Legalities of defense of self or third party during a demonstration

daniel craig said:

would that be a legitimate cause for use of a firearm in defense of yourself or a third party?

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Threat of death or serious bodily injury (and you could still go to prison).

BTW, take an advanced vehicle class to see how shooting at cars is not the easiest thing. I could lay out different scenarios, directions of fire, determining motivation of the driver, shooting when they are leaving, etc. It would be really fantasy without a very specific forsenic analysis of the incident. Getting out of the way and then being a good witness is probably the best advice.

Lots of different variables in play in a situation like this that go even beyond the difficulty of the “standard” defense of a third party questions. I’ll also say up front that I’m not a lawyer and I don’t have all the answers, but some things to think about...

Were the protestors part of a legal, permitted rally? Or were they illegally blocking the street? Not saying either necessarily justifies a car hitting them, but there is a significant difference between a car that knowingly accessed a closed street or drives into a park to hit people versus a guy who was driving home from dinner with his family who gets trapped by a mob of people roaming the interstate.

What were the actions of the protestors at the time? Were they standing in a line saying “none shall pass” but were otherwise maintaining distance from the vehicles? Or were they walking amongst the vehicles? Were they attacking vehicles? Were the protestors pointing guns at vehicles? Did they have Molotov Cocktails and threaten to burn the vehicles and those inside?

The point is, there’s a LOT of stuff that could have happened that you, either in relation to defending yourself or as a defender of a third party, may not know. And it directly affects the driver’s justification for use of force, and may also affect your justification of use of force.

On defending a third party, if someone decides to intervene between two parties with lethal force, you really need to have a good understanding of the entirety of the situation and choose the right side to intervene against. And remember that just because someone is wining the fight at the moment doesn’t mean that they weren’t the victim who was attacked first.

Now, looking more to the practical side:

While the incident prompting the driver to accelerate and drive through the crowd could have happened a few blocks away (and possibly out of sight of the person defending themselves or a third party), there have been several videos over the last few months showing what happens when a driver goes through a “protest”, stops, and then the “protestors” catch up with them. In the few that I’ve seen, the driver usually ends up in the hospital with severe injuries. Once a driver reaches the threshold of “I’m being attacked and the only way to save myself is to drive through a group of people”, don’t expect them to stop until they’re well away from the WHOLE crowd.

Another couple of things to ponder. A few months ago, I believe there was an incident on an interstate where a Jeep was driving through a protest (maybe after being attacked, maybe not, I can’t recall). Someone in the crowd decided to take a few shots at the Jeep as it was passing. He missed the Jeep and hit other demonstrators down range. I think that’s an outcome we’d all like to avoid.

Second, if by shooting the car your goal is to stop the vehicle, make sure you have a plan for what happens AFTER the vehicle stops. If it’s one guy and you hit him, he may be incapacitated or he may be wounded but active. He’s not gonna be happy and you have fixed him in position and taken away his best (and maybe only) option of escape. If he’s armed, his last option is shooting his way out. You just forced him into that situation AND became the highest priority target on his list.

Another thing to worry about - and I’ll admit this is a bit extreme, but the way things are going, it’s worthy of thought. We’ve seen pics and vids of guys in body armor with rifles (I hesitate to call them “militias”) but what if those guys are actually squared away and understand team tactics? You just disabled their vehicle. The standard reaction to “CONTACT, VEHICLE DISABLED” involves LOTS of rifle fire, all headed your way.

So I guess in summary, this is a very difficult and complicated topic, that just gets more complicated as the variables increase. The best option is not to get involved, but if you do decide to fire...

• Know the entire situation and whether or not the use of force is justified
• If you do decide to fire, know who/what is down range of your target
• If you succeed in disabling the driver or vehicle, be prepared for round 2

OK, to shoot the driver you l likely would have to be in front of the car. You can shoot through the windshield but it is not easy. You probably will get run over. Shooting from side with an handgun would be an extremely difficult shot. If the car was leaving, that is a total mess to justify.

Car classes are fun and sobering. Got a better idea, stay home. I support the right to assemble, etc. I've marched during Viet Nam days. Nowadays, we don't need it.

Speaking of auto glass, Gold Dots penetrate better after glass than HST.
https://le.vistaoutdoor.com/wound_ballistics/load_comparison/load_comparison.aspx
If one wanted 12'' of penetration after glass, heavy for caliber 147 9mm / 180 40S&W / 230 45 acp Gold Dot in gun.

Wow. What a scenario. Depends first if your state is a "stand your ground" state or if your state is a "duty to retreat" state, I would think. And regardless, from a practical point of view, if there was room and opportunity to get out of the way, the jury is going to wonder why you didn't just do that.

