There needs to be a 5 second rule for self defense shootings.  I'm serious.

"Your honor, my last shot may not have been justified but I'm going to invoke the 5 second rule here."

Hell, just put a bed on the truck and it'll vanish into the cloud like Jack Reacher putting on a ball hat.

btt

Three 'S's.

Shoot.
Shuffle off.
Shut up.

God, that first comment...

This is what I was thinking of

Not a crime in a clearcut case like this.   Fuck the dead holdup guy.   Good riddance

Two different news channels interview lawyers. Both lawyers say the same thing.
Fake gun or real gun makes no difference.
Justified to fire the first shot then you are justified to continue shooting until you are sure the threat is neutralized.
Not legally required to remain on the scene.
One of the lawyers said he is confident that no charges will be filed.

All great news

Hope this isn’t a repost, I skimmed the last two pages… local news is reporting that HPD has been contacted by the shooters attorney and is arranging to talk.

Translation - waiting to see which ways the wind blows.

Does the grievance industry make a big deal of this case, with lots of pictures of the armed robber when he was 6 year old?  Do they say he loved music, and was working towards going back to school - if his parole officer OK'ed it?  Or was the robber such a sack of shit with outstanding warrants, prison time, etc., that no one wants to try to get money off his dead body?

The victim of the armed robbery - is he a hard or soft target for the system, which would send someone they knew to be innocent to prison for life in return for a promotion (cop or ADA), or 2 extra percent at the next election (DA).  Does he have a solid background and record?  Family man with a good job?  Good attorney who's working for him?  No political views that can be used to typecast him as a "meanie"?  If so, then there's little incentive for the DA to make a big deal of this either.

Always remember when you use deadly force, you'll have two enemies to deal with and conquer.  First will be the criminal.  Next will be the Criminal Justice System.  Both will destroy you for the slightest personal gain.  Be as ready for the second battle as you are the first.

Nobody jumped when Han shot first either. Tells you what kinda joint that is.

Yeah, governments decided they have to control everything (i.e. anything not regulated by government is "out of control"; anything "out of control" is dangerous).

That's the truck of a man who has pretty much had all the bullshit that he's willing to put up with...

That's kind of a bad shoot. Especially with the final shot AFTER he grabbed the gun. Then, not sticking around for LE.
Hope he has a good lawyer and a sympathetic jury.

To quote a very prominent member of the community... Don't start no shit won't be no shit. Fuck that guy. Anchors away.

Attached File

I already said I didn't care about it.  Calm down Francis

The law pretty much everywhere requires that your actions be reasonable and necessary.

Reasonable meaning, would a "reasonable" person perceive what you did in the same way and take the same actions? In theory that's a legal standard. In practice that means "Would a judge and jury believe the same thing you did and then do the same thing you did, or at least see that you did it for a good reason?"

Reasonable and necessary do not require being right.

This is something that confuses people mightily.

If you make a mistake in fact in a moment of extreme duress, it doesn't make the actions you took wrong.

Is it reasonable to look at that video and conclude that the dead guy was attempting to commit a violent felony? Absolutely. He was committing armed robbery. He's using the threat of lethal force to criminally deprive people of their property.

That his gun turns out to be fake when examined by a detective or police crime lab is irrelevant. The people having the "gun" pointed at them are unlikely to have been able to perceive that the gun was fake. There's a brief video clip that I assume was done for the humor where a kid with Down's Syndrome pulls out a brightly colored super soaker and gestures at a cashier with it to hand over some money. No reasonable person seeing that would think an actual robbery is taking place because the "weapon" at issue is very clearly not a real firearm even at the most brief glance. But from what we see in the video footage the "gun" used by the robber here looks real enough. His behavior with the "gun" certainly matched what one would expect from someone using a real gun. And in the moment under the surprise and stress of the situation with him gesturing wildly around the room with the gun, it would be unreasonable to expect that the patrons being robbed would be able to see that it wasn't a real gun.

I know situations where very well trained people have stopped short of shooting someone because they recognized the gun was fake...but that was only possible because they were in situations with excellent lighting and there was some distinctive feature of the bad guy's "gun" that made them stop for just a split second and look harder. A good example is this Crossman air gun:



I know three police officers who were on the precipice of shooting someone when they recognized that the "gun" the other guy was holding had that odd shape at the back. They knew guns pretty well and they knew 1911's and they knew the shape wasn't quite right for it to be a real 1911. Had they been in poorer lighting or had less of a clear look at the thing in the guy's hand, they'd have shot.

If they had fired, their action would have been reasonable.

If someone is trying to take something that isn't a gun but looks a lot like one and acting as if it is actually a gun, it is reasonable to perceive that as a lethal threat and react accordingly. In every state I'm aware of there are statutes that cover threatening people with things that can reasonably be perceived as weapons even if they turn out not to be, and the penalties are pretty much consistent with what aggravated assault using a real weapon would be. Point being that putting someone in terror of their life is putting someone in terror of their life regardless of whether or not the object used to create that terror turns out to be a real gun or have a real stabbing edge on it.

