As Quick As The Flip of a Coin

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Not a fairy tale. How hard is it to pull a couple of people apart when you have double the manpower?
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Do you have the right? Is it the legal and rightful thing to do? Will you and all your friends nearly get shot to death because you did? Will you or one of your pals be encouraged/forced to draw and fire his own weapon as a result of your imposition of your will?

I'm not saying that they were right to have intervened but I believe most normal people would try to stop a man who is assaulting a woman.
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But that doesn't seem to have been what was happening here. So many have consistently applied what they imagine might have happened, despite any information to the contrary, and tried to turn their own fiction story about something that didn't happen into a moral lecture and a lesson to be taken from this.

Why?
 
JTHunter said:
Elkins45 said:

It IS a tragic outcome but I can't help wondering what was the original target and how many people are alive today because Flight 93 failed to make it to that target.

200Apples said:

Not a fairy tale. How hard is it to pull a couple of people apart when you have double the manpower?
I'm not saying that they were right to have intervened but I believe most normal people would try to stop a man who is assaulting a woman.
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Those people were headed for the ground regardless. There was no decision they could make that would have made their situation worse.

If my wife and I were having an argument and somebody ran up and started grabbing her it would likely not end well for them. Once you start intervening you become the agressor. And aggressors don't enjoy any sort of legal protections.

I try really hard to keep my hands off of strangers. I'm a high school teacher so I have a legal obligation to break up fights, but it has been made abundantly clear to me that I will possibly face legal action for doing so.
 
I'm not saying that they were right to have intervened but I believe most normal people would try to stop a man who is assaulting a woman.
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The article doesn't say that anyone was assaulted during the fight/disturbance between the couple. It certainly doesn't say that the man assaulted the woman.
How hard is it to pull a couple of people apart when you have double the manpower?
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The article doesn't say that the couple were PHYSICALLY fighting or that they had to be "pulled apart". For all we know this could have been just raised voices.

I tried to find some more information about what happened and found one source that called it "an argument".

Unless we know what was really happening between the couple, there's no way to know what kind of intervention should have taken place or if intervention was necessary at all. It's certainly not possible to say that the soldiers did right or did wrong without knowing what was actually going on.
 
How hard is it to pull a couple of people apart when you have double the manpower?
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I'm going to guess that you have never tried to get a cracked out 100 lb female into handcuffs before? If you have ever tried that particular event, you'd know the above question comes off a bit uninformed to those who have worn a badge before.

-Jenrick
 
What a great thread! Let's see...

The soldiers told police they intervened in a disturbance between a couple at the park and that led to the shooting, police said.

The soldiers told officers they got to Solms Park just after 1 a.m. Monday and as they arrived they witnessed a fight between a man and a woman in the parking lot when they intervened.

The soldiers believed they had calmed the situation and began walking back to their vehicle, a New Braunfels police spokesman said.

As the soldiers were walking away, the woman ran to her boyfriend’s truck, retrieved a handgun which she handed to her boyfriend, who began shooting at the soldiers.
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We have only "the soldiers" word for what happened. But which soldiers said what, did they all tell the same story? What actually happened we don't know.

The 7 soldiers arrived in the park at 1 a.m. A picnic maybe. Maybe there had been some drinking, or something else involved. Maybe not. Anyway it's 1 in the morning and they are strolling in the park. They see a man and a woman in some kinda dispute, yelling? Maybe. Pushing, shoving? Maybe but we don't know. So our Magnificent 7 decide to get involved...or at least some of them. We don't know.

What did they do? We don't really know. Smack him around a bit? We don't know. Read to him from the Book of Mormon? Maybe, but it was enough that our fair damsel in distress ran and got her old man's pistol so he could shoot the seven in the behind as they left. So whatever they did to help...didn't work out too well.

tipoc
 
I've never really understood how people say what they'd have done in these situations. Their are times I'd walk off shaking my head thinking "what a couple of idiots." Their are other times when force would be necessary. Without being on the scene, seeing the body language and hearing the words, I have no idea if they did the right thing, and no idea what I'd have done.

They may have done the right thing, they may have been butting into someone else's business where they had no place. We simply don't know. I'll tend to give them the benefit of doubt and and say it's likely they thought they were doing the right thing, and im slow to condemn a man for doing what he thought was right.

I think the Bonhoeffer quote below is worth reading and putting some thought into.
 
Jenrick said:
I'm going to guess that you have never tried to get a cracked out 100 lb female into handcuffs before? If you have ever tried that particular event, you'd know the above question comes off a bit uninformed to those who have worn a badge before.

-Jenrick
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Or my 100 lb Tasmanian devil ex wife. Never underestimate what 100 lbs of furious anger is capable of.
 
From Sam1911:

...So many have consistently applied what they imagine might have happened, despite any information to the contrary, and tried to turn their own fiction story about something that didn't happen into a moral lecture and a lesson to be taken from this.

Why?
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Accurate observation.

So little information is provided in the article that it is impossible to know what in truth took place. At 1 a.m. in a public park a man and a woman were involved in some kinda dispute. 7 young men (maybe men, maybe 5 men and 2 women they are identified only as "soldiers") wandered up to the couple. There was some type of exchange between the group and the man and woman. The group of 7 began to leave the scene when the woman got a gun and handed it to her companion. There was an exchange of gunfire. The man was wounded.

Other than that we don't know much. But a lot of false and loose conclusions have been inferred. Some of the guesses may be correct. You make enough guesses about the situation eventually some will get close to true.

What if the article said, instead of 7 soldiers, "7 young men"? Would the guesses and inferences been a bit different?

Or if it said..."7 young men, 2 of whom had misdemeanor convictions on gun charges and one served 2 years in jail." Which may have been true of any random group of soldiers in the U.S. Army or outside it.

It's easy to read into things what you want to see. That makes your case. Like a bad D.A.

Harder to watch for the truth to play out.

tipoc
 
Any Police Officer will tell you that getting in the middle of a domestic dispute offers the highest odds of not going home at the end of your shift.

As for me, I am going to call the Police, keep myself and my family safe, and be a good witness. Sorry if that doesn't sound chivalrous, but it was the female "victim" in this story that procured the firearm for her "abuser" boyfriend.
 
"the road to hell is paved w/ good intentions"
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"the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
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Those two statements are not incompatible. One can fully believe both.

What you have to understand is that part of what makes you one of the "good" is being smart about what you choose to intervene in. Doing something poorly thought out that just makes a situation worse doesn't stop evil, it encourages and facilitates it. (I wish our legislators would learn that.) Good intentions do not prevent a bad outcome, so be smart about what actions you take even if your intentions are good.

Besides, in my home state you don't get a pass for good intentions. If you use deadly physical force based on your "best judgement" to intervene on behalf of a third party and you guess wrong then you are on the hook for it. The threshold for self-defense is "circumstances as they appear to be" but for defense of others the rule is "circumstances as they actually are."
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Same here in NC. If the person you are defending could not, themselves, have legally used deadly force (such as because they started the fight), then neither can you.
 
More information,

Jesus Ricardo Gallegos is no stranger to the Comal County Jail. He has enjoyed their hospitality at least 4 other times in the past. Three for intoxication related issues and another for a couple of theft charges.

According to what I can fine, he is still cooling his jets there now with bond set at $150,000.

Booking #: 335117
SO # 633392
 
If by, did the right thing you mean they found they'd butted in where they weren't wanted, got out of there pretty quick, and nearly got murdered...sure.
 
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