With necessity.
Armed Citizen Stops "Crime Spree"
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Mosin77
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We know this from statistics, true. We also know that individual criminals are, well, individual. I’m not a cop and I don’t spend a lot of recreational time watching YouTube surveillance footage of gas station robberies. So I have a set of assumptions probably not dissimilar to the man in question here. I assume that if someone is holding up a gas station with a knife, he’ll probably pull it out, hold it or wave it in a threatening manner, and most of us would get the idea that “this guy means business because there’s about 24 inches of empty air providing zero resistance, separating his blade and my body” and we’d probably hand over the cash quickly enough and hope the guy goes away. If I were a criminal, closing with my victim increases the chance that they’ll choose to fight or something will go wrong.
To my perception therefore, when the knife goes from being shown threateningly to being held at someone’s throat, the situation escalates from “ordinary gas station robbery” to “there’s a good chance he intends to kill, rape, or abduct that woman.” She’s in danger of her life. I’m also going to think that if he was merely wanting to kill her (hit man? Drug deal gone bad? Blind rage?) he’d already have stabbed her before I even had a chance to perceive what’s going on. So although she’s clearly in grave danger it’s not too likely that, on seeing me, he’ll quickly slit her throat as he turns to the new threat. But he’s focused on her and not me, so he’s probably not holding her hostage in the sense that he plans on using his knife at her neck for negotiating leverage from me or the authorities. Either way it seems clear she’s in imminent danger and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t attempt to intervene in some way. Distracting this criminal from whatever terrible thing he’s up to can’t be a bad idea.
It would seem that hostage negotiators, snipers on the roof, a team visible at the front while one sneaks in the back, etc. are all tools for a specific type of scenario, when you have a criminal or criminals holed up in a strongpoint and holding one or more innocents hostage in a protracted standoff. It also seems like the best thing for the innocents would be not to allow this situation to develop.
It might be as simple as the suspect’s grip and angle not being too good with his knife because he just acted and is in the process of coercion. If a responder waits maybe he’ll correct his grip and be in a much better position to inflict lethal harm. At which point to fix the situation you now have no choice but to employ the negotiator and the spotter/sniper team.
If I were in the situation I’d feel like it was a hard choice. But one that has to be made, and quickly, and likely to end in the victim’s favor (and maybe not in mine.) I’d expect him to turn toward the greater threat (me) and return to the lesser after I was taken care of. My alternative is to sit there and observe, but if he does choose to kill the victim he can do it in a second and there’s nothing I can do. So I either intervene ASAP or I choose to sit there as an observer, call the cops, wring my hands, etc. This man chose to intervene, and we should all be thankful the story had a happy ending.
Why?
Yes. of course.
I would not bet on it. An involuntary reaction could cause a fatal wound, particularly if the man is shot.
How would you feel if it was your intervention that caused her death?
We discuss a similar dilemma relating to store robberies. The armed citizen sees a perp pointing a gun at a clerk. Should he shoot? No. Not yet. Even a solid CNS hit can cause a reflexive trigger squeeze. And while the clerk at gunpoint is in mortal danger, the risk of shooting is lower if no one intervenes.
Same thing here. The shot can precipitate the use of the weapon.
Yep. Ignoring whatever training he may have had and without taking into account the likely effects handgun wounding, he charged in. Everyone was lucky.
eastbank
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the poor parents of those killed in the school in texas would have welcomed any intervention from anyone in the 40 odd minutes the police sat on their thumbs, while the shooter killed those people. in the end he was killed by lawmen who just went in.
And this one is done!
Reopened for additional discussion after the video was released
Video has been released and (surprise, surprise!) the incident didn't come down the way it was reported in the media.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local...cle_431cfceb-5292-5c81-ac36-26df32a068b1.html
The armed robber was no longer threatening the clerk and was on his way out of the store when the "hero" citizen gunned him down. I watched the video several times and I don't see Bush charge the armed citizen. The attack on the clerk was over before the armed citizen entered the store and the robbery was over and the armed robber was making his escape. While no charges were filed in this case it could very easily have gone the other way. There are a lot of things that go into a charging decision and this might not have had a good outcome for the armed citizen in another jurisdiction.