So the law does not require you to be absolutely accurate in all your perceptions. If the "gun" in question turns out to be fake, it doesn't make your actions in response to someone using that inert hunk of plastic like a gun unreasonable.

So then it comes down to whether or not your actions in response to that threat were necessary to protect you from the harm being threatened.

I can argue necessary for the first volley of shots...even though dude's background wasn't clear and it was pretty damn risky. The second volley of shots are less necessary. But I can still argue justification for them. That last one? Can't argue necessary there.

Officer I was so nervous that I accidently touched the trigger.

That isn't remotely accurate.

To present a self defense claim, you have to articulate a justification.

To not present a self defense claim in this particular case, the individual in the video would have to argue that the person in the video isn't him.

Self defense is an affirmative defense. It means you are saying "Yeah, I shot that guy but I had a good reason." Your lawyer may make that case in court without putting you on the stand, but your side will have to present evidence of self defense including some form of articulation for why you did it.

If you think you can claim self defense and then not say anything, you're wrong. You have to present a case for self defense.

Has anyone ID'ed the dearly departed?  Did he have an arrest record a mile long?

Yes, that's the law.

The law allows for the use of lethal force to change someone's behavior when said behavior poses a reasonable threat of death or grave injury to you or other innocent parties.

If they die as a result of their behavior being changed, that's just the breaks.

But that does not allow citizens or police officers to just kill people.



You are speaking of punishment.

The law does not allow you to punish people. The law does not allow police officers to punish people. The courts decide guilt and innocence and punishment as governed by the constitution's restrictions.

The law doesn't allow you to kill someone for wrong doing any more than it allows you to tie them to a chair and gouge out their eyes. For the exact same reasons.



It actually was in several famous instances. The Earp clan, for instance, got in actual legal jeopardy and faced trials because of some of their uses of force. Some of them legal, some of them not so much.

Contrary to popular belief, you couldn't just roam the country killing people even in the Old West.

The criminal justice system has always been really bad at putting genuine shitbirds behind bars. But prosecuting "vigilante justice" is much easier and generally more important to the authorities because of what happens when that goes to extremes.

The United States is one of the rare places in the world where the state does not have the exclusive right to use lethal violence. But that doesn't mean it can be used willy nilly by the citizenry.

That is not how it works.

It's SOP to not release the identity of a criminal until BLM has been notified.

Potentially, murder. Manslaughter possible.

If you go into a morgue and shoot an autopsied corpse laying on a table that's not the same thing as shooting someone who is still bleeding.

The guy may have been dealt a completely un-survivable wound in the initial volley. He may have been legally dead when the last shot was fired...but no doctor on the scene pronounced him as such.

What a prosecutor will do is use your actions after the first fatal wound was dealt to deconstruct your self defense claim and use them to argue that your intention all along was to kill someone the first time you got a chance to do it.

It turns a legitimate self defense claim into manslaughter or murder.

I've seen that argument, too.

And it may actually be true...but it's going to be his word on that and his actions up to that point and after the fact make it much harder to argue AD.

People who say Mas Ayoob is a complete dipshit with his statements about modified triggers should pay very careful attention if this is argued to be an AD because this is exactly the sort of case where that is going to be an issue if the gun was modified from factory setup.

Leaving the scene of a legitimate self defense shooting is a bad idea unless the conditions are really too dangerous to stay.

It is used to show "consciousness of guilt", or at least used to argue for such by prosecutors.

Theory being a person who believed they were right would naturally contact the authorities and explain their actions. Someone who knew they were wrong would flee the scene and hide. Juries believe that.

Food looked pretty good.  Going to have to stop in there. Notice the shooter was facing the door.

That area at one time was nice and then bad and probably headed to better times.  But it is an area where you watch everything at every light or stop and watch who is around you.  I would not be there at that time of night.

Ultimately those are things that have to be argued to a jury or a judge. And they have to believe it.

That's going to take a lot of time in court, which means a whole lot more time before court. And it's going to require expert witnesses.

And they still might not believe it because the other side gets to do the same. And they don't have a limited budget.

Lawyers on TV were interviewed about Kyle Rittenhouse, too...and they didn't even get it close.

Lawyers on TV are usually not people who actually have any familiarity with self defense law and haven't tried self defense cases.

Lawful self defense is a narrow specialty that very few lawyers actually understand.

Your Miranda warning says you can.

I'll happily argue it was just. The legal system can say what it wants to but if I'm on the jury That's a good shoot all day long. Fuck robbers and armed robbers. The cops can't and won't do anything to stop it and it's unreasonable to expect everyone to spend time and money to get "enough" legal education, although I'm sure the legal industry would love that. It's also unreasonable to expect people to cower in the presence of armed robbers for fear of crossing some bullshit legal industry rule.

Jalisco New Generation Cartel Sicarios.

My opinion, which is worth fuck all, is that the last shot means he’ll go to court if he’s ID’d. I think he’ll stand a good chance of beating the rap though, and I hope he does.

That's the way it used to be. Now, cops are useless and the legal system is a threat.