Instead of asking "can I shoot?" why not ask "must I shoot?"

From SC

Some of the things we were told to consider in CWP class were legal cases, and how some of the law was written. Two of the "don't shoot"guidelines were:
Is the third party you are defending in a place they have a reasonable right to be? Standing on a public roadway could be one of the places they could argue that you did not have a reasonable right to be. Especially if there was a sidewalk.
Did the third party encourage the violence. The cases we discussed were mostly when the third party started a fight, then it escalated to possibly lethal consequences Otherwise, if you see a guy punch a biker at a bar, and the biker pulls a knife.... Walk away. Getting in front of a moving vehicle while yelling threats and beating on it might be considered encouraging violence.

Edited to remove unverifiable legal references.

From Florida law on use of deadly force

(2) A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.

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http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0776/0776.html

Stay home and/or if you see a demonstration, figure out how to get away from it. McCloskey and wife are indicted by the Grand Jury. They could have stayed inside and let the crowd pass by. Kyle - what were you and your Momma thinking?

GEM said:

Stay home and/or if you see a demonstration, figure out how to get away from it. McCloskey and wife are indicted by the Grand Jury. They could have stayed inside and let the crowd pass by. Kyle - what were you and your Momma thinking?

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Ab-so-by-God-lutely. I feel so bad for that kid; my son is a year older. This kid is going to spend his entire life in prison now, and for what?

In regards to the McCloskeys...I dunno. I agree that they could have and should have stayed inside their home-that is what I would have done. However, they should have the right to do what they did on their own property.

GEM said:

Stay home and/or if you see a demonstration, figure out how to get away from it. McCloskey and wife are indicted by the Grand Jury. They could have stayed inside and let the crowd pass by.

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Except in their case the crowd wasn't passing by, it invaded their property and threatened it and their lives ... where could they have gone? If they hid in their basement and the crowd set fire to their house, as they threatened to do, they would be dead. Second-guessing and hindsight aren't too helpful to them at the moment the crowd broke through their gate. Were they already outside holding their weapons at that point? I don't know. That may be material. If they incited the crowd to break in, that's a different story. (And material to the thread topic).

Not what happened but let's not replay their incident again.

McCloskeys got a lesson in using cover and concealment. Had they stayed concealed in their home they'd not be in trouble now.

Not trying to replay the incident, but I think the question I asked is relevant to the topic, and I'll try to explain. Wisconsin is a "state your ground" state. But regardless of the legality of standing one's ground, if I'm threatened and I have an opportunity to retreat, that's what I'm going to do. Because what it's going to boil down to is whether or not the person in danger had an opportunity to retreat and/or to de-escalate and that's what a jury is going to believe a "reasonable" person should have done.

If a person stands their ground when they have a opportunity to retreat it may even be seen as a challenge egging on their attacker, no? So the jury's not going to give much weight to whether or not it was "legal" according to the their jurisdiction's legal code. I guess the question I'm asking is two-part: did they have an opportunity to retreat, and would the crowd have passed by if they had believed that no one was home? After the crowd broke in and threatened them in person they were kind of stuck with standing their ground. The sequence of events is crucial to what the jury is going to believe a reasonable person should have done. Not so much whether or not it was legal for them to defend themselves. Juries are made up of people, and people are subject to emotional arguments.

We will never know what the crowd would do. Let's leave it at that. If we get to see the details of the charges we can debate them in another specific thread.

My mistake was taking the question posed in the OP too broadly.

(posters: stick w/ the vehicle vs. crowd scenario)

P5 Guy said:

McCloskeys got a lesson in using cover and concealment. Had they stayed concealed in their home they'd not be in trouble now.

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I cannot disagree with your assessment of their tactics, but that doesn't mean they broke the law. However, had they done it right, I believe they might still have been charged, given the political nature of .... certain local officials.

Tommygunn said:

I cannot disagree with your assessment of their tactics, but that doesn't mean they broke the law. However, had they done it right, I believe they might still have been charged, given the political nature of .... certain local officials.

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I dunno. That's a tough case. Thinking about the "reasonable person" test, what would a reasonable person do? I think every person in the world thinks that he or she is a reasonable person regardless of reality. None of us knows what we will do until it's time to do it, but I feel like, had it been my home and my front yard...I hope I would have remained inside. I don't believe they would be in trouble right now if they had stayed within the walls of their home. At worst, they would at least have castle domain doctrine on their side. They gave that up the moment they walked out the front door. My state has open/Constitutional carry and a watered-down version of stand your ground, but in truth, castle domain doctrine is your only real legal protection if you defend yourself.