Video has been released and (surprise, surprise!) the incident didn't come down the way it was reported in the media.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local...cle_431cfceb-5292-5c81-ac36-26df32a068b1.html
The armed robber was no longer threatening the clerk and was on his way out of the store when the "hero" citizen gunned him down. I watched the video several times and I don't see Bush charge the armed citizen. The attack on the clerk was over before the armed citizen entered the store and the robbery was over and the armed robber was making his escape. While no charges were filed in this case it could very easily have gone the other way. There are a lot of things that go into a charging decision and this might not have had a good outcome for the armed citizen in another jurisdiction.
gila_dog1
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The standard police policy of NOT charging in to rescue people who are (or may be) getting murdered just proves that you are on your own when it comes to self defense. But even that can get you in trouble. A Circle K convenience store employee shot a robber who was pointing a gun at her and she got fired. The company policy of "no guns for employees" put her at the mercy of the robber, and when she defended herself, and was fired for it.
The standard police policy of waiting until the murder has been committed and the murderer is leaving the store, then arresting him, also proves this point. And what the Uvalde police did and didn't do could have been immaterial (to use our moderator's words) if one the teachers who were murdered had been armed and trained and had shot the murderer. You're on your own, folks, unless some foolish good samaritan comes to your rescue. Don't count on the cops.
The standard police policy of waiting until the murder has been committed and the murderer is leaving the store, then arresting him, also proves this point. And what the Uvalde police did and didn't do could have been immaterial (to use our moderator's words) if one the teachers who were murdered had been armed and trained and had shot the murderer. You're on your own, folks, unless some foolish good samaritan comes to your rescue. Don't count on the cops.
No one was rescued here. The robbery was over and the armed robber was making his escape when the "hero" intervened.
Not material to the discussion of this incident.
azrocks
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I agree, the video shows a situation in which he very well could have ended up on the wrong side of the law (not even close to the initial details we were basing this discussion on). That said I can't exactly make out the conversation, nor facial expressions and other non-verbal cues that might have given the shooter reason to believe he was an immediate threat. Also, the frame rate of the video can make what's actually happening at a rapid rate seem slowed down to us. From the shooters vantage point, the robber was intermittently obstructed by the aisles, and he was moving parallel in a round about way towards the door, which he would have to have gone through the shooter to get to. I'm not saying it did happen, but its possible a step towards the shooter was made a moment before shots were fired. Tueller drill, anyone?
But yeah, lots of things could have been different. I think it would have been better to move towards the clerk as the robber moved away, positioning himself between her and him. But maybe he didn't realize no gun was involved & didn't want her to become the bad guy's backstop? In the heat of the moment, with him dropping behind the counter the way he did (picking up backpack), it could very well be assumed he was picking up a gun. You known darn well if this had been an officer involved shooting that little drop would have been used as part of the justification for lethal force, had it been used.
As for hero or not, the knife-wielding bandit won't be performing any more armed robberies, will he? Only a matter of time before he would have hurt or killed someone, assuming it hadnt happened already. The shooter can be a hero and still suck at strategy. They're not mutually exclusive attributes. He didn't shoot any bystanders or direct his fire outside the building (that I could tell).
But yeah, lots of things could have been different. I think it would have been better to move towards the clerk as the robber moved away, positioning himself between her and him. But maybe he didn't realize no gun was involved & didn't want her to become the bad guy's backstop? In the heat of the moment, with him dropping behind the counter the way he did (picking up backpack), it could very well be assumed he was picking up a gun. You known darn well if this had been an officer involved shooting that little drop would have been used as part of the justification for lethal force, had it been used.
As for hero or not, the knife-wielding bandit won't be performing any more armed robberies, will he? Only a matter of time before he would have hurt or killed someone, assuming it hadnt happened already. The shooter can be a hero and still suck at strategy. They're not mutually exclusive attributes. He didn't shoot any bystanders or direct his fire outside the building (that I could tell).
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Irrelevant. Another day or another prosecutor and we might be listening to the flip side
azrocks
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Out of everything I said, this is the only thing you latch onto.
Between the thread locks and this type of attitude, this section of the forum blows.
Guess it's a good place for you two to talk to yourselves.
The shooter put himself in a position where the armed robber would have to go through him to escape. That set up the confrontation that ended in the use of deadly force. It was 3:10 am, the store was brightly lit, the shooter could see everything that was happening inside the store. The shooter confronted the armed robber while he was still behind the counter where he could have stabbed or sliced the clerk. I couldn't make out what he said from the doorway but it seemed to be a challenge. At 1:20 in the video the shooter opens the door and challenges the armed robber. The clerk is maybe 5 feet behind the armed robber. At approximately 1:34 the armed robber says "I've got something for you" and the first shot is fired. The second shot comes 3 seconds later while the armed robber is crouching behind an end cap display. The shooter then chases the armed robber around the displays shooting at him and fires the final shot in the direction of the clerk who is very wisely prone on the floor. It doesn't look like self defense or defense of another person to me. It looks like a citizen attempting to stop a crime in progress or make a citizens arrest. I don't know what Missouri law is on making citizens arrests. If that's what he was trying his tactics were terrible. The article says his mother is a career police officer and his father is a firefighter and that he left the police academy when he found it "wasn't for him". I don't see how he saved the clerk from anything. The armed robber wasn't interested in the clerk once she got the cash register open. If his purpose was to stop the crime then a better plan would have been to call 911 as soon as he saw what was coming down in the store and then take up a position where he had cover outside the store and confront the armed robber when he left the store.
Charlie Martinez
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I find it extremely disturbing that so many here in HR criticize the citizen that interfered and stopped the violent crime going on in that service station.
Have "We The People" turned into a selfish and cowardly society that is not only unwilling to help another in serious trouble but going as far as condemning those that have the courage to do it?
The intent of the 2nd Amendment is in part so that a law abiding citizen can be armed and ready to use his weapon to defend the rights of others if they are being violated. All the talk about which gun is best for this or that, gun rights, etc. is nothing but useless BS if all you can or are willing to do when you find trouble is run away and call the police. You don't need a gun or a Carry Permit to do that!
Have "We The People" turned into a selfish and cowardly society that is not only unwilling to help another in serious trouble but going as far as condemning those that have the courage to do it?
The intent of the 2nd Amendment is in part so that a law abiding citizen can be armed and ready to use his weapon to defend the rights of others if they are being violated. All the talk about which gun is best for this or that, gun rights, etc. is nothing but useless BS if all you can or are willing to do when you find trouble is run away and call the police. You don't need a gun or a Carry Permit to do that!
We do not discuss anyone's idea about what's "right or moral" here. We discuss what's legal. Our society has moved away from your ideas decades ago. If you want you can open a thread to talk about that on another forum, but it's off topic here. Here we talk about what's legal and tactically sound. Strategies, Tactics and Training means just that. We don't celebrate shootings......
Charlie Martinez
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I agree, and that's exactly why we are where we are. Don't worry no more opinions from me on this one.
In their defense, you do have to keep in mind that ideas of self defense/ defense of others varies wildly from one area to another. For example, years ago, one of my neighbors had another neighbor, who was a known drunk/druggie/general trouble maker banging on their windows in the middle of the night and making a ruckus. They tried to get him to go away but he wouldn't, so they called the cops. The guy left before they arrived (LE response times here can extend into the multiple hours to a day or more, weather dependent). When the sheriff's deputies arrived, they took a report and then told her she should have just shot the guy. Had she done so, they'd have arrived, taken a report, removed the body and it wouldn't been done and over with. That scenario would have played out drastically differently in many other areas of the country. There are still places where, to a large extent, the old cultural ideals are followed, but in most cases, the people (and entire communities) who follow the old ways aren't talking about it on internet forums.
azrocks
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Sure you do. You've inserted your moral opinion in this thread and others countless times. Using the word " hero" in quotes is one subtle example. And this very reply I quoted is one not so subtle. You're literally saying " we don't do this" in the process of doing it!
'We' haven't moved away from these ideas or sentiment as a nation. Parts of our country certainly have. Amazing coincidence they also happen to be the parts with exploding crime rates. There will always be exceptions, but if you think the average DA here, in my state, would hamstring this guy you'd be sorely mistaken. Most le agencies would be thankful. Maybe y'all should have a red state / blue state version of this forum. Your ideas on what's right and moral don't apply where I live, though that's quickly changing thanks to all the people fleeing crime in their own states just to come here and implement the same policies responsible for their downfall.
They not only vary by area, they vary by what's currently happening in the area and the community mood, they vary by who the prosecutor is and how he or she views self defense. People from all over the world read this forum and we try to keep the discussions focused on what's legal everywhere. I have related stories from my LE career where a citizen's use of deadly force was illegal by statute but was not prosecuted for one reason or another. One cannot go through life counting on proprietorial discretion to stay out of jail.
I use the word hero in quotes to discourage the hero worshiping posts that always pop up in these discussions. Those posts do nothing to further the discussion strategies tactics and training. 20 years ago we decided to move THR away from the standard gun forum "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" posts that fill up the other gun forums and get in the way of productive discussion. The anti-gun lobby uses those kinds of posts to push their no carry agenda to the uninformed public. We also discourage those posts because we don't want to encourage someone who surfs in to take action using deadly force that might be illegal or unwise so they can get a lot of online praise from people they don't know. If you don't think that happens then you aren't paying attention to the stupid things people do online for likes and views.
I hate to tell you this, but the law is the law everywhere. People go to jail for questionable uses of deadly force in every state and territory, even in Arizona. Have you polled every DA in your state? You are liable to get a very unpleasant introduction to the legal system if you are faced with a deadly force encounter and make your use of force decision based on that assumption, but hey, it's your life and your fortune. Here at THR we are not going to encourage people to make decisions on the use of deadly force based on assumptions. If you want to go out and praise this guy as hero there are forums that will allow and even encourage that. But we don't allow it here.
Not sure why you'd say that. Most of the time the reason that people post things in the legal section of this forum at all is because of the widely varying laws, rules and practices in different areas.
This isn't the legal forum, if you look at the top and bottom of the page you will see that you are in the Strategies Tactics and Training Forum. We try to keep the discussion focused on the things that are legal everywhere. Usually this only comes up when the discussion goes to the differences in castle doctrine and stand your ground laws. What constitutes an attack that would justify the use of deadly force is pretty much the same everywhere if you take castle doctrine and stand your ground laws out of the discussion. Even when you put them in the discussion you will find that the rules are remarkably similar everywhere. There are a lot of people online whose only experience with a deadly force encounter and the legal system is what they see on TV and in the movies. We've had plenty of threads here discussing cases where Castle Doctrine or stand your ground laws didn't protect someone in a questionable use of force decision. Doesn't seem to matter though, there are always people who think things are always the way they think they should be rather then the way they really are.
The facts of this case are clear from the video, the shooter placed himself in a terrible tactical position and his use of deadly force could be questioned. I don't know if Missouri law allows the use of deadly force to stop a forcible felony or to prevent the escape of a person fleeing a forcible felony. The fact remains that if the shooter had chosen a different course of action no one would have died and he wouldn't be living with the knowledge he took a human life for the rest of his life. He place the clerk in greater danger then she was in when he challenged the robber from the door. If the robber had grabbed the clerk when he was challenged the shooter would have been faced with making a precise shot with a subcompact pistol (I don't know what it was but it certainly didn't look full size in the video) or watching the clerk get taken hostage, stabbed or cut. Which is exactly the reason the police don't charge into those situations. Would he still be your hero if luck or fate hadn't smiled on him that morning? What would the anti gun St Louis press have done with that story? Do you want to talk about what could have done better or do you want to waste electrons praising his heroism and maybe encourage someone else to make poor tactical decisions that might not have the same lucky outcome?
Fom the video, it appears that he acted after the crime had occurred.
Ideas about hat people might like to see vary widely. But the law of self defense and the laws regarding the defense of others are almost entirely common.
The requirements for the legal defense of self defense differ among jurisdictions only in terms of whether there is a duty to retreat. There is none where this incident occurred.
Justification for defending a third person differs only between alter ego jurisdictions and others. This did not happen in one.
Regarding defense of persons, everything else is the same everywhere.
I know of no US jurisdiction in which what was shown in the video would have been lawful.
People who have watched a lot of westerns seem to want to believe that things have somehow changed recently. Over the last several hundred years, two things have changed:
- The duty to retreat, which once existed everywhere, has been eliminated in many jurisdictions. Think about it: You cannot outrun a bullet.
- The fleeing felon rule at common law no longer exists. Today, a fleeing felon cannot outrun police cars, radios, or aircraft.
For the former, yes, assuming that it is immediately necessary for the defense of persons. For the latter, absolutely not.
Shooting in the direction of the clerk when the actions of the robber were not directly threatening the shooter is all one really needs to know about the cognitive level of the shooter.
When a person like this gets off, it is more a case of jury nullification as compared to the law itself.
When a person like this gets off, it is more a case of jury nullification as compared to the law itself.
azrocks
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It's your forum. I won't argue with how you wish it to be run or the rules you make.
That being said, I think attempting to approach the issue of strategy in regards to legal defense with a firearm, in a manner that applies to a world-wide audience, to be a fool's errand. You can talk pure strategy, or pure legality, but combining them both and hoping it's going to work for everyone in the world... that simply doesn't work. It can't.