When a drug dealer pulled a gun on me I was able to drive off. I called 911 and maintained visual from a distance and the dispatcher said "next time, call sooner" and ended the call even though I had an active location of the guy.


Cases like this are why it's so important to not skip jury duty.

That's not how it works there. Maybe in Virginia

There actually needs to be less rules, or even better, no rules.

Some rules are just and good. Outlaw used to mean something that had consequences.

The law is an ass.

Add in selective prosecution by DA’s and you have the rule of law essentially dead.

All of that is a statement of opinion.

If jurors feel the same way, it's essentially an extra-legal "he fucking deserved it" ruling. Which juries can do. But it's a really, really dangerous thing to bet on.



The law presumes that anyone who has adopted the responsibility of arming themselves has also adopted the responsibility for knowing how to use the weapon they picked up within the boundaries of the law. It expects people to use a lethal weapon as a last resort, and only so long as there is an active threat being pressed. It then expects you to stop using force when the threat of force from the other side is over.

The law presumes that a reasonable man is interested in stopping a threat, not killing someone.



That's not the expectation.

Nobody is arguing this man should have sat there meekly and taken it.

He was justified in shooting to stop that armed robber. The first volley of shots is perfectly justified...albeit riskier than necessary perhaps due to background concerns. And I can even argue that most of the second volley of shots after the bad guy goes down are justifiable given the human dynamics involved.

But the last shot? Expecting that last shot not to happen is not expecting the man to "cower in the presence of armed robbers." That last shot exceeds the boundaries of lawful self defense in almost every jurisdiction in the nation. If it's not prosecuted here it's more than likely a judgement call by the prosecutors moreso than because it's a lawful action.

There is a vast gulf between saying that some of the force used here was excessive and arguing for no use of force whatsoever.



I'd say not standing over top of someone and blasting them at point blank when they are showing no signs of being able to continue hostilities isn't exactly some sort of "bullshit legal industry" rule. Avoiding that seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Emotionally driven rationalization of actions are not helpful because if you tell yourself that everything here was on the up and up and any argument to the contrary is bullshit, you are setting yourself up to do the exact same thing if it's your turn at bat.

A shooting in self defense can be one of the most emotionally intense experiences any human being can experience. In the moment you may be processing terror or the most savage anger you have ever experienced in your life. And in that moment you are abso-fucking-lutely going to have to be concerned when when you should stop.

I've met some people who can use lethal force without emotional impact in the moment. Without exception it's because they've done a lot of it as a professional warrior. And even then every incident where they killed somebody wasn't free of emotional content. For average Joe or Jane or your typical police officer, they aren't going to be in enough shootings to necessarily be strictly rational in the moment. The predominate emotional state we see in police lapel cams is fear. But if you look at enough of them you'll see anger manifest now and then, too. Neither can be allowed to dictate actions either for the best tactical outcome OR for the best legal outcome.

The purpose of training is to try and keep someone in their rational mind and out of their amygdala so they can process information, read, and react appropriately.

That's the smartest move for survival. And it's what the law essentially requires.

I've had the chance to talk to literally dozens of people involved in lethal force incidents over the years ranging from ordinary Joes protecting themselves to people in counterterrorism units who have personally dropped the hammer on another human being literally hundreds of times. Most of them were faced with situations where they had to judge what "enough" force was and it was an overriding concern in the most dire moments. There's no way around that...at least not if you are a good guy.

If we're talking about sociopaths with no financial, social, moral, societal, spiritual, or relational price to pay for crossing the line then that's a completely different conversation.

Are you inferring you are a lawyer and know best?  Are you licensed to practice in Texas?

Cops have always been mostly useless from a personal defense perspective and the legal system has never been a friend to anyone caught up in it, save perhaps for the worst actors in society who find lenience in the eyes of jurists. Prosecutors will cut deals with murderers and drug dealers (same thing, really) and go to absurd lengths to hammer some innocent citizen who thought that not being a shithead meant the system worked for him.

It's always been that way.

The same government that surveilled MLK and tried to shut him down protected smuggling and child prostitution activities of organized criminals like Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano. Judges got appointed based on how much money they could pay, even when that money came from organized crime.

The system has never been fair because life isn't.

None of that changes the realities of dealing with it.



I was the intended victim of a robbery attempt.

The constabulary did dick shit because the robbery was not actually completed since I started a draw stroke.

Hell, a couple of years ago I was actually shot at and the local constabulary didn't give a rat's ass about that. They would have had a hell of a lot of concern had I shot back, though.

Is this insulting? Absolutely.

Is it remotely useful in structuring my approach to self defense? Fuck no.



If you have any knowledge whatsoever about self defense, you won't end up on a jury hearing a self defense case.

I'll never be on a jury because there isn't a lawyer or judge anywhere  in the nation that wants me messing up their trial by bringing my own knowledge and judgment based on training and experience to the table. They want me to have nothing to go on but the judge-approved narratives told by the two attorneys in the case. They don't want me fucking any of that up with my own logic and understanding.