A Judge with a gun trumps a crutch every time

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IMTHDUKE

IMTHDUKE

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GOODWATER -- When a man tried to hit a city court judge with a crutch in the small Coosa County city of Goodwater on Thursday, the judge pulled a gun. When the man tried to take the gun away from the judge, a police officer shot him, an Alabama state trooper said.
The man, identified by family, friends and witnesses as Brian Ford, was being treated at UAB Hospital on Thursday for one or more gunshot wounds. He was listed in good condition on Thursday night, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
Goodwater is off U.S. 280 about 75 miles southeast of downtown Birmingham.
A Department of Public Safety press release stated that a preliminary investigation of the shooting at Goodwater City Hall indicated that about 9:39 a.m., a defendant attacked the Municipal Court judge and attempted to forcibly obtain a firearm when he was shot by a Goodwater police officer who was providing courtroom security.
State Trooper Chad Joiner told The Birmingham News later in the day that the man was attacking the judge with one of his crutches. "When he tried to attack the judge, the judge pulled out a firearm to defend himself. As he (the defendant) was trying to pull the gun from the judge, that's when the police officer shot him," Joiner said.
Authorities did not release the names of the judge, officer or defendant.
The Alabama Bureau of Investigation was asked to investigate the incident. The ABI's final report will be turned over to the Coosa County district attorney, Joiner said.
 
Kinda unsure how I should feel about that...

I mean, if the guy was obviously dangerous and a real threat then a legal shooting is well ... legal, right?
I ma just getting this vibe (yes, not very specific) that the only reason the cop didn't wrestle a guy needing a crutch into the ground hard instead of shooting him was because there was a judge involved.
I'm all for following and respecting the law, but on some visceral level I feel nobody is above the law and should someone feel the need to swing at me, while I (of course) will defend myself I don't think simply taking a couple swings at me is worth shooting someone. It's their own god given (and I use that term for rhetoric only) right to oppose whatever I have to say with their fisticuffs and then to deal with the aftermath. In that same vein should any enlisted guy throw a punch at me, short of beating me senseless while I obviously would hate it, I don't feel the punishment should be anymore severe than "striking" anyone else. at the end of the day my order, or in this case the judge's order stands and some guy blew off some steam, or got trounced, depending on how I fare.

I know nothing happens without context, but I do kinda feel that the force response was highly elevated simply because the assaultee was a judge.

Like I said, I don't really know how to feel about this.
 
Lets say it was the president and the police officer was a secret service agent.

Would the outcome have been any different?

I understand your viewpoint Nushif and I agree.

Lets say you are walking on the street next to a cop and some random person starts hitting you with a crutch. I bet the officer is not going to shoot the person hitting you. I suppose it is all a matter of context. It depends on the person being assaulted I guess.
 
Ah, but the difference here is that there was a gun involved, specifically a fight for control of the gun. In this instance, the brandishing of a firearm did indeed escalate the situation whereby the police officer then shot. If he pulled the gun (the judge), then why didn't he shoot is my question.
 
You see Nasser, that's where I feel kinda bad about this whole deal. If we assume one of two parties in a fist fight drawing a gun means that the level of force is instantly raised then we're penalizing the lesser armed party.

Or, to make it more clear:
you get into a barfight and some punches are thrown ... suddenly the other guy draws a gun on you, even though all your intent to do was to knock him on his "derriere" the situation suddenly turns into him deciding to shoot you with no repercussions because he had a gun.

My sticking point here is that no gun was involved in this fight until a defender already under guard and (if the assaulter actually needed the crutch) more physically capable drew a sidearm. I'm not sure I think that the judge needed to draw his firearm in the first place! so we have a dead guy with a crutch, because a judge panicked and drew a gun.

I know I wasn't there any anything we comment on this is highly hyperbolic at best, but something here speaks of "Why did this have to happen?"
 
Hey I'm in total agreement here. It seems the disparity of force was not on the judges side given the guy attacking him was on crutches. The only thing that might counteract that is if the judge is old and thus couldn't run or fend off the (crippled) attacker. Unless something else is revealed I'm putting a lot of blame on the judge for escalating this one.

Oh, and the attacker survived.
 
Is it true that a man with a crutch can cover 21 feet before you can draw and shoot? Is that called the "Hobbler Drill"?

If the judge was not going to shoot, he should not have pulled the gun, that's why he has a cop standing there.
 
Nassar and Nushif, I don't understand your reasoning. In this situation you have an apparently unarmed man (the judge) attacked by someone wielding a club (the crutch). The judge pulls out a gun to defend himself (but never fires for reasons that we don't know.) At that point since the defendant is now attempting to grab the gun, the guard has no choice but to take him out as fast as possible and to shoot him. The situation escalated from A to B to C (unarmed to a club to a gun), it's that simple. IF there hadn't been a gun involved then the guard would have most likely just wrested the guy to the ground or tased him but the defendant make the mistake of grabbing for the gun. That turned it into a lethal situation.

As to why the judge didn't shot him; who knows? Maybe he was afraid of hitting bystanders, maybe he just didn't have time.

I completely understand the issue about the disparity of force; the local police just fired 120+ shots at an unarmed auto theft suspect inside a crowded apartment complex because they claim he attempted to "ram" their police car in an attempt to escape. But in the judge's case the guard didn't react with massive firepower. He used just enough force to halt the attack. Just think of how many people the defendant would probably killed in an attempt to escape. This isn't the first time that we've seen a shootout inside a courthouse and usually there are usually at least one killed or seriously wounded for every bullet that the defendant has!
 
Buck Snort
You know the old saying, never bring a crutch to a gunfight,........or sumpt'n like that!
__________________
Charter member AOFA (Antiquated Old Farts of America!)

Or "never pull a gun you don't intend to use"
 
Excessive Force!

"Oh, sweet home!"

I can see the headlines in the Liberal Times: "Judge lures unarmed man on crutches into confrontation then police shoot him."
 
What planet do you guys live on?

Some of these posts don't seem to be coming from gun folks. They sound more like the useless pap the ACLU spouts in such cases. An idiot attacks a sitting judge? With a stick, (crutch, whatever), the judge pulls a gun to defend himself and idiot goes for the gun?
The idiot trying to disarm the judge is PAID FOR. Any armed person, whether police officer or not is justified in shooting center of mass to stop the threat.
PERIOD! If the idiot dies, then he dies. It's on his head. A person intending to stop a serious threat...where deadly harm is possible...is not required by either law or common sense to psychoanalyze the bad guy before deciding to shoot him to stop the attack.
Sometimes it is hard to know who your friends really are out there. I once had a complaint filed, in writing, against me by a citizen who watched me stop an armed robbery at gunpoint in a crowded store. She was very upset because I didn't shoot the robber.
I expected to see a more reasoned consensus of opinion on a gun forum. My bad. :rolleyes:
 
I think you're either misunderstanding or have no concept of a sliding scale when ti comes to violence to stop a threat.

I am by no means saying a firearm is not a valid form of defense against an attacker that blindsides you. what I am saying is that I find it odd, that we needed to engage in deadly force against a guy on crutches attacking a judge presumably on a pulpit.

I think a good ol' flying tackle would have been quite sufficient.

I don't think either of us is sitting here saying "Don't harm the guy." We're sitting here saying "Did we have to shoot the guy or could we have popped him in the head with an asp?"

While this is indeed a gun forum, not *every* last BG out there needs to be shot in the chest twice, head once and then both hips to eb sure.
A bar fight calls for a match of fisticuffs. Don't like fisticuffs? Don't go into a bar?
Crossing the street calls for looking both ways. Don't like looking both ways? Dno't cross the street.
You follow? This is about a spectrum of "counter violence." And I frankly don't feel that a guy on crutches attacking someone behind a pulpit needed shot. He needed to be tackled.
Stop acting like we're some bleeding hearts here who are against the usage of guns. We're not. We're just for some human decency in this case.
 
Is this the one where the shooting officer is being investigated for standing over defendant and putting a second round in him? Not trying to start a flame war just remember reading something about this somewhere else.
 
To heck with titles and job descriptions.
If you are on crutches and start beating me with your crutch, and I have a handgun, you'd better assume that I'm going to shoot you.
Assault and battery with a blunt weapon justifies my defending my life. You obviously intend to inflict grievous harm upon me, I'm defending myself knowing full well that it may require inflicting greivous harm upon you.
 
Was the attending officer on a coffee break, or how does a guy that is on crutches even get close enough to menace the judge before the afore-mentioned "flying tackle" ends this incident? I hope this doesn't sound too sexist, but was the officer a small female(or male now that I think about it) and the guy on crutches too big to be handled in the seemingly correct manner? I mean, there must have been something that made this use of force justified other than it being a judge being attacked:confused:?!
 
Here are some facts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/04/alabama-court-shooting
http://www.fox11az.com/news/national/115213994.html
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com...02040316/ABI-investigating-courtroom-shooting

I think these facts still will not give us enough to ascertain whether the use of deadly force was necessary and justified.

My opinion, if you attack a judge, in that judge's court, after he has ruled against you (in this case, rendered a verdict and levied a fine), you have opened the floodgates on force to be used against you.

I have been in Alabama. I know one County Clerk you don't mess with.

People who were witnesses and who investigate first-hand will know the truth. But I think I already know how it will come out.

Lost Sheep

P.S. The third citation I put in is the longest, but seems to be the most complete, and damning.
 
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I think these facts still will not give us enough to ascertain whether the use of deadly force was necessary and justified.
Click to expand...
It's good that we won't have to make that determination. The ABI will do that.
I have been in Alabama.
Click to expand...
I've lived here my entire 57 years,you don't mess with judges.
 
I'll tell you what would be a better test. I will start beating you with a crutch. You decide when it's a good idea to defend yourself with a level of force that can overcome the crutch.

Change the scenario a little. Lets say a man in his 50's(thinkin most Judges are not much younger) is sitting a a recruitment table for the NRA in front of a grocery store. Another man, no certain age, walks up to him and attacks him with a wooden club.

Does the seated man have the right to defend himself with his NRA commemerative 1911-2011 Colt or does he have to find another club to equal out the weaponry?

My .02 and I expect change..........
 
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