What would you do?

[Cornbred]

With all the what if senarios I have read on this sight I thought I might post one of my own.

One night after the final showing of (insert movie name here) you are walking to your car and you observe a commotion by a vehicle, there is a man and a women fighting. As you get closer you observe the woman with clothes half torn off and a man straddling her. They are fighting over what appears to be a knife. She is screaming for him to stop, and to get off. He isn't listening and is definately getting the upper hand. (press pause) What do you do. Do you get involved or not. (press play) At this point you about 20 yards away. You decide to pull your weapon. You order the man to get off the woman. The man pays no attention to you and continues wrestling over the knife with her. What do you do next?

 

[duns]

Well, if you shoot the guy, you may find the woman sues you for killing/injuring her husband and the father of her children.

If you try to pull him off, she might take the opportunity to put the knife in him and you might have assisted in a murder. You can't be sure that she was the victim and not the aggressor.

I think I might reholster my gun and try to take the knife away from both of them.

 

[DFW1911]

I'd put my Fenix on fast strobe, highlight them, and start issuing questions to interrupt the "event" to see if I can sort out what the *ell was going on.

I'd either interrupt a fantasy-in-progress or a crime-in-progress.

Don't underestimate what shedding light and projecting noise onto a situation can do.

Bad guys typically hate light, noise, and time.

Good question.

DFW1911

 

[JoeSlomo]

Intervene.

The thought of allowing some dirtbag to knife some chick to death would be more severe than a legal fight if I was wrong. The scenario would lead a reasonable person to believe that the female was in danger of death or great bodily injury, and that would be enough to make a case for the use of deadly force if it came to that imo.

 

[Oyeboten]

I agree with DFW1911...


Also, for all one knows, the Man is trying to prevent her from killing herself, or, trying to disarm her for her attempt to kill him, or, he intervened on her knifing her Kid or someone else not visible, or, who knows? But, where, he is the so-to-speak innocent or 'Good Guy' party.

 

[ilikepancakes]

You have many options. Your foot is one. Kick him in the face (okay that could be lethal). So kick him in the arm instead. Kick him in the ribs. Kick the knife out of their hands and then kick it across the parking lot. Kicking people usually gets their attention when words don't. Also its less heavy legally than shooting in the event that you're wrong.

Oh, and the movie would be Dirty Harry.

 

[Uncle Billy]

Call 911 on your cell phone, mention that deadly weapons are involved, tell the combatants that the cops are on their way with weapons drawn, see whatever you can so as to be a credible witness- take pictures with your cell phone if you can, etc., and let them know that's what you're doing. If this turns the attention of one of them to you and YOU become the target of an assault, then you're in a self-defense situation for which there is legal shelter for you, if local law provides it.

Don't shoot, don't get physically involved, unless you know a lot more than the OP gave you of who the combatants are and what's happening, and that knowledge makes the situation crystal clear and irrefutable, and objective reasoning concludes that you would be within the law to intervene- lots of luck on that one even if you know every detail.

You can stop an attack on someone else by becoming the target of the attack yourself, which puts you on much more favorable legal grounds than intervening. You must cause the attacker to switch his or her attentions to you by saying something or doing something that's not an assault on him, but causes him to attack you- he must instigate the assault on you before it becomes self defense. Your obvious witness to who the people are and what they're doing leave the assaulter three choices- ignore you and go on with what they were doing, leaving you free to be a well-informed witness against them when the cops arrive; ceasing and running away, possibly leaving you with enough evidence to get him or her arrested and convicted; or going after you as a witness to prevent you from testifying. Your actions have either ended the original assault, or provided a credible witness for the conviction of the who is guilty of assault .

The only other reasonable choice seems to me to be staying out of it completely.

 

[bikerdoc]

These "what would you do threads" are good to get people thinking about every day things they might encounter. What is lacking is specifics and variables.
I think we all need a thought process, or mind set that is applicable to out of the ordinary encounters.
By way of example, a few yrs ago we went to dinner with another couple and encountered the same situation in the parking lot.
Wife called 911
Me and my buddy went over and told him to stop.
He stopped and turned his mouthy ire to us
We told him "feel freoggy -take a leap"
He continued to mouth us until cops arrived.
We told the cops what we saw and he had a warrant outstanding and went to jail.

