Surprise, surprise

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^^ I agree partially.

Also, as I said, the main reason I wouldn't help a stranger is litigation. I could possibily risk my life to help someone, only to have my life ruined in court the following twenty years. It's not worth it. Until the court system is fixed it's better to just keep to yourself.

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Well said compmanio365, well said.

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kurtmax_0 wrote:

^^ I agree partially.

Also, as I said, the main reason I wouldn't help a stranger is litigation. I could possibily risk my life to help someone, only to have my life ruined in court the following twenty years. It's not worth it. Until the court system is fixed it's better to just keep to yourself.

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Imagine the person most precious to you (a spouse, parent, child, etc). Imagine that person is being viscously raped and murdered in an alley. Now imagine that I saw this happening and, despite being armed, scurried away to the legal safety of my home.

Fear of litigation is just as cowardly as fear of injury and death. Chivalry is not dead.

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CA_Libertarian wrote:

kurtmax_0 wrote:

^^ I agree partially.

Also, as I said, the main reason I wouldn't help a stranger is litigation. I could possibily risk my life to help someone, only to have my life ruined in court the following twenty years. It's not worth it. Until the court system is fixed it's better to just keep to yourself.

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Imagine the person most precious to you (a spouse, parent, child, etc). Imagine that person is being viscously raped and murdered in an alley. Now imagine that I saw this happening and, despite being armed, scurried away to the legal safety of my home.

Fear of litigation is just as cowardly as fear of injury and death. Chivalry is not dead.

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Imagine a Peeping Tom. You see him peeping through the window. You call911and report a description ofhim. They send cops to respond. You go outsidewith your gun. Youscan the environment, no bad guysother than the kid. 19 years old, bicycle, already off your property and walking away. He is unarmed.No neighbor's property has been damaged. No relative of yours is being raped....

Imagine the situation the OP described...

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HankT wrote:

Imagine the situation the OP described...

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Maybe the conversation is a bit off course, but I wasn't aware you were moderating this discussion. However, I'll take this as an invitation to comment on the OP.

I agree with how this was handled. This guy was prowling around on private property in the middle of the night. Maybe he was just trying to get a glimpse of some skin... maybe he was staking the place out to burglarize later. In any case, he was up to no good.

The cops didn't fault the way this was handled. The kids parent(s), who came by the next day, didn't fault him. Sounds to me like it was well handled. If you don't like that, then don't move to wherever HardChrome lives, because you will not fit in.

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CA_Libertarian wrote:

HankT wrote:

Imagine the situation the OP described... 

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Maybe the conversation is a bit off course, but I wasn't aware you were moderating this discussion.  However, I'll take this as an invitation to comment on the OP.

I agree with how this was handled.  This guy was prowling around on private property in the middle of the night.  Maybe he was just trying to get a glimpse of some skin... maybe he was staking the place out to burglarize later.  In any case, he was up to no good.

The cops didn't fault the way this was handled.  The kids parent(s), who came by the next day, didn't fault him.  Sounds to me like it was well handled.  If you don't like that, then don't move to wherever HardChrome lives, because you will not fit in.

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*applaud*

Exactly.

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HardChrome wrote:

All of that did go through my mind so I did some thinking before I acted. The main thing I wanted to accomplish was to get him in police custody.

I watched him for quite a while to see if he was alone and all the evidence pointed to that. I had seen a strange bike across the street even before I saw him. As he left, he walked the bike by himself. As I went outside I constantly looked around to see if he was alone. I kept my back to my truck just in case someone else was with him.

In order to see where he was going I would have had to leave my property and follow him, something I was not willing to do lest I put myself in territory more familiar to him and less to me.

When it was all over with, I was mentally tired from running all the different scenarios through my head as it was going down. I think his knowledge of my passing along the description and conversation to the dispatcher in front of him kept him calm and convinced that he was caught.

I'm sure six different people (including police officers) would have handled it six different ways. After a recent string of break-ins and cases of vandalism, I was intent on seeing this guy in custody.

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But hey... It is easy to sit back now knowing all the details and armchair quarterback.

You had to act quickly and not much time to think about it. We all learn form our past experiences. This is why "what if" scenarios are great. When the time comes... you have already previously decided.

I am lad the bad guy was caught and you and your family were OK in the end.

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LEO 229 wrote:

HardChrome wrote: But hey... It is easy to sit back now knowing all the details and armchair quarterback.

You had to act quickly and not much time to think about it. We all learn form our past experiences. This is why "what if" scenarios are great. When the time comes... you have already previously decided.

I am lad the bad guy was caught and you and your family were OK in the end.

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I will say that I think one thing that helped make it all come together ok was that I have been carrying regularly for 25 years. I've had a concealed weapon permit the entire time but openly carry a lot as well. Carrying my weapon, and this one in particular, on a regular basis made it basically an extension of me, something else I didn't have t think about.

There has been a lot of good and very valid discussion about whether or not I should have engaged this guy at all. People have asked me what I would have done if the guy just kept walking. I wouldn't have done anything at all. There would have been nothing I could have legally done aside from follow him to who knows where. Once he complied with my "order" (very authoritative voice) to stop I pretty much figured that he was going to be cooperative. I also had the advantage that the police had been called long before I ever walked outside to confront him. And I think his knowing that I was on the phone with the dispatcher, relaying our conversation to her, made him all the more cooperative.

