was he wearing a business suit (doubtful) or did he look like he just came out of a biker bar."
I disagree. A guy wearing a bandana and a heavy neck chain, ESPECIALLY IF HE HAS TEARDROP TATTOOS ON HIS FACE (gangbangers put one of these for each person they've killed), rightly instills a LOT more fear in a reasonable person than a guy dressed more normally. Business suit, I don't remember ever seeing a guy in a business suit shopping in a grocery store in the first place, that in itself might make me suspicious. BTW, there is also such a thing as female BG's, don't assume just because the person invading your personal space is a woman that she's not dangerous.
Body language also is important, I agree with your earlier post on that. One time in Cali a guy came up behind me in a grocery store parking lot while I was putting my bags in my trunk and said "Excuse me" and I about jumped out of my skin, mainly because as I have posted before I don't hear well and unfortunately don't hear people coming up behind me... but when I turned around I could see his body language was totally non-threatening, and it turned out he just wanted to know if he could have my now-empty shopping cart. I said sure and that was the end of it. For the record, nowadays, even though where I currently live is WAY safer than where I lived in Cali, I just keep turning my head around all the time to look behind me... I guess it looks weird but better than being surprised by someone NOT harmless. I suppose somebody could find MY behavior suspicious but not gonna worry about that.
old lady new shooter
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She could have put her shopping cart between herself and the potential assailant. A shopping cart not only preserves distance, it can even be used as a makeshift weapon by shoving it into BG if necessary. Corollary: Do NOT carry your bags to the car by hand, you need your hands free in the parking lot. Using the shopping cart therefore has two benefits.
jmorris
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This is an urban myth. There are a lot more teardrops tattooed on faces then there are murder victims. It may have started with a street gang but it’s spread across the entire culture now. Tattoos and dress alone are not reliable indicators of potential threats.
old lady new shooter
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And a red or blue bandanna in an area where the Crips and Bloods are active?
A lot of people wear bandanas and dew rags. Alone they aren’t an indicator of anything. That mode of dress that started with gang bangers has spread throughout our culture.
There are plenty of people who work 5 days a week in three piece suits who dress like outlaw bikers when they get their Harleys out on the weekends.
I know people who have teardrop tattoos for relatives that have passed away. You can’t make a threat assessment solely on appearance.
old lady new shooter
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A person makes a choice about how they present themselves, how they dress is part of that. Ask yourself why an upstanding citizen would want to present him/herself as a gangbanger.
The Night Rider
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Things to Not Do
Post anything on the internet that you wouldn't want to hear read to a jury
old lady new shooter
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@Jeff White said:
My response:
I think maybe the difference in our views is at least partly attributable to the environments in which we have lived.
Quote from the Ayoob article recommended upthread:
And one paragraph later:
A lot of people wear bandanas and dew rags. Alone they aren’t an indicator of anything. That mode of dress that started with gang bangers has spread throughout our culture.
My response:
I think maybe the difference in our views is at least partly attributable to the environments in which we have lived.
Quote from the Ayoob article recommended upthread:
In some neighborhoods in Los Angeles, wearing red means you’re with the Bloods, and wearing blue means you’re with the Crips, and innocent people have found themselves dead or horribly injured for unknowingly wearing the wrong color in the wrong place.
And one paragraph later:
Teardrops tattooed on the face mean one to five years per teardrop of hard time served in prison, for example, depending on the given subculture and locale. The tattoo “AFFA” stands for “Angels Forever, Forever Angels,” and marks either a genuine member or a wannabe member of the quintessential outlaw motorcycle club, Hell’s Angels. A patchwhether motorcycle club patch, or police department shoulder patchworn upside-down on a biker’s vest signifies in the outlaw subculture that the wearer has taken it from a legitimate owner he has vanquished in combat. These things are good to know if you end up fighting someone who is “wearing the sign.”
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Upstanding citizens present themselves as all kinds of things. There are all kinds of fads and modes of dress these days. Just go out and see what people wear. If you don’t want to get out in public just do an online search for “people of Walmart”. My wife is a manager in a supermarket and you should hear some of her stories about how people dress to do their shopping.
Most people don’t live in those neighborhoods. You can’t take a thing that happens in a single inner city and think it’s true nationwide. That’s simply ridiculous.
Rap music and hip hop is popular with young people across all ethnicities in the U.S. a lot of the fans adopt that mode of dress just like rock and rollers affected dress in earlier generations.
Again, this is true only among very small subcultures. It was written before tattoos of all kinds became prevalent in mainstream culture. The number of hardcorps members of the street gangs that those tattoos have that meaning is pretty small. As I said earlier, I know people who have teardrop tattoos to commentate lost loved ones or other personal tragedies. 1%er bikers are also a small minority of all bikers.
Skulls and other death symbols are also popular tattoo art.
You’d be very embarrassed if you drew down on someone with a tear drop tattoo and then found out the teardrop tattoo was to honor a child that passed away.
You take action against someone whose appearance fits your preconceived notion of a gangbanger or outlaw biker at your peril.
Absent any other indicator that an attack is imminent drawing will likely get you charged criminally.
old lady new shooter
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The Bloods and Crips are pretty much all over Los Angeles County, which is where I used to live. I vaguely remember seeing they spread to other cities, but I was speaking of my personal experience.
