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Man Stops Rioters With Sound of Shotgun Being Racked

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Bartholomew Roberts

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As often as I hear that good old' Internet gun forum bit about "Just rack the shotgun and the badguys will run screaming," I thought it was kind of funny that this man actually did stop a rioting mob in Oakland in exactly that way.

According to the San Francisco Gate Phil Tagami was the developer working on the renovation of the Rotunda Building in downtown Oakland. As he was working, protesters from the OWS Oakland movement started spray painting graffitti on the outside of the building. Eventually they attempted to break into the building. Tagami stood in the lobby and brought out a 12ga shotgun and racked a round into it without pointing it at anyone and the protesters dispersed posthaste.

On a side note, the Oakland Men's Warehouse had put up signs of support for the protest and closed in solidarity with the protests. The protesters smashed the windows at the store and spray painted it with graffitti.
 
I think there are plenty of anecdotes both "for" and "against" the efficacy of racking a shotgun slide as a deterrent.
That said...
I was at a gathering back in September and a new shotgun was being passed around for people to examine. Every time someone racked the action, it definitely made my head turn.
When I bought my first pump shotgun, a Mossberg 500, I practiced handling it with AZOOM dummy rounds. The first few times I worked the slide, my pulse quickened a bit, even though I was the person making the sound!
 
Those must have been very quiet rioters, if they could all hear the shotgun being racked?
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Maybe they were mute or mime rioters, especially since he was inside the building and they were outside, presumably separated by glass.
 
I was thinking the same thing. That might be a loud sound in the dark of the night, but under those conditions it was almost certainly the presence and mindset of the man standing in the doorway that "spoke" clearly.
 
There are more than a few cases where gun owner has their gun taken away from them by the BG. I'll leave the whole idea of deescalating a situation by brandishing a firearm to LEO's. I was always taught the first time a BG should know that you have a gun is after the have been shot by it.
 
Those must have been very quiet rioters, if they could all hear the shotgun being racked?
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Maybe they were mute or mime rioters, especially since he was inside the building and they were outside, presumably separated by glass.
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If you read the article, you would have understood that the mob was able to see the shotgun being racked.

article excerpt:
"I was standing there and they saw me there, and I lifted it - I didn't point it - I just held it in my hands," Tagami said. "And I just racked it, and they ran."
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If you read the article, you would have understood that the mob was able to see the shotgun being racked.
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I read the title of the thread that said the rioters were stopped by the sound.
 
I for one, have learned from action movies that guns aren't dangerous, and the people holding them are not serious, until slides are racked or hammers are cocked.
 
I for one, have learned from action movies that guns aren't dangerous, and the people holding them are not serious, until slides are racked or hammers are cocked.
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Most such movies that I've seen seem to treat racking the slide as a way of adding extra power or something (and pumps aren't good for very long - if you pump the gun and don't immediately fire it it'll need a refresher pump soon).

I was watching one just a few weeks ago (it was the remake of "The Amityville Horror") and watched one character pump the gun twice before taking a shot. Then, after taking that shot, he fired the next one without pumping the gun again . . . :confused:
 
Doesn't california have a "duty to retreat?" What would have happened to this man if he had actually shot someone?

Those are two separate questions. Re the second question, would he have been prosecuted for a criminal offense? Also, would he have been sued in a civil trial?
 
The OP also provided the link and the excerpt itself....
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And nothing in the article mentioned anything about sound.

"I was standing there and they saw me there, and I lifted it - I didn't point it - I just held it in my hands," Tagami said. "And I just racked it, and they ran."
Click to expand...

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/03/BACM1LQ5FU.DTL#ixzz1cka6O2pp

It was a visual display, not auditory. The rioters were outside and the developer was outside.
 
Some sounds have a way of piercing background noise. That's why the referee's whistle was invented.

Regarding our ability to discern the sound of a racking shotgun through ambient noise, maybe the eye picks up the associated motion in its peripheral range and sends a signal via the brain to the ear, allowing us to "hear" a sound that we should not be able to hear.
 
What would Dirty Harry do?

I keep my home defense shotgun already racked and ready to go. Which might, I suppose, lead to this:

I know what you're thinking: "Did he rack that shotgun? Is there a round already chambered and ready to fire, or not?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But seeing as how this is a 12-gauge pump shotgun, one of the most devastating and effective close-range anti-personnel weapons ever devised, and would blow a hole in your chest big enough to let daylight through, you just have to ask yourself, "Do I feel lucky today?"
 
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