There are a hundered things that could have happened to make this into a nasty situation but I kept my cool, I managed to constantly survey the situation the entire time, the police got there pretty quickly, and I got lucky enough to have a cooperative bad guy. I've joked before that the hardest part was deciding which weapon to take out with me. My trusty Browning or my compact .357. I figured that the Browning looked a little meaner and would help speak for me.

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I must say, even by Hank T standards, this is a pretty idiotic post.







HankT wrote:

HardChrome wrote:

I walked up behind him (about 30 feet away) and told him to stop in an authoritative voice. He stopped. I told him to get on his knees with his hands behind his head. He walked his bicycle to the curb, walked up into my yard, and complied. From about 15 feet away, I held him at gunpoint until the police arrived, all the while questioning him and passing information over to the dispatcher.

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Is that legal? Was he off your property when you first pointed the gun at him and apprehended him?

Why didn't you just go grab the guy by the collar and hold him for the cops?

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I think I would have let him walk away, avoid the potentially deadly confrontation.

That said, I don't disagree with what you did.

Maybe we should have more people hold perps for cops and society would be a more civil place!

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IdahoCorsair wrote:

I think I would have let him walk away, avoid the potentially deadly confrontation.

That said, I don't disagree with what you did.

Maybe we should have more people hold perps for cops and society would be a more civil place!

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Faced with this scenario, I would have done everything the same as HC except for showing the gun outside the home. Once I determined that the kid was unarmed, I wouldn't have brought the gun to bear. I would still have used my authoritative voice to get him to stop. As long as I was sure he was the guy peeping in my house's window, I would have grabbed him to hold him for the police. Didn't sound like he was any danger to anyone. No need for a gun in the mix after it is determined he's armed only with a bicycle.


Putting out these descriptions is good for thinking them through. And they happen so fast, it's difficult to process everything quickly enough when it is happening. So having a bias is crucially time-saving and judgment-enabling in real time. I've learned throughout the years tohave a bias against introducing the gun inmost, but not all,situations.

When the gun comes out, complexities begin...complexities not particularly appealing to negotiate for a non-violent misdemeanor act.

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But you can't KNOW if that person is unarmed or not.....if that person is concealing well, he could be hiding a damn shotgun in his pants and you wouldn't know until it was too late.

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compmanio365 wrote:

But you can't KNOW if that person is unarmed or not.....if that person is concealing well, he could be hiding a damn shotgun in his pants and you wouldn't know until it was too late.

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Well, you have to be very observant. That's for sure. And you have to be correct. And if there is any doubt, then, well, that's that.

Not everybody is armed. So to have the same protocol for every misdemeanoring fool--pull out the gun makes no sense at all.

Discrimination is what is required.

If I decide he is unarmed, then my gun does not come out. He is not a danger to me. If he runs, I let him. If he wants to fight, I don't. If he tries to ride away on his little bike I just grab it so he doesn't go anywhere.

Guns aren't needed for unarmed teenage-committed misdemeanors, in my view. Guns are for dangerous attackswhenI have a reasonable fear of death or severe bodily injury.

YMMV.

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Obviously every case is unique and not all details can be presented in a forum like this. My big concern was that he be captured lest he do it or something else again. I was protecting my home, my family, and my neighbors.

There was no way I could have known that he was unarmed. I carry to Taco Bell so I'm definitely going to carry while confronting some guy bigger than me at 1:00 in the morning who's obviously looking for trouble.

Another piece of info is that I have a prosthetic leg, making defense of myself a little different from that of others. I cannot run and although the prosthesis could definitely be helpful in some ways, it can also be a hinderance and there would be no way I'd be able to get away from him should he decide to attack me.

If I had to do it again, I don't think I would do anything differently except maybe use my Bluetooth earpiece so I could get both hands on my grip while talking with the dispatcher.

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HardChrome wrote:

Obviously every case is unique and not all details can be presented in a forum like this. My big concern was that he be captured lest he do it or something else again. I was protecting my home, my family, and my neighbors.

There was no way I could have known that he was unarmed. I carry to Taco Bell so I'm definitely going to carry while confronting some guy bigger than me at 1:00 in the morning who's obviously looking for trouble.

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I see your points.

But since you didn't see a weapon of any kind, you could see he was a kid, and it was a misdemeanor crime.....you really didn't need a gun to be brought to bear.

You didn't need to point a gun at him. Not based on what you described the situation as.

Luckily, everything turned out reasonably OK.

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HankT wrote:

... I wouldn't have brought the gun to bear. I would still have used my authoritative voice to get him to stop.

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Anyone else here, besides me, that wants to hear HankT's authoritative voice? :lol: :celebrate

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Pa. Patriot wrote:

HankT wrote:

... I wouldn't have brought the gun to bear. I would still have used my authoritative voice to get him to stop.

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Anyone else here, besides me, that wants to hear HankT's authoritative voice? :lol: :celebrate

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Heya, PP. What would you have done to the 19 year old unarmed peeping Tom?

Would you have pulled out your gun?

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HankT wrote:

Heya, PP. What would you have done to the 19 year old unarmed peeping Tom?

Would you have pulled out your gun?

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I wasn't there. Therfor I can not answer the question accurately.

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Pa. Patriot wrote:

I wasn't there. Therfor I can not answer the question accurately.

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PP, I suspect you would have taken cover...



...til it was safeto come out. Then you would post an enhanced version of the event here.

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HankT wrote:

PP, I suspect you would have taken cover...

...til it was safeto come out. Then you would post an enhanced version of the event here.

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My neighbors would inform you otherwise. They refer to me as "the" community watch. Probably since I'm the ONLY one on the block that goes out to investigate dubious behavior... :lol: