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Had to pull my weapon...

juju151

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Had to pull my weapon one time, in 18 years of carrying…

Hello all...I'm new here, and enjoythis site very much...lots of good info!

I posted this over on the GlockTalk and GeorgiaPacking site, but thought I would post it here as well. This is all completely true…and this is exactly what happened to me on the only night I’ve ever had to pull my weapon for defense.And yeah, it's a long story...

I've lived in the Altanta area all of my life...and grew up in the suburbs of the southside. The area started going down hill pretty fast not long after I graduated High School. This happened when I was about 23, which was in the early-90’s…I was going out with a girl that I had recently met…it was our first date...and we were going to the show. The theater had two parking lots…one right in front of the theater and one over to the side, and the parking lot to the side was actually down a hill and pretty isolated from the main lot. At the time, my first wife and I were separated and I had about a week or two to go before the divorce was final. High School sweetheart, married to young, no kids, easy divorce, long story, won’t go there…Anyway…

I was meeting this girl at the theater, we didn’t ride together on the date…and when I arrived, I decided to park in the bottom parking lot. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but just in case my soon-to-be Ex was riding around and saw my Jeep, and since the divorce wasn’t quite final, I didn’t want her to start anything with me about me being out with someone.

The bottom parking lot was totally empty and not very well lit...and it was a pretty good sized parking lot. The parking lot was bordered by woods on two sides, a big hill leading up to the theater on one side, and the rear of some stores on the front side. There was a big double concrete stairway leading from this lot, up to the theater. From the bottom lot you could only see the roof of the theater, so it was pretty isolated…but at the time, I wasn’t thinking about personal threat…I was thinking about the first date. So I pulled up and told my date that I was going to park in the lower lot, (she knew why), and I would be right up.

I drove down to the bottom lot and pulled up just to the right of the big staircase leading up to the theater. I was the only one parked in the bottom lot. It was winter, and cold…so I was getting my stuff together and turned around to get my heavy coat from the back seat, when I noticed someone running across the parking lot from the farthest wooded side. It was dark, but there was enough light to see that he was running with a purpose and coming right toward my Jeep. At first I thought maybe he was just going to run right up the steps toward the theater, but he seemed to be coming directly at my Jeep.

I had my 92F in the console, holstered, and immediately reached in and grabbed it…turned around in my seat and watched him in the rear view mirror. I could see no weapons or anything in his hands, but as he got closer, I could see he was wearing something that looked like a fanny pack on his front side. I reached down with my left hand and locked the door and slid the window open enough to take a shot if needed, while holding the 92F in my right. I thought maybe he will just pass my Jeep up and run right up the steps, but he didn’t, he made a B-line right for the back of my jeep. At this point my adrenaline was pumping pretty good, and he runs up to the side of my Jeep and tries to yank the door open. Luckily, since it was winter, I had the hard top on my Jeep with door locks. The whole time I’m checking him out to see if he has a weapon in his hands, and lucky for him, he didn’t.

My ACME hard top had side-sliding windows, which only opened about 6-8 inches and slid open toward the front, so the rear of the window would be open...and I had opened the window just a couple of inches. So there we were, almost face to face…he was a black male, in his mid to late 20’s, about 6' tall and around 200lbs…and definitely on an unknown mission of no good. I'm 6' tall and 175-180lbs...so he wasn't much bigger than me, but I wasn't about to get out and try and fight with this lunatic.

All of this happened much faster than it sounds here in my post, and I was pretty scared at this point, and all this stuff was running through my mind…you know, “Am I going to have to kill this guy?”…”Am I going to go to jail for the rest of my life?”…”I can’t shoot him because he doesn’t have a weapon in his hand, but if I don’t he will might shoot me with my own gun”…etc, etc. My mind was overdosing on adrenaline and I wasn’t sure what to do…

Back then, I always carried with a full mag, but empty chamber, just for safety. I had practiced a lot and trained myself to pull the pistol, chamber a round, and aim all in one motion. I was NO “Quick-Draw McGraw”, but I am like a lot of you here and I am ALWAYS aware of my surroundings…so I always figured that if I couldn’t identify a threat with enough time to chamber a round, I might as well not pull it to begin with.

And like I said, this all happened a lot quicker than it sounds…and the whole confrontation only lasted about 30-60 seconds, start to finish. So sorry for rambling on and on. Anyway…I was holding the door handle with my left hand and still holding the Beretta in my right hand, down in my lap, pointed toward the door, of course…but it was dark and he still had not seen the pistol. He reached up and slid my window all the way open, which like I said, was only about 6-8 inches…but when he did that, I pulled up on the door lock, and pushed down on the door handle, while I leaned over to the right, putting my foot against the door, and I kicked it open as hard as I could. It only opened up about a foot, because that’s how far his face was from the door. Oh yeah, that pissed him off!!!

He stumbled back a couple of steps, and I pushed the door all the way open with my foot…and on the jeep, it would swing all the way open against the side mirrors, almost against the front fender. So my door was WIDE OPEN, and he drew his fist back and started toward me, about to punch me right in the face...and I am still in the driver's seat, so in one motion, I chambered a round on the 92F and assumed the firing position from where I sat. I've never seen anyone stop in mid-swing like that, but he did! The sound of the round being chambered and the sight of the business end of the Beretta froze him in his tracks for a couple of seconds...well except for his eyes getting as big as cue balls. So for a couple of seconds he just stood there, frozen and wide-eyed, with his nose a little more than a foot from the barrel of my pistol. And yeah, at that moment, I was probably more scared than he was...because there I was pointing a gun to someone's face, cocked and locked, safety off and ready to pull the trigger. My life could have turned out a WHOLE lot different if it had went down differently, but I got lucky...

