Excitement last night

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PaulCSomething

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It was about 9:40 PM as I was leaving my daughter’s mothers townhouse. The townhouse had my ex and two small kids in it. This would be unincorporated Arapahoe county, Major street out east right where it turns into open prairie. I made it about two minutes away when she calls me on the cell phone and asks “are you still here”? No I answered, why? “Someone is banging on the door. Can you come back”? Once she finds out it is not me she really starts to get scared. Well I whip the jeep around and scream back towards her house. I tell her to hang up with me and call 911. I could hardly tell what she was even saying at that point. I told her again, I am on my way, hang up and call 911. She finally hangs up and I drop the cell phone onto the seat next to me and concentrate on driving. It only takes me about 30 seconds to get back to her front door (was I really driving 4 X faster then when I left?). As I come up to her house I drop the clutch and kill the engine. Jump out of the car and draw my legally concealed pistol. From the street I can see the front door, but the very small back yard has a 5 foot privacy fence. I run up to the house but because she lives in a house next to open fields and no lights I can’t see a damn thing in the back yard! I run back to the car and get my single LED keychain light. Let me tell you how useless that thing was. I still have my pistol out and am checking the back yard and calling her name. No answer. I check the door and it is still closed and locked, she knows I’m coming back but still doesn’t answer the door. Well from her perspective she had someone banging on the door and ringing the door bell. Then she sees a flashlight flashing panning her back yard, then the flashlight is pointing in the windows. At this point I expect the cops to show at any time, so I holster my gun but keep my hand on it. She is still on the line with 911 and finally sees me through the window. She knows it’s me, but there is another twist! She sees me outside her house “confronting someone” in a pickup truck that she doesn’t recognize. Turns out the pickup was a concerned citizen that stopped to see what the hell I was up to running around with my flashlight. Well she still doesn’t answer the door and I for the life of me can not remember the address. I see the lights on next door and ring the door bell. I tell her the someone was banging on my Ex’s door and to call 911 (I am at my Ex’s house all the time and the neighbor recognizes me easily). I finally see my Ex through the window and tell her come outside. 911 asks her is she is sure it is me and can trust me to be sure it is safe to go outside. She assures them that she trusts me and that she is going outside and hangs up. So it’s one scared ex, myself and a concerned citizen standing outside. I tell the guy in the pickup that the police have been called and are on their way. I also tell the neighbor next door that 911 has been contacted. So where standing outside for want seems like a long time for a place that appears to have a high police presence. The police arrive and several other people come out to tell them what they had seen. It looks now like there where several kids out causing trouble. They didn’t catch the kids but I’m sure that is what it was.
I’m not afraid to admit I WAS SCARED! Shaking like a leave to be exact. I don’t know that any training could ever reproduce the adrenalin dump like I got. IDPA is as close as I have come and it just wasn’t any ware near the same. I always keep my finger off the trigger. Was it this time? I don’t know. I’m 99% sure it was due to mussel memory but you just can’t consciously think of things like that when you’re this excited. You already have to know it and you will do it. I just saw a tagline from someone here on the forum that basically reads. People don’t rise to the occasion they revert to their level of training. How true it is. It is time to renew my practice with an eye towards better skills and not just plinking
Here is what I see as the lessons learned.
#1 Have a cell phone. Check.
#2 Have a gun. Check.
#3 Have a good bright flashlight. DAMNIT! (I have one but the $5 a pop deracell batteries are dead)
#4 Have a plan. CRAP!
Now that it is over tell me what you think.
Thanks for letting me tell my long winded story.
Oh yes, the kids never did wake up.
 
IDPA is as close as I have come and it just wasn’t any ware near the same.
Click to expand...
Not knocking you and you did just fine save not having a flashlight but throw this notion out the window. Using ANY gun games in real life will get you killed in a heartbeat. My suggestion is to get some real training and let IDPA be what it is--fun time.

Greg
 
From your account, I cannot tell if this is/was applicable.