Nobody here that I've seen is posting in Spanish, Arabic, or Chinese. Nearly every location in user bios is here in the U.S. Sure there are outliers, but mostly... it's 'US'. Which makes sense, as there's no other nation in the world that even comes close to mirroring the gun culture - both good & bad - that has defined our nation since its inception, and continues to morph & evolve. IMO you're not reading or accomodating your audience. It all comes off less as a discussion, and more as you just telling people what to think. And when they don't think what you want... thread lock. End of story.
The very act of tying strategy to legality is questionable, even within a cultural or geographic boundary in which it makes sense. Avoiding any potential legal reprocussions, at any and all cost, is not the basis of sound strategy. It may be the basis of your strategy. But from the viewpoint of many here - myself included - there are often other concerns which trump self-preservation in the moment. And that's a good thing.
Finally, IMHO, the very act of accepting the current legal environment (in whatever place that may be) is a losing strategy. You say 'this' (whatever that refers to) society has moved away from the ideas of good people taking it upon themselves to maintain the safety & security of their fellow man? I say look where that's got us. We had it right a while back. Criminals used to know that armed robbery was a really good way to get dead, and nobody - especially not the police or the courts - would be looking to put the good people in prison who did the world a favor by making it happen. Accepting things the way they are isn't going to make things better.
The girl in this incident didn't get gutted, but she's going to carry that trauma with her for life. The guy who did it - not the first time, won't be the last, and eventually he'll kill someone. One way or another, you're going to have a winner and a loser. Either this guy wins, or his victims do. How do his victims win? By him not being around anymore. That's the 'high road'... choosing good people who don't victimize others, over the people who do.
Have a good day. This isn't the place for me.
That being said, I think attempting to approach the issue of strategy in regards to legal defense with a firearm, in a manner that applies to a world-wide audience, to be a fool's errand. You can talk pure strategy, or pure legality, but combining them both and hoping it's going to work for everyone in the world... that simply doesn't work. It can't.
Nobody here that I've seen is posting in Spanish, Arabic, or Chinese. Nearly every location in user bios is here in the U.S. Sure there are outliers, but mostly... it's 'US'. Which makes sense, as there's no other nation in the world that even comes close to mirroring the gun culture - both good & bad - that has defined our nation since its inception, and continues to morph & evolve. IMO you're not reading or accomodating your audience. It all comes off less as a discussion, and more as you just telling people what to think. And when they don't think what you want... thread lock. End of story.
The very act of tying strategy to legality is questionable, even within a cultural or geographic boundary in which it makes sense. Avoiding any potential legal reprocussions, at any and all cost, is not the basis of sound strategy. It may be the basis of your strategy. But from the viewpoint of many here - myself included - there are often other concerns which trump self-preservation in the moment. And that's a good thing.
Finally, IMHO, the very act of accepting the current legal environment (in whatever place that may be) is a losing strategy. You say 'this' (whatever that refers to) society has moved away from the ideas of good people taking it upon themselves to maintain the safety & security of their fellow man? I say look where that's got us. We had it right a while back. Criminals used to know that armed robbery was a really good way to get dead, and nobody - especially not the police or the courts - would be looking to put the good people in prison who did the world a favor by making it happen. Accepting things the way they are isn't going to make things better.
The girl in this incident didn't get gutted, but she's going to carry that trauma with her for life. The guy who did it - not the first time, won't be the last, and eventually he'll kill someone. One way or another, you're going to have a winner and a loser. Either this guy wins, or his victims do. How do his victims win? By him not being around anymore. That's the 'high road'... choosing good people who don't victimize others, over the people who do.
Have a good day. This isn't the place for me.
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It's worked here for 20 years.
There is ALWAYS a risk of legal repercussions anytime you use force. Only a fool would not take them into consideration before making a decision to jump into a situation without thinking about if the act they were about to take was legal.
I hope that's comforting during a long prison term.
I don't accept the current legal environment as correct. But it is what we have to live in. If you want to change the current legal environment you need to become politically active. You will not change anything by making pithy statements and complaining about it on a gun forum. You might feel better because a bunch of people will post comments that confirm your views, but you will accomplish nothing more then that. Like it or not, if you use deadly force you are going to be held to count in the current legal environment, not the one you wish it was. And if we allowed that discussion here someone else may read it and jump into something that will get him in trouble in the current legal environment.
Good! Go tell the world. Just don't tell it here because that is not the purpose of this forum and we will not turn it into ARFCOM or Warrior Talk. There are places where you can have that conversation, you can't have it here. Period, end of story.
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