See the point.
911
Verbal command to stop
ready to engage, but keep him talking
Ready to escalate to next level of force.

Notice no guns drawn ( although we we both armed)

Just my thoughts, YMMV

 

[Odd Job]

Agree with Uncle Billy.

 

[uspJ]

duns brought up an exellent point in post#2

this could easily be a domestic violence situation, often when someone tries to intervene they are attacked by both combatants.

i think my course of action would be to
1. call 911
2. yell for them to stop and inform them that LE is on its way.
3. yell for help/ try to get attention of passing people to help assist you should things escalate.

 

[zachw2009]

-i would get a tad closer and make another verbal command
-if still ignoring id have to engage
-wouldnt use my weapon unless he had complete control of the knife
-and after he is contained id call 911

 

[CoRoMo]

Calling 911 would happen first, maybe simultaneously to loud verbal commands. You want to be the first person calling the cops, not the second or third. If you go 'engaging' the perp, do whatever you have to in order to 'contain' him, just to find the gal calling the cops on you for assaulting her man.

 

[Mad Chemist]

A few thoughts:
Two people do not wrestle for a blade without one or both of them getting cut.

Blood is slippery.

It would become very obvious very quickly who is intending to do harm to whom.

If it is the male attacking the female with the knife the solution is simplified, he now is a target for whatever tool you can bring to bear without harming the victim. The reason for this is the issue of disparity of force. A smaller female facing attack from a larger, stronger male would be justified in producing a knife to defend herself. A larger stronger subject would not be justified in using a knife to repel a smaller weaker attacker such as a female domestic violence scenario for example.

Someone will certainly try to argue the possibility that the male is attempting to disarm the female. And I will counter that if the male has positional dominance ("...a man straddling her." , " "...She is screaming for him to stop, and to get off. He isn't listening and is definately getting the upper hand.") his intention will become clear as you close the gap. If he is trying to push the blade toward the female rather than trying to rotate it or press it to the ground then you have a green light to light him up.

If possible I'd try to approach from behind the attacker and give him a good shot to the grape with an impact weapon if I had one available at the time. Otherwise I'm looking for the best available trajectory to make a shot while giving him the order to disengage and get on the ground.

 

[Spencer_OKC]

you are walking to your car and you observe a commotion by a vehicle, there is a man and a women fighting. As you get closer you observe the woman with clothes half torn off and a man straddling her. They are fighting over what appears to be a knife. She is screaming for him to stop, and to get off. He isn't listening and is definately getting the upper hand. (press pause) What do you do. Do you get involved or not.

Yes, I would get involved.

(press play) At this point you about 20 yards away. You decide to pull your weapon. You order the man to get off the woman. The man pays no attention to you and continues wrestling over the knife with her. What do you do next?

There is immediate life or death exigency in this scenario. I would continue to close ground while issuing verbal commands. After closing ground, if the threat was still immediate and life threatening, I feel I would be justified with shooting Mr. Attacker in the head. I am not fighting anyone over a knife, and I am not watching someone get stabbed to death.

 

[wishin]

911
Verbal command to stop
ready to engage, but keep him talking
Ready to escalate to next level of force.

+1 Good approach!

 

[RyanM]

If it is the male attacking the female with the knife the solution is simplified, he now is a target for whatever tool you can bring to bear without harming the victim. The reason for this is the issue of disparity of force. A smaller female facing attack from a larger, stronger male would be justified in producing a knife to defend herself. A larger stronger subject would not be justified in using a knife to repel a smaller weaker attacker such as a female domestic violence scenario for example.

Still isn't clear cut, not one bit. What if the woman is the real aggressor and was originally armed with a gun, which is now behind some bushes? And now she's trying to draw another gun, which the man can see but you can't.

If there was actually that large a disparity of force, guy with a knife attacking a smaller unarmed woman, the woman would most likely be dead by the time you ran 20 yards.

 

[navyretired 1]

This is a dirty one, definitly go to #1 weapon (cell phone) 911 and camera. Scream loud LEO called I have a gun, stop NOW, and drop the knife or i'll shoot. And I mean loud.
You can't stand and watch (while armed) a person killed and that is justifiable use of deadly force in all states I'm aware of.
You don't have any evidence who the attacker is but you know who is trying stab who, but I agree if you can seperate them you must watch all three. 1. Him, 2. Her and 3. I'm serious the knife.
Witnesses are easy, keeping them around when the actions over isn't. Get names if possible enlist help watching the couple will keep some around.

 

[Mad Chemist]

Still isn't clear cut, not one bit. What if the woman is the real aggressor and was originally armed with a gun, which is now behind some bushes? And now she's trying to draw another gun, which the man can see but you can't.

What if Goofy really is a dog...then what about Pluto?


You should read the second half of my post instead of cherry picking that single paragraph.

In the real world you usually don't know with absolute certainty what is true until after the time for necessary action has passed.
I do the best I can, which is apply Occam's Razor and act accordingly.

 

[mljdeckard]

Oh, how original. We've never done this before.:banghead:

You have the order wrong.

Go ahead and yell. Call the police. Attract attention.

DO NOT EVER pull your gun BEFORE you have decided what you are going to do with it. EVER.

If you start killing people before you KNOW what's going on, you are going to jail. You don't pull your gun and start taking care of business when you DON'T know everyone and everything involved. It's hard enough to defend yourself in a defensive shooting when you DO know all the circumstances. Now you are trying to explain what was going on in the heads of two total strangers. You can kill that guy and she might pop up her head and yell at you for spoiling fantasy night. Or she WAS being raped and now she's so traumatized she won't say anything at all to back up your side of the story, or worse yet, she lies because she doesn't want to explain how she was raped.

I have a VERY short list of third parties whom I would use deadly force to protect. Mostly close friends and family who also carry and we have cross-trained on each others' guns. I have family members who are NOT on this list, because they live their lives in a way that makes it impossible for me to know that they aren't the CAUSE of the trouble I have just found them in.

Don't draw your gun if you don't plan on using it. Don't plan on using it if you don't know what's going on. Yell, assist, take pictures, call the police, DO NOT PULL YOUR GUN.

 

[grubbylabs]

I think Uncle Billy has the right Idea. Get help coming as soon as possible. You just never know what is really going on. You have no Idea who the real aggressor is or if the woman is going to get defensive once he is threatened as often happens. When going into an emergency the most important thing is scene safety, meaning yours. Keep your self and your friends family or what ever safe first. Then worry about the others. If you are not trained to handle the situation then don't. You could wind up in more trouble than you really need. You have to ask your self when attempting to render aid. Are these people and this situation really worth loosing my family.

 

[KAK]

Walk away and call the cops. She should have protecter herself with a CHL.

 

[navyretired 1]

All training scenerios are situation based: anyone who thinks a weapon should be drawn without a clear willingness of using if necessary is not firmly attached to reality.
No one can be so numb as to watch this action without becoming involved, as a witness in court they would be torn appart especially if they are legally armed and just watch which could actually be criminally neglegent. With the right to carry comes a obligation to protect others from deadly acts as well as himself. I think the wording in most states is something like "justifiable deadly force can be used only if you, your family or another person is in immenent danger of deadly force.
The thought of grabbing the attacker by hair is insane, with a 2 1/2" blade in femoral artery your a dead goose in seconds rather than minutes. Even if you shoot into his side he has a better chance of survival. This what if is just as likely as "she might be the aggressor". Several have suggested she Might be the original aggressor I say she might be from the moon. Maybe but you have no way of knowing that and all indications are she's not.
The mind is the true weapon alway's, are you ready to accept the responsibility of an armed protector, because thats what a concealed carry permit is for. It is not for the shootout at the OK corral as some CCW's seem to be preparing for.
If you change the scenerio from "You saw a man and a woman" to You saw a man and your Wife" would you be as hesitant to entervene.
I've been cut twice and shot once. When someone says shot I think ouch, but when they say cut I cringe and shudder.
From experience I can tell you there is no right answer in a training scenerio only is your answer justified.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Folks,

This is a made-up scenario posted on the Internet.

It isn't real life.

There is NO NEED for the kind of attitude reflected in the posts I just deleted which are responsible for getting this thread closed. No need whatsoever.

IF we cannot manage to keep ourselves oriented and behave properly here, we can simply stop doing "what if" scenarios completely...

lpl