For some reason people while under stress, follow rules that should be thrown out the door. Example: apparently you broke the speed limit, that’s probably good in this situation, but did you consider breaking the rule about driving up on the lawn and around the house? You need every advantage you can get and the lights; mobility and cover that would be provided by driving your jeep up on the grass would have been a huge advantage.

I got a call from my grandmother one night “ my alarm just went off and the monitor says broken glass!” I live less than five minutes away so I say, “you got your gun? Good. Stay in your bedroom, I will be driving my truck around the outside of the house, so don’t shoot me! If I come in the house I will NOT open your bedroom door so shoot anyone that dose… remember don’t shoot me!” there were no broken windows and all the doors were closed so I used my key and came in and made voice contact with her and told her to stay in the bedroom while I check the house.turns out that a box of X-Mass ornaments had fallen in a closet and everything was ok. It was much quicker and safer that I drove threw the landscaping and looked for broken windows etc than if I had walked with a flashlight…. She said that it was quick thinking on my part to drive around the house but it wasn’t… I had already thought of the best way to do it years ago, so I didn’t have to think what to do on the spot.
 
Horsesense - The landscape precluded me from driving my jeep around her townhouse. There is only about 5 feet between the back fence and a retaining wall with an 8 foot drop off. I drove up to where I could see the front door. From that point I was thinking, “if the door is kicked in things are about to get very bad”. The door was closed and locked, which I took to be a good sign, well at least a better sign then kicked in. What I should have done was dive up on the lawn and parked much closer to the front door where the car could be seen through the peep hole and now that I think of it, I could have used it for cover too.

Bogie - That is exactly what she did by calling me and asking me if I was still there. She went to the peep hole but didn’t see anyone. It was only after she looked through the peep hole and called me, and determined that is wasn’t me, that she really got scared. I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was bordering on terrified. Hell, I was that one that told her. “I’m on my way. Hang up with me and call 911”. With as frightened as she was I figured this situation rose to the level of calling the police. Even if it turned out to be nothing the police should be notified.

Alex45ACP - I take it you’re implying that she was lying. I don’t think so. I have known her long enough to know she doesn’t pull drama like this. Not to mention two neighbors from two different units, two hundred feet apart heard people running through the community. The police contacted several utes who said they saw a group of kids running from the community and across a major street. “Almost got hit by a few cars” was the police officers comment.

I come here for people’s honest opinions about tactics and equipment, with that in mind I’ll take your comments with a grain of salt and understand that sometime woman lie and manipulate. These things should be taken into consideration when dealing with a situation, however as I spoke to her on the phone and returned to her house, I had no doubt that things were as she described and I acted accordingly. Perhaps you could have asked if there was a possibility that this call was an attempt to get attention. Your comments strike me as a bit snide. Perhaps I should have elaborated on the neighbors hearing people running through the area, but felt I had already been verbose enough.

P.S. Now I have batteries for the surefire!
 
I don't get it. Someone's knocking on the door, call 911?

If the neighborhood is that bad she should probably have a shotgun of her own...
 
This apparently was not a friendly knock knock, would you like to buy a subscription to vogue.

A regular knock on the door would have her calling my cell to see it was me, but would not have freaked her out like this one. I would have turned around and calmly checked around her place just to be sure. I wasn't there to hear it so all I could do is act based on her reaction. She was very frightened so I took it very seriously. Someone knocks on the door at 10 PM, check out the peephole, neighbor lady, great open door, no one there, Hum, strange and a little disturbing but no big deal, maybe close up all the windows.

I think we can all imagine the difference between someone knocking on the door expecting someone to answer and kids beating on the door to try to scare the hell out of someone. I think that is the difference here. I’ll bet that 99% of us here would have a gun in hand checking that peephole if the same “knock knock” happened at our front door.
 
I'd go out the back and flank 'em.

But I'm a little nutty. :evil:

Sounds like you did good, nice to see your ex can follow directions and act in a crisis, it bodes well for your kids.
 
You shouldn't have to be defending yourself, Paul. You did the best you could and took away a valuable lesson. Glad to see no one got hurt.
 
Anytime anyone is in a situation like this the pucker factor will be high. When you mentioned she had called 911 and you were in the area with a gun and flashlight I thought "gonna get ugly". You holstered the gun, good move. Where you run into problems is when the police arive and see SOMEONE with a gun running around. Remember they are as anxious as you in this situation.
Glad it worked out ok. Get a BIG light for the back area, and make sure you remove the door striker screws and replace them with 3 inch screws.

Kevin
 
I'd go out the back and flank 'em.
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That was my lack of having a plan. I charged in like the cavalry.
If I had a plan I may have driven past the front to check it out then parked down the street and moved around back. All I could think was "get to the front door and see if it's open".
Excellent Idea of replacing the striker screws. Yes more lights and… use them. They don’t do jack of there not on.
 
Paul,

I was just joking on the flanking. My current plan is to hide under the bed and whimper. :D

Seriously, when kids and women are involved being more direct can be called for, as long as you don't be absolutely stupidly careless.

Now you'll have a plan.
 
#4 Have a plan. CRAP!
Click to expand...
As someone else's sig on this forum reads, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." Don't worry too much about not having a plan, because if you practice THE PLAN too much, when the SHTF if even one detail isn't what you practiced, you can freeze because you're suddenly faced with the unexpected.

IMHO it's much better to prepare in general terms, and try simply to train yourself to be flexible under duress. You did okay except for leaving your cell on the seat of the Jeep when you got out. That left you deaf and mute. 9-1-1 has more than one line, so you could have called in to inform the dispatcher that you were on the scene and to please tell the nice officers not to shoot you when they rolled up.

And do get a good flashlight. I have a couple of Jeeps, and I keep a decent Maglite in each one of them. Batteries are a cost, but not that bad. I change them twice a year and that seems to work if the light just stays in the glovebox or under the seat.
 
I think your mind started to race right away. If you PLAN AHEAD that you are not going to let your mind race then you are in better control of yourself and you'll be able to more accurately evaluate the situation.
 
MOTION-LIGHTS!!!! Every single entry to your house should be covered by motion-lights. I can tell you from personal experience that prank knocking (probably can't use the other name for it herre) is HIGHLY discouraged by a light coming on just as you are about to get onto the porch :p For about $40 a pop for a real nice looking one, they are about the cheapest security you can buy.
 
This apparently was not a friendly knock knock, would you like to buy a subscription to vogue.
Click to expand...

But you didn't hear the knock, right?

I'd say you're lucky you didn't kill a kid for knocking (hard) on a stranger's door.
 
Good ideas:
1. Perimeter fluorescent lights, either motion activated or thumb activated
2. Gun in the house for self-defense for the ladies when you are not 30sec away.
3. Keeping the other side on a cell phone line while they call the police on the hard line.
4. A nice heavy 4 D's maglite - bright and doubles up as a baton
5. Getting rid of the vegetation/obstructions where perps can hide
6. Using the headlights of your car to light up the area.

Bad ideas:
1. Pulling your gun out without a target - an armed perp could have taken you out from the darkness.
2. Going back for a keychain light - wastes time and makes you a target, just like a cigarette in the dark.
3. Not replacing your batteries.

Counting on 911 to save your loved ones: questionable.

No one getting hurt in the end: priceless. :)
 
+1 on jason10mm- I had a problem with the "random" knocking and attempted entries at night until I got the motion sensing floods and my problem went away. Also, I wouldn't recommend actually pulling the pistol unless you have a real situation- as alluded to the BG could have ambushed you out of the dark. Also, I would have called 911 myself and indicated the situation AND described what I looked like and was wearing in case the call was really answered as promptly as we'd all like it to be...

And yes, the adrenal dump does leave you with the shakes- That is a natural reaction and nothing is wrong with it.
 
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