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Brawn two houses down...not self defense YET

spectr019

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Joined
Aug 8, 2008
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40
Location
Lansing, Michigan, USA
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As the subject says, this isn't self-defense YET (meant to type BRAWL, also, not brawn). We'll see what happens later...

Last night I was in the kitchen around 6:45. I looked out the window as I saw a chevy lumina driving by very slowly. I live in a one street neighborhood, it's not the quietest or in the best part of Lansing, but it's never posed any real problems in the time I've been there either. The Lumina stops infront of my south-side next door neighbors house. I look at the car wondering what's going on, and I see on the other side of the street two houses down a guy walking quickly in an intimidating way towards the car. The Lumina starts backing up quickly, and suddenly the passengers from the car as well as the guy walking start yelling and swearing at each other. The car stops a few feet north of my house infront of my other next door neighbors place. The guy walking has stopped and is just shouting at them now to "get the *uck out of here, don't be bothering us again, get the *uck on" and the people from the car (mainly a large woman) are still yelling at him. After about 40 seconds of this happening, I hear people from the car say "We gonna kill you and your bitch in there, you just wait, we'll be back tonight."
Sooo at this point they have at least demonstrated intent on doing something, while not imminent and at the time not conspicuously showing any tool of which they would use to follow up with their assaults. In the house from which the guy came out of lives a family, I see the man, woman, a few kids around there all the time. Nothing ever loud about the people, always quiet and to themselves it seems. There are a LOT of kids on this street always running around on bikes and scooters and playing, the last thing we need on the street is for threats of murder to be shouted. The last thing on my mind is to get involved in this thing, but a few of my neighbors have started gathering on their front porches looking at the event, and I'm glad that the car people know now that this isn't the type street that everybody just stays inside and does nothing about. I have my twins on me in the holsters, so I through an overshirt on and walk out to my porch (don't want them thinking a guy with guns is going to start getting involved, if something starts happening I do not want to be on their mind if they start shooting).
The car finally leaves, and the guy from the house is pacing back and forth on his front lawn for a few moments. He finally goes inside and a woman comes out. A few moments later a squad car comes to the house. By this time I've already put on a mag holder and have full dress attire on...If my house is put in danger because of somebody else's feud, I want to be ready. When the police begin talking with the lady from the house, at this time I'm out on the front lawn with my north-side next door neighbor. The police are still at the house when my neighbor goes back in and I walk across the street to talk with another neighbor, a single mother of 2 or 3, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay with her and the kids. Her kids were playing next door to the house of which is the target at the time of the verbal assaults. After a few moments the police woman leaves. I go back home and open up the shades so I can see if the car comes back.
After about 35 minutes I see a Lumina drive down the street. It doesn't stop infront of the house. The Lumina comes back up the street 20 seconds later. A few moments later, same thing. The Lumina goes down the street and comes back up. It's the same car. Right at this time my girlfriend is coming home and parks in the driveway. I go outside and tell her to go inside to the back rooms, and at this time I see the Lumina driving back up slowly. Two people get out and start walking behind the car as it's driving back towards the house. My girl drives an Avalanche, so I have plenty of cover and concealement hiding behind that. A group of guys (which I never saw come to the house to render aid) exit the house and start walking towards the car. About 8 people get out of the car and walk towards them. They all meet and start beating on each other two houses down on my side of the street. People get knocked to the ground and are kicked while they are down, punches are flying everywhere, and I can even hear fist hiting face and body from the distance away I was. After a few minutes of the fight the two groups seperate, the house group believing to have been the victors by saying "yeah yeah yall just got beat, get your asses outta here