So, I guess it got his attention and he saw that I wasn't playing around...and he stepped back away from me and threw his hands up...and started saying, "Just be cool man, just be cool!!!". I immediately jumped out of the Jeep, still keeping the gun pointed at his face...and I said, "What are you going to do?, What's your problem?". He stayed facing me, and kept backing up toward the stairway, and I stayed right with him all the way to the stairs, and the whole time, he kept saying the same thing..."Just be cool man, just be cool!!!". When he got to the stairs, he turned and RAN up toward the theater.

I lowered the gun and just stood there for a second, trying to get my "adrenaline rush" under control, and wondering what in the HELL just happened!!! I turned around and walked back to my Jeep, de-cocked and holstered my pistol, slid the holster in the waistband of my pants, put on my jacket, locked my jeep, and started walking up the stairs toward the theater. This happened before cell phones were common, and I didn't have one. But I was going to go up to the theater and call the police and report what had happened. It's a pretty long stairway with a landing about half-way up, and I was almost to the landing when he came over the top of the stairs with a Clayton County Police Officer that must have been on duty at the theater...followed by a crowd of about 20 other people...including my DATE! And you'll never guess what the guy did then??? (NO LIE), the guy points down at me, and yells at the top of his lungs, "THERE HE IS...HE'S GOT A GUN!!!!!!!, HE'S GOT A GUN!!!!!!!!!!!" And I'm thinking...WTF is going on here!!!!

I continued up a few more steps, to the landing in the middle of the stairway, stopped, and kept both of my hands visible and on the railing. The Officer calmly walks down the stairs with the guy right behind him, and the whole time, the guy is ranting and raving, saying all kinds of stuff. The Officer comes down to the landing and says to me, "What's the problem here son?". So, I told him, "I don't know what's going on here Officer??? I was coming to the show, and when I parked, I see this guy running across the parking lot toward my jeep...he comes up and tries to yank my door open...I grabbed my pistol out of the console...I opened my door and he draws back to punch me in the head...I chamber a round on my pistol...and he runs off like a scared rabbit???" Then the guy yells, "He stuck that gun right in my face!!!" So, when he says that, I'm THINKING..."Yep, I'm going to jail for this, and I didn't do ANYTHING WRONG!!!"...

I usually tell it like it is, and all of my friends will verify that fact! Lying is something that I don’t do…and that’s probably because, there isn’t anything in my life that I NEED to lie about. But at this point, I’m thinking that there’s nothing else that could be said…So I say, "Officer, I didn't point the weapon at him, I kept it pointed in a safe direction the whole time...I've got a GFL and an FFL and I'm aware of the laws and I know that pointing a gun
at someone is assault." Then the guy yells back at me and says...(AGAIN, NO LIES HERE...I'M TELLING THE WHOLE TRUTH, SO HELP ME GOD!!!) He yells these exact words while pointing his finger in my face, "You just wanted to shoot a black man tonight, dat's what it is, you just wanted to shoot a black man!!!".

The guy was acting pretty irate, and almost of the verge of being insane…so I figure that I had better just keep my mouth shut and stay calm. So the Officer looks at me and asks, “You got your weapon on you now?” …and, while I slowly pulled my jacket open and turned my holster side toward him, I say, “Yep, It’s right there...take it.” …which is what he did. He reached over and pulled the holster and pistol from my waistband, stepped back, and hit his radio, calling for a unit to come out. The officer then says, “You weren’t planning on carrying this into the theater, were you?...You know that’s against the law, right?” …and I reply, “No Officer, I was going to leave it locked in my Jeep…that is until this happened.” And he just nods and says, “Ok”.

By this time, the crowd of 20 had grown to about 50, still including my DATE!!! Although, all but just a few of them had stayed at the top of the stairs, looking down on us, and just “watching the show that wasn’t scheduled to play at this theater” The guy looks at me and again says the same thing, “You just wanted to shoot a black man tonight, huh?” …so I lost it for a second, and blasted him with, “MAN I DON’T CARE WHAT COLOR YOU ARE!…IF YOU RUN UP TO MY JEEP IN A DARK PARKING LOT AND TRY TO YANK MY DOOR OPEN AND THEN START TO ATTACK ME!…I WOULDN’T CARE IF YOU HAD BEEN PURPLE!…I WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING!...WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO ANYWAY? WHY DID YOU TRY TO ATTACK ME FOR NO REASON? And he just turned away from me, and says again real loud, “Nah, you just wanted to shoot a black man, dat’s all!” Then he turns back toward me again and points his finger in my face and says, “You crazy, man!!!…You crazy!!!”. So I say, “No!...If I WAS crazy, then you’d be laying down there bleeding to death right now!...So you better be glad that I had enough sense
not to pull the trigger on you!!!”.



So the officer, while directing his comment toward the guy, says, “Both of you just calm down and keep quiet!”, and then he tells the guy to step back up a few steps…and then yells at the few spectators that had gotten too close, to go back to the top of the stairs. It didn’t take long for the Clayton County patrol car to show up, and the officer on the stairs told the guy to stay where he was, and told me to follow him down to the bottom of the stairs. So I follow the Officer down the stairs, thinking…”This is it, I’m about to find out what it’s like to be hauled off to jail in a police car!”. He tells me to sit down on the bottom steps, and takes my pistol over to the patrol car. The other Officer stays in the car, while the first Officer clears my weapon, writes down some information and then he goes over and starts talking to the Officer in the car about what happened and running the numbers on my gun, etc. After about 30 minutes, I see the Officer stick my pistol in his waistband, and he comes back over to me, and the patrol car starts to leave. He comes up and says, “Come on, follow me”. So we walk back up the steps, and he tell the guy to walk back up to the theater as well. The Officer disperses the crowd at the top of the steps and tells them to go about their business.

