Two other victims had survived threats from the same perp within twenty minutes of the incident at hand. One would reasonably have expected a similar outcome this time. The armed citizen's intervention might well have precipitated a fatal reaction, perhaps unintentionally.
My problem with this is that if you or I were the man with the 9mm, we would have absolutely no prior knowledge of the suspect’s prior conduct. We’d have our own observations (a woman clerk being held with a knife at her throat, screaming, by someone not in uniform whom we would probably assume with reasonable certainty was a robber) and would have to form a plan of action in about 15 seconds. Prudence would dictate assuming the worst about the perp and his likely level of mercy.
Jeff, who has a law enforcement background, has said that police officers would have waited outside,
I think after Uvalde this proposed course of action, without qualification, is held in contempt by many. I realize the situations are not identical but there are definitely parallels that demonstrate that waiting for reinforcements and more information is not always the guarantor of the best outcome. There are obviously many reasons why waiting outside might be a better idea than charging in. On the other hand, it’s incontrovertible that in some situations quick, decisive action can make all the difference. This is a decision that must be made by the “first responders,” whoever they may be.
The first step in a hostage situation is always discussion and negotiation. Deadly force is always a last resort. Law enforcement techniques involve extremely precise shooting and a spotter who decides "when".
Definitely, but a full blown hostage rescue is not quite the same as a crime in progress.
The armed citizen obviously did not know much about the subject, and he dd not think it through.
He trusted the evidence of his own five senses and his life experience, and he thought it through sufficiently to take decisive action which solved the problem -correctly, as it turns out. It would be another matter entirely if, for example, he entered the store, shot the suspect, who, it turns out, was the clerk’s boyfriend, who was engaging with her in some kind of role playing in the wee hours of the morning at her work. As it turns out, the Good Samaritan thought it was a robber threatening deadly force on another, intervened, felt threatened, and stopped the attack. He was at the very least, incontrovertibly correct that deadly force on another was being threatened.
He and the victim are very lucky.
Very much so. It could have gone badly for her, and for him too. It’s not clear to me however that he had any real choice except to do what he did. His alternative would have been to remain in his vehicle and call the cops, and run the very real risk that they would be responding, minutes later, to a murder. We know after the fact that likely this would not have been the case, but he didn’t have the benefit of that omniscient perspective at the time.
I do feel that this case would be more clear-cut if he had been concealed-carrying rather than being obliged to retrieve his gun from his car.