I never said appearance should be relied upon in the absence of any other indicator. I think what I wrote was clear that appearance can be AN indicator. To me it would be an indication to be extra alert. The way the interaction would go would determine my responses. Having lived for many years in a high-crime area where carry permits weren't given, I learned to deal with situations in ways other than drawing a gun.
Here are two experiences I had. In neither of them was the person dressed in a way that set off any alarm bells, my responses were purely based on their respective behavior.
A harmless interaction: I think this was before cellphones. On the street, at night, I was walking with another woman to my car after leaving a restaurant. A young man came up to us and speaking in Spanish (without asking if we spoke the language) he started asking us for directions. I explained to him that where he wanted to go was way too far to walk, he should go to a bus stop on this side of the street (since such a bus would be at least going in the right direction) and ask the bus driver how to get there by bus. He thanked me and walked away in the direction indicated. I never even got nervous because neither his body language nor his tone of voice were threatening.
A possibly not-harmless interaction: Note: I always lock my car when gassing it and when I used to go to regular gas stations (as opposed to Costco) I would take care to be at the front of a pumping area (something I learned here BTW). I was in a gas station and was cleaning my windows after having gassed up. A (white) guy drives up in a truck and asks (in a tone that was more like telling than asking) if I can move my car so he can gas up. I said I was sorry, I wasn't finished. He starts telling me he's in a hurry, he has to gas up right now, which I ignored. I wasn't buying this because there were other pumps that were open. It was one of those gas stations where you have to pay at the office, when I went to pay I kept my eyes on him the whole time there and back and when I got back to my car and unlocked the door he started running in my direction. I never got in my car so fast in my life, immediately locked the door and sped away without even putting on my seat belt.
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So no one in all of LA County ever wears red or blue except the bloods and crips? I’m several years removed from current gang training but I find that pretty far fetched.
The last time I saw a Cardinals/Dodgers game on TV there was plenty of Dodger blue and Cardinals red in the stands. How is that possible? Do the fans have to affiliate with one of the gangs? Of course not.
old lady new shooter
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They usually indicate their affiliation with a red or blue bandanna, as opposed to a jacket or whatever. And they would be wearing other items of clothing like heavy neck chains.
Millions of people wear red or blue bandanas and gold chains, THEY ARE NOT ALL BLOODS OR CRIPS.
That wasn’t even true in the 1990s when gang activity was at its peak. “I knew the man who approached me in the supermarket parking lot was a dangerous member of the Bloods street gang because he was wearing a red bandana and a gold chain so I drew my weapon” isn’t going to be much of a defense. You can try it if you want but I doubt it will exonerate you.
old lady new shooter
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You're still implying that I would use dress as a reason to draw a gun, after I clearly explained that I consider appearance AN indicator, not a SOLE indicator.
Here's what I wrote (https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/things-to-not-do.929438/post-12875633):
I never said appearance should be relied upon in the absence of any other indicator. I think what I wrote was clear that appearance can be AN indicator. To me it would be an indication to be extra alert. The way the interaction would go would determine my responses. Having lived for many years in a high-crime area where carry permits weren't given, I learned to deal with situations in ways other than drawing a gun.
I then described two experiences I had where appearance was not a factor at all. One harmless, the other possibly not harmless.
I have three friends who are bikers. The duck, the dog, and the spider. The spider used to be the squirrel until he found out everybody called him the squirrel because he was squirrely. Not for... whatever reason he thought "Squirrel" was a cool nickname. His feelings were really hurt, so they let him pick out his own nickname, and he was "Spider".
They just like dressing up like Marlon Brando and riding their Harley Davidson motorcycles.
I think it's a waste of time to try to differentiate what organization someone belongs to whether it's a biker gang, street gang, football team or whatever. I can see clothing or appearance being a factor if it's a guy with a ski mask on a hot day. Or a hood pulled over his face like Kenny on South Park and it's 90 degrees out. Or a rain coat on a hot sunny day. Someone concealing his identity or a weapon might be suspicious.
They just like dressing up like Marlon Brando and riding their Harley Davidson motorcycles.
I think it's a waste of time to try to differentiate what organization someone belongs to whether it's a biker gang, street gang, football team or whatever. I can see clothing or appearance being a factor if it's a guy with a ski mask on a hot day. Or a hood pulled over his face like Kenny on South Park and it's 90 degrees out. Or a rain coat on a hot sunny day. Someone concealing his identity or a weapon might be suspicious.
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2015.
The evidence showed that she was not in danger.
That, too, its irrelevant.
Right--and a series of posts about how appearance would matter could go to mens rea, and weaken a legal defense of self defense.
Proves the point, doesn't it?
Resist Evil
Member
All I've got to say is that two guys approached me at 6:15pm in the parking lot of my employer's business, one of whom began asking me for the time. Next thing I knew, I was abducted at gun point. The event fundamentally affected my life. And it all turned out to be a practical joke. Yeah, good times. In the five decades since, I've been very wary and untrusting in public surroundings. From my point of view, the woman's reaction in her parking experience was appropriate.