I pass my date, and she asks what is going on and she looked pretty shook up, so I tell her to be calm and everything will be alright…and then I quietly asked her not to leave, because I may need her to get me out of jail. She says no problem, and she’s not going anywhere. I tell the Officer that my date was with me, and ask him if she can follow with us, and he said yes…so the Officer, the guy, my date and I, all go into the theater…up some steps and into a room in the upper part of the theater. The room was pretty much empty, except for a table that was about 4’ by 8’, and some chairs. He tells the guy to sit on one side of the table, and me to sit on the other…my date sat in a chair, against the wall, behind me. The Officer handed both, the guy and me, a form and pencil…and told us to write down exactly what happened during the incident. He asked us both for our DL’s and asked me for my GFL, which I gave him. I immediately started writing what happened, and the officer was also filling out his report, including the information from our DL’s, my GFL and the serial # on my pistol, etc.

The guy is sitting across from me, still saying all kinds of stuff about me…and the Officer, who is sitting beside me, to my left, tells him to keep quiet a couple of times, but he just keeps on. The Officer pulls my magazine out of his pocket and ejects all the rounds onto the table with his thumb…and begins to count them. The guy is watching this, and then looks at me and says, “You come prepared, don’t you…You come prepared to shoot a black man!”. And I say, “NO!...I come prepared to defend myself from IDIOTS!...and you just happen to be one!”. So the Officer looks at the guy, with noticeable aggravation, and says, “I told you to keep quiet, so shut up and finish writing your statement!”. So after that, I figured I should also keep my cool and not respond to anything else the guy said. I finished writing my statement and sat back in my chair.

We had been up in that room for well over an hour, maybe two…and I was thinking about what my first trip to the “Grey Bar Hotel” would be like. The guy wasn’t really writing much of anything, he was just sitting there staring me down, mumbling stuff under his breath. Then he says, “Man, I just wanna forget this, I wanna get out of here!”…and the Officer, again looking pretty disgusted, grabs the guy’s DL and throws it down on the table in front of him, and says, “Well then, you’re free to leave!”. (AGAIN, THIS IS THE HONEST TRUTH!!!) So the guy picks up his DL, walks around to my side of the table, (and remember the Officer is sitting right beside me, on my left)…so the guy walks around to my right side, opposite the Officer and leans down to me and sticks his finger right in my face, and says, “You gonna get what’s comin to you MothaF!@#er!!!”
...and then he turns around and walks out.

So, I’m just sitting there, with my mouth hanging open…like WTF??? I couldn’t believe what had just happened. So I turn to the Officer and he’s just sitting there too, looking down at the table and shaking his head. Then I say, “Don’t you think that we should go outside and make sure he doesn’t vandalize my Jeep or something”…and he says, “No…he may be dumb, but he’s not THAT dumb!...We know who he is, (meaning, he recorded his information from his DL after the incident), so I don’t think he’ll do anything.”

So then I ask the Officer, “What did I do wrong here?...Would I have gone to jail?”…and he says to me, “I think that you handled the situation the best that you could…but yeah, if he had pressed charges, you would have went to jail tonight. Because it was your word against his, and he said you pointed the gun at him.” Then I asked him, “Well what about everything he did to me? Or what about my girl friend, she was standing at the top of the steps and saw everything that happened…couldn’t she have backed up my story?” And he said, “No, her statement wouldn’t be relevant because she knows you, so you would need a witness that doesn’t know you.”

So, I’m pretty much still in shock and confused about the whole thing, but happy that I wasn’t going to jail. So I ask if I’m free to go, and he tells me I am. So I pick up all my stuff that was laying on the table, and my date and I get up and start to walk toward the door, when the Officer says, “Hang on a sec...you told me that when he came up to your Jeep, you chamber a round and he ran?” …and I turned around and said, “Yeah, that’s right.” So then he asks, “Why didn’t you already have a round in the chamber?”…so I explain to him that I usually carry my pistol with a full mag, but empty chamber, just for safety...so if someone that doesn’t know better or a kid was to get a hold of my pistol and pulled the trigger, it wouldn’t go off. So he looks at me, very serious, and he says, “My advise to you son, is this…If you are going to carry that pistol, then you carry it cocked and locked at all times…Because if that guy would have had a gun, you would have lost.” Then he gave me a nod, as if to make sure I got it…and I replied, “Yes Sir, I understand…Thank you.” And, then my date and I left…and about 3 hours had passed since our “First Date” had un-officially begun. The movies were all pretty much over and the parking lots were almost empty…so I followed her, to make sure she got home alright, and then I went home myself and tried to sleep, which didn’t work...I laid awake trying to figure out what all that was about, and why it happened.

I never found out who he was, or where he was from, or what his problem was…and still to this day, I have NO IDEA why he did what he did, or what his intentions were. The Officer NEVER questioned him about it, as to what he was doing there in that parking lot, on foot, coming out of the woods, and trying to attack me…and I guess I will never know.

All I know is that you can be put in jail for trying to defend yourself against an attacker...and NOTHING will be done to him. Oh well, I guess that's the way the law works, but at least I didn’t go to jail that night. And for the last time…I want to say, every bit of this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!!! It all really happened exactly as I have told it here!!!


Thanks,

“JuJu151”
 

danbus

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Welcome to OCDO and WOW, that was an amazing story!

I'm glad that everything turned out ok for you, but I'm upset at how the idiot got away with it. I've only gone as far as to pull my gun out my holster in anticipation of someone doing something. I carry a 1911 and I always, always, always, carry "cocked and locked".

I'm still upset that the loser got away!
 

juju151

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danbus wrote:
Welcome to OCDO and WOW, that was an amazing story!

I'm glad that everything turned out ok for you, but I'm upset at how the idiot got away with it. I've only gone as far as to pull my gun out my holster in anticipation of someone doing something. I carry a 1911 and I always, always, always, carry "cocked and locked".

I'm still upset that the loser got away!

Thanks Danbus,

I've read about your troubles with the LEO encounters as well, and I hope that you end up with a nice bonus for the trouble, or else for them to stop harrassing you.

Your state's threads are the best here and very informative...it seems like you all have had a run of bad luck with LEOs not knowingthe laws in your state. We have the same problem sometimes, and I wish that our state's laws were a little more like yours...

Vaguedoesn't even begin to describe our laws here.

My wife and I stopped at a new ice cream shop last weekend, and there were2 LEOs in there...so I asked them if Wal-Mart would be concidered a public gathering and off limits to carry. Believe it or not...the younger one said yes, and the older one said no. :uhoh:

Asked a Judge, that wasperforming my cousin's wedding recently, the same question...she said, "Oh yes, anyplace where there's more than one person is concidered a public gathering. So I thought..."That's just wonderful!".

I'm amazed that LEOs and Judges aren't required to have a basic knowledge of the carry laws in the state. You would think that it would save the tax payers alot of money, and savethe government officialsalot oftrouble...not to mention law abiding citizens as well who get wrongly accused.

Keep on carrying!!!

JuJu
 

unrequited

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You should have insisted that prints be taken from your car and handle, and proved your side of the story, that's ridiculous that he got away scott free, and you were treated like a criminal. Very engaging story and sorry it turned out that way, but glad to know you're alright, and welcome to the board!
 

DT4E31

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I believe that you failed to articulate the threat. It really all comes down to articulation.Perhaps if you pressed the issue that the guy was attempting to rob, carjack, etc. then the officers would have to act on a much different situation. I guess you were being too honest and giving the guy to much of the benefit of the doubt. It was an attempted robbery as I see it. Maybe if you asserted that, he would'nt have just been allowed to walk away, at least not without taking a ride to the station to speak with a detective.
 

juju151

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unrequited wrote:
You should have insisted that prints be taken from your car and handle, and proved your side of the story, that's ridiculous that he got away scott free, and you were treated like a criminal. Very engaging story and sorry it turned out that way, but glad to know you're alright, and welcome to the board!



Thanks all, for the welcome...

Yep, I should have done that from the start, to try and get things back on the correct track.

But after it was over, I was afraid that if Ipushed the issue, then he would in turn, go ahead and press charges...
 

SouthernBoy

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It's sad to hear of one of our sister Southern states where things like this are happening. Here in Virginia, I would bet that the circumstances would be different.. Virginia is probably the most lenient and gun-friendly Southern state.

What also really angers me is this low life playing the race card and the police not calling him on it. But then again, they are subject to the dictates of their department which probably is inclined to treat blacks and other minorities with kid gloves. God forbit we shake their tree. This hurts decent black people as much as it does whites and my sympathies are with them when one of their "people" acts this way. PersonallyI don't give a hoot what color someone is whenthe stuff hits the fan. I'm more of a realist and if it quacks, it's a duck.

I would say you handled yourself quite well both with the idiot and the police. I'm sorry to hear the police were not entirely on your side, given their knowledge of this individual and the circumstances. But at least it all turned out well.
 

openryan

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Good account of events, interesting to read. It is hard to believe that the cop would let this guy away.

Do you still carry without one in the pipe?
 

juju151

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openryan wrote:
Good account of events, interesting to read. It is hard to believe that the cop would let this guy away.

Do you still carry without one in the pipe?



Nope...:)

Now when I carry...it's ready to rock.

I didn't think much about it back then, but as someone else pointed out on another forum, is that you might have to use one hand to hold them off while you draw with the other...if things get thatup close and personal, then there's no way that you could chamber one in the struggle.
 

openryan

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Good to hear, you could always hold the slide in your mouth while you push the gun forward -- DUH!

I still carry the way you 'used to', with no chambered round.

I don't know if I would want one chambered. There has been one occassion where I have retreived my firearm after waking up in the morning, and although a round was not chambered, the slide was pulled back enough to cock the firing pin.... I guess I do this in my sleep.... The freaky thing is--I keep the gun in a dresser drawer over 5 feet away from me at night.
 

Tomahawk

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openryan wrote:
Good to hear, you could always hold the slide in your mouth while you push the gun forward -- DUH!

I still carry the way you 'used to', with no chambered round.

I don't know if I would want one chambered. There has been one occassion where I have retreived my firearm after waking up in the morning, and although a round was not chambered, the slide was pulled back enough to cock the firing pin.... I guess I do this in my sleep.... The freaky thing is--I keep the gun in a dresser drawer over 5 feet away from me at night.

Man, if you can rack a slide with your teeth, you need to change your name to Hannibal Lectur and remind to not ever piss you off!

BTW, sleepwalking + loaded guns = scary scenario.
 

HankT

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juju151 wrote:
Had to pull my weapon one time, in 18 years of carrying…

Hello all...I'm new here, and enjoythis site very much...lots of good info!

I posted this over on the GlockTalk and GeorgiaPacking site, but thought I would post it here as well. This is all completely true…and this is exactly what happened to me on the only night I’ve ever had to pull my weapon for defense.And yeah, it's a long story...

I've lived in the Altanta area all of my life...and grew up in the suburbs of the southside. The area started going down hill pretty fast not long after I graduated High School. This happened when I was about 23, which was in the early-90’s…I was going out with a girl that I had recently met…it was our first date...and we were going to the show. The theater had two parking lots…one right in front of the theater and one over to the side, and the parking lot to the side was actually down a hill and pretty isolated from the main lot. At the time, my first wife and I were separated and I had about a week or two to go before the divorce was final. High School sweetheart, married to young, no kids, easy divorce, long story, won’t go there…Anyway…

I was meeting this girl at the theater, we didn’t ride together on the date…and when I arrived, I decided to park in the bottom parking lot. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but just in case my soon-to-be Ex was riding around and saw my Jeep, and since the divorce wasn’t quite final, I didn’t want her to start anything with me about me being out with someone.

The bottom parking lot was totally empty and not very well lit...and it was a pretty good sized parking lot. The parking lot was bordered by woods on two sides, a big hill leading up to the theater on one side, and the rear of some stores on the front side. There was a big double concrete stairway leading from this lot, up to the theater. From the bottom lot you could only see the roof of the theater, so it was pretty isolated…but at the time, I wasn’t thinking about personal threat…I was thinking about the first date. So I pulled up and told my date that I was going to park in the lower lot, (she knew why), and I would be right up.

I drove down to the bottom lot and pulled up just to the right of the big staircase leading up to the theater. I was the only one parked in the bottom lot. It was winter, and cold…so I was getting my stuff together and turned around to get my heavy coat from the back seat, when I noticed someone running across the parking lot from the farthest wooded side. It was dark, but there was enough light to see that he was running with a purpose and coming right toward my Jeep. At first I thought maybe he was just going to run right up the steps toward the theater, but he seemed to be coming directly at my Jeep.

I had my 92F in the console, holstered, and immediately reached in and grabbed it…turned around in my seat and watched him in the rear view mirror. I could see no weapons or anything in his hands, but as he got closer, I could see he was wearing something that looked like a fanny pack on his front side. I reached down with my left hand and locked the door and slid the window open enough to take a shot if needed, while holding the 92F in my right. I thought maybe he will just pass my Jeep up and run right up the steps, but he didn’t, he made a B-line right for the back of my jeep. At this point my adrenaline was pumping pretty good, and he runs up to the side of my Jeep and tries to yank the door open. Luckily, since it was winter, I had the hard top on my Jeep with door locks. The whole time I’m checking him out to see if he has a weapon in his hands, and lucky for him, he didn’t.

My ACME hard top had side-sliding windows, which only opened about 6-8 inches and slid open toward the front, so the rear of the window would be open...and I had opened the window just a couple of inches. So there we were, almost face to face…he was a black male, in his mid to late 20’s, about 6' tall and around 200lbs…and definitely on an unknown mission of no good. I'm 6' tall and 175-180lbs...so he wasn't much bigger than me, but I wasn't about to get out and try and fight with this lunatic.

All of this happened much faster than it sounds here in my post, and I was pretty scared at this point, and all this stuff was running through my mind…you know, “Am I going to have to kill this guy?”…”Am I going to go to jail for the rest of my life?”…”I can’t shoot him because he doesn’t have a weapon in his hand, but if I don’t he will might shoot me with my own gun”…etc, etc. My mind was overdosing on adrenaline and I wasn’t sure what to do…

Back then, I always carried with a full mag, but empty chamber, just for safety. I had practiced a lot and trained myself to pull the pistol, chamber a round, and aim all in one motion. I was NO “Quick-Draw McGraw”, but I am like a lot of you here and I am ALWAYS aware of my surroundings…so I always figured that if I couldn’t identify a threat with enough time to chamber a round, I might as well not pull it to begin with.

And like I said, this all happened a lot quicker than it sounds…and the whole confrontation only lasted about 30-60 seconds, start to finish. So sorry for rambling on and on. Anyway…I was holding the door handle with my left hand and still holding the Beretta in my right hand, down in my lap, pointed toward the door, of course…but it was dark and he still had not seen the pistol. He reached up and slid my window all the way open, which like I said, was only about 6-8 inches…but when he did that, I pulled up on the door lock, and pushed down on the door handle, while I leaned over to the right, putting my foot against the door, and I kicked it open as hard as I could. It only opened up about a foot, because that’s how far his face was from the door. Oh yeah, that pissed him off!!!

He stumbled back a couple of steps, and I pushed the door all the way open with my foot…and on the jeep, it would swing all the way open against the side mirrors, almost against the front fender. So my door was WIDE OPEN, and he drew his fist back and started toward me, about to punch me right in the face...and I am still in the driver's seat, so in one motion, I chambered a round on the 92F and assumed the firing position from where I sat. I've never seen anyone stop in mid-swing like that, but he did! The sound of the round being chambered and the sight of the business end of the Beretta froze him in his tracks for a couple of seconds...well except for his eyes getting as big as cue balls. So for a couple of seconds he just stood there, frozen and wide-eyed, with his nose a little more than a foot from the barrel of my pistol. And yeah, at that moment, I was probably more scared than he was...because there I was pointing a gun to someone's face, cocked and locked, safety off and ready to pull the trigger. My life could have turned out a WHOLE lot different if it had went down differently, but I got lucky...

So, I guess it got his attention and he saw that I wasn't playing around...and he stepped back away from me and threw his hands up...and started saying, "Just be cool man, just be cool!!!". I immediately jumped out of the Jeep, still keeping the gun pointed at his face...and I said, "What are you going to do?, What's your problem?". He stayed facing me, and kept backing up toward the stairway, and I stayed right with him all the way to the stairs, and the whole time, he kept saying the same thing..."Just be cool man, just be cool!!!". When he got to the stairs, he turned and RAN up toward the theater.

I lowered the gun and just stood there for a second, trying to get my "adrenaline rush" under control, and wondering what in the HELL just happened!!! I turned around and walked back to my Jeep, de-cocked and holstered my pistol, slid the holster in the waistband of my pants, put on my jacket, locked my jeep, and started walking up the stairs toward the theater. This happened before cell phones were common, and I didn't have one. But I was going to go up to the theater and call the police and report what had happened. It's a pretty long stairway with a landing about half-way up, and I was almost to the landing when he came over the top of the stairs with a Clayton County Police Officer that must have been on duty at the theater...followed by a crowd of about 20 other people...including my DATE! And you'll never guess what the guy did then??? (NO LIE), the guy points down at me, and yells at the top of his lungs, "THERE HE IS...HE'S GOT A GUN!!!!!!!, HE'S GOT A GUN!!!!!!!!!!!" And I'm thinking...WTF is going on here!!!!

I continued up a few more steps, to the landing in the middle of the stairway, stopped, and kept both of my hands visible and on the railing. The Officer calmly walks down the stairs with the guy right behind him, and the whole time, the guy is ranting and raving, saying all kinds of stuff. The Officer comes down to the landing and says to me, "What's the problem here son?". So, I told him, "I don't know what's going on here Officer??? I was coming to the show, and when I parked, I see this guy running across the parking lot toward my jeep...he comes up and tries to yank my door open...I grabbed my pistol out of the console...I opened my door and he draws back to punch me in the head...I chamber a round on my pistol...and he runs off like a scared rabbit???" Then the guy yells, "He stuck that gun right in my face!!!" So, when he says that, I'm THINKING..."Yep, I'm going to jail for this, and I didn't do ANYTHING WRONG!!!"...

I usually tell it like it is, and all of my friends will verify that fact! Lying is something that I don’t do…and that’s probably because, there isn’t anything in my life that I NEED to lie about. But at this point, I’m thinking that there’s nothing else that could be said…So I say, "Officer, I didn't point the weapon at him, I kept it pointed in a safe direction the whole time...I've got a GFL and an FFL and I'm aware of the laws and I know that pointing a gun
at someone is assault." Then the guy yells back at me and says...(AGAIN, NO LIES HERE...I'M TELLING THE WHOLE TRUTH, SO HELP ME GOD!!!) He yells these exact words while pointing his finger in my face, "You just wanted to shoot a black man tonight, dat's what it is, you just wanted to shoot a black man!!!".

The guy was acting pretty irate, and almost of the verge of being insane…so I figure that I had better just keep my mouth shut and stay calm. So the Officer looks at me and asks, “You got your weapon on you now?” …and, while I slowly pulled my jacket open and turned my holster side toward him, I say, “Yep, It’s right there...take it.” …which is what he did. He reached over and pulled the holster and pistol from my waistband, stepped back, and hit his radio, calling for a unit to come out. The officer then says, “You weren’t planning on carrying this into the theater, were you?...You know that’s against the law, right?” …and I reply, “No Officer, I was going to leave it locked in my Jeep…that is until this happened.” And he just nods and says, “Ok”.

By this time, the crowd of 20 had grown to about 50, still including my DATE!!! Although, all but just a few of them had stayed at the top of the stairs, looking down on us, and just “watching the show that wasn’t scheduled to play at this theater” The guy looks at me and again says the same thing, “You just wanted to shoot a black man tonight, huh?” …so I lost it for a second, and blasted him with, “MAN I DON’T CARE WHAT COLOR YOU ARE!…IF YOU RUN UP TO MY JEEP IN A DARK PARKING LOT AND TRY TO YANK MY DOOR OPEN AND THEN START TO ATTACK ME!…I WOULDN’T CARE IF YOU HAD BEEN PURPLE!…I WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING!...WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO ANYWAY? WHY DID YOU TRY TO ATTACK ME FOR NO REASON? And he just turned away from me, and says again real loud, “Nah, you just wanted to shoot a black man, dat’s all!” Then he turns back toward me again and points his finger in my face and says, “You crazy, man!!!…You crazy!!!”. So I say, “No!...If I WAS crazy, then you’d be laying down there bleeding to death right now!...So you better be glad that I had enough sense
not to pull the trigger on you!!!”.



So the officer, while directing his comment toward the guy, says, “Both of you just calm down and keep quiet!”, and then he tells the guy to step back up a few steps…and then yells at the few spectators that had gotten too close, to go back to the top of the stairs. It didn’t take long for the Clayton County patrol car to show up, and the officer on the stairs told the guy to stay where he was, and told me to follow him down to the bottom of the stairs. So I follow the Officer down the stairs, thinking…”This is it, I’m about to find out what it’s like to be hauled off to jail in a police car!”. He tells me to sit down on the bottom steps, and takes my pistol over to the patrol car. The other Officer stays in the car, while the first Officer clears my weapon, writes down some information and then he goes over and starts talking to the Officer in the car about what happened and running the numbers on my gun, etc. After about 30 minutes, I see the Officer stick my pistol in his waistband, and he comes back over to me, and the patrol car starts to leave. He comes up and says, “Come on, follow me”. So we walk back up the steps, and he tell the guy to walk back up to the theater as well. The Officer disperses the crowd at the top of the steps and tells them to go about their business.

I pass my date, and she asks what is going on and she looked pretty shook up, so I tell her to be calm and everything will be alright…and then I quietly asked her not to leave, because I may need her to get me out of jail. She says no problem, and she’s not going anywhere. I tell the Officer that my date was with me, and ask him if she can follow with us, and he said yes…so the Officer, the guy, my date and I, all go into the theater…up some steps and into a room in the upper part of the theater. The room was pretty much empty, except for a table that was about 4’ by 8’, and some chairs. He tells the guy to sit on one side of the table, and me to sit on the other…my date sat in a chair, against the wall, behind me. The Officer handed both, the guy and me, a form and pencil…and told us to write down exactly what happened during the incident. He asked us both for our DL’s and asked me for my GFL, which I gave him. I immediately started writing what happened, and the officer was also filling out his report, including the information from our DL’s, my GFL and the serial # on my pistol, etc.

The guy is sitting across from me, still saying all kinds of stuff about me…and the Officer, who is sitting beside me, to my left, tells him to keep quiet a couple of times, but he just keeps on. The Officer pulls my magazine out of his pocket and ejects all the rounds onto the table with his thumb…and begins to count them. The guy is watching this, and then looks at me and says, “You come prepared, don’t you…You come prepared to shoot a black man!”. And I say, “NO!...I come prepared to defend myself from IDIOTS!...and you just happen to be one!”. So the Officer looks at the guy, with noticeable aggravation, and says, “I told you to keep quiet, so shut up and finish writing your statement!”. So after that, I figured I should also keep my cool and not respond to anything else the guy said. I finished writing my statement and sat back in my chair.

We had been up in that room for well over an hour, maybe two…and I was thinking about what my first trip to the “Grey Bar Hotel” would be like. The guy wasn’t really writing much of anything, he was just sitting there staring me down, mumbling stuff under his breath. Then he says, “Man, I just wanna forget this, I wanna get out of here!”…and the Officer, again looking pretty disgusted, grabs the guy’s DL and throws it down on the table in front of him, and says, “Well then, you’re free to leave!”. (AGAIN, THIS IS THE HONEST TRUTH!!!) So the guy picks up his DL, walks around to my side of the table, (and remember the Officer is sitting right beside me, on my left)…so the guy walks around to my right side, opposite the Officer and leans down to me and sticks his finger right in my face, and says, “You gonna get what’s comin to you MothaF!@#er!!!”
...and then he turns around and walks out.

So, I’m just sitting there, with my mouth hanging open…like WTF??? I couldn’t believe what had just happened. So I turn to the Officer and he’s just sitting there too, looking down at the table and shaking his head. Then I say, “Don’t you think that we should go outside and make sure he doesn’t vandalize my Jeep or something”…and he says, “No…he may be dumb, but he’s not THAT dumb!...We know who he is, (meaning, he recorded his information from his DL after the incident), so I don’t think he’ll do anything.”

So then I ask the Officer, “What did I do wrong here?...Would I have gone to jail?”…and he says to me, “I think that you handled the situation the best that you could…but yeah, if he had pressed charges, you would have went to jail tonight. Because it was your word against his, and he said you pointed the gun at him.” Then I asked him, “Well what about everything he did to me? Or what about my girl friend, she was standing at the top of the steps and saw everything that happened…couldn’t she have backed up my story?” And he said, “No, her statement wouldn’t be relevant because she knows you, so you would need a witness that doesn’t know you.”

So, I’m pretty much still in shock and confused about the whole thing, but happy that I wasn’t going to jail. So I ask if I’m free to go, and he tells me I am. So I pick up all my stuff that was laying on the table, and my date and I get up and start to walk toward the door, when the Officer says, “Hang on a sec...you told me that when he came up to your Jeep, you chamber a round and he ran?” …and I turned around and said, “Yeah, that’s right.” So then he asks, “Why didn’t you already have a round in the chamber?”…so I explain to him that I usually carry my pistol with a full mag, but empty chamber, just for safety...so if someone that doesn’t know better or a kid was to get a hold of my pistol and pulled the trigger, it wouldn’t go off. So he looks at me, very serious, and he says, “My advise to you son, is this…If you are going to carry that pistol, then you carry it cocked and locked at all times…Because if that guy would have had a gun, you would have lost.” Then he gave me a nod, as if to make sure I got it…and I replied, “Yes Sir, I understand…Thank you.” And, then my date and I left…and about 3 hours had passed since our “First Date” had un-officially begun. The movies were all pretty much over and the parking lots were almost empty…so I followed her, to make sure she got home alright, and then I went home myself and tried to sleep, which didn’t work...I laid awake trying to figure out what all that was about, and why it happened.

I never found out who he was, or where he was from, or what his problem was…and still to this day, I have NO IDEA why he did what he did, or what his intentions were. The Officer NEVER questioned him about it, as to what he was doing there in that parking lot, on foot, coming out of the woods, and trying to attack me…and I guess I will never know.

All I know is that you can be put in jail for trying to defend yourself against an attacker...and NOTHING will be done to him. Oh well, I guess that's the way the law works, but at least I didn’t go to jail that night. And for the last time…I want to say, every bit of this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!!! It all really happened exactly as I have told it here!!!


Incredible story.

Man, that was something!

I've gotta ask, though, why would your soon-to-be Exbe riding around and see yourJeep in that particular cinemaparking lot (the regular one)? And even if she were looking for your ride,wouldn'tyour jeep have been totally visible to her if she went to theadjacent lot (yours was the onlyvehicle there!)

Seems likeyour whole incident is based on parking in a deserted parking lot for some reason. That's not safe, man.

Always park in well-lighted areasthat are patrolled regularly and which have a lot of pedestrian traffic. You'll be sorry if you don't.




 

unrequited

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HankT wrote:
Seems like your whole incident is based on parking in a deserted parking lot for some reason. That's not safe, man.

Always park in well-lighted areas that are patrolled regularly and which have a lot of pedestrian traffic. You'll be sorry if you don't.
Yeah juju151, it's all your fault because you didn't always park in a well-lit area that is patrolled regularly and has a lot of pedestrian traffic. /sarcasm

*sigh* Seriously juju151, don't listen to HankT, he has no right to lecture you, and the "you deserved it because you should have known better" attitude is almost downright insulting...
 

openryan

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unrequited wrote:
HankT wrote:
Seems likeyour whole incident is based on parking in a deserted parking lot for some reason. That's not safe, man.

Always park in well-lighted areasthat are patrolled regularly and which have a lot of pedestrian traffic. You'll be sorry if you don't.
Yeah juju151, it's all your fault because you didn't always park in a well-lit area that is patrolled regularly and has a lot of pedestrian traffic. /sarcasm

*sigh* Seriously juju151, don't listen to HankT, he has no right to lecture you, and the "you deserved it because you should have known better" attitude is almost downright insulting...
I would say that "whole incident" may not be accurate, but I do truly believe that parking in a sparsely populated lot at night, where you are isolated by a hill on one side, and nothing on the other, can be a problem, if you are attacked, like this episode here.

Had the lot been by the theater, there most likely would not have been an attack, or if there had been, there would have been witnesses to back up the story...

Again, I am not saying it is your fault for getting into this confrontation, but parking in an isolated spot certainly did not help things.
 

juju151

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HankT wrote:
I've gotta ask, though, why would your soon-to-be Exbe riding around and see yourJeep in that particular cinemaparking lot (the regular one)? And even if she were looking for your ride,wouldn'tyour jeep have been totally visible to her if she went to theadjacent lot (yours was the onlyvehicle there!)


Yep...that was the usual theater that I would go to...and the lot that I parked in wasn't visible at all from the main parking lot. I didn't think that my X would even think about looking in the "other" lot.

My main concern was that my X might see my Jeep and my dates car parked close together and figure something was up. I was probably just being paraniod, but you see...my X knew my date, and what kind of car she drove...

But again...myX would probablyhave never found out, but I wanted to be on thesafe side since the divorce was goingREALLY smooth and I was getting out of it smelling like a rose.She could have made it alot worse if she had found out about it though.



openryan wrote:
unrequited wrote:
HankT wrote:
Seems likeyour whole incident is based on parking in a deserted parking lot for some reason. That's not safe, man.

Always park in well-lighted areasthat are patrolled regularly and which have a lot of pedestrian traffic. You'll be sorry if you don't.
Yeah juju151, it's all your fault because you didn't always park in a well-lit area that is patrolled regularly and has a lot of pedestrian traffic. /sarcasm

*sigh* Seriously juju151, don't listen to HankT, he has no right to lecture you, and the "you deserved it because you should have known better" attitude is almost downright insulting...
I would say that "whole incident" may not be accurate, but I do truly believe that parking in a sparsely populated lot at night, where you are isolated by a hill on one side, and nothing on the other, can be a problem, if you are attacked, like this episode here.

Had the lot been by the theater, there most likely would not have been an attack, or if there had been, there would have been witnesses to back up the story...

Again, I am not saying it is your fault for getting into this confrontation, but parking in an isolated spot certainly did not help things.


Well...I can't argue with that...it is unsafe to do what I did. BUT...I had "other" things on my mind at the time, ya know? ;););):celebrate
 

openryan

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Well...I can't argue with that...it is unsafe to do what I did. BUT...I had "other" things on my mind at the time, ya know? ;););):celebrate

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Yeah, thats usually how get chicks to make out with me, hey babe, wanna go down the steps into the poorly lit, sparsely populated parking lot, surrounded by woods?

Heh, just giving you a hard time :)
 

openryan

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Well...I can't argue with that...it is unsafe to do what I did. BUT...I had "other" things on my mind at the time, ya know? ;););):celebrate

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, thats usually how get chicks to make out with me, hey babe, wanna go down the steps into the poorly lit, sparsely populated parking lot, surrounded by woods?

Heh, just giving you a hard time :)
 

openryan

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Well...I can't argue with that...it is unsafe to do what I did. BUT...I had "other" things on my mind at the time, ya know? ;););):celebrate

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Yeah, thats usually how get chicks to make out with me, hey babe, wanna go down the steps into the poorly lit, sparsely populated parking lot, surrounded by woods?

Heh, just giving you a hard time :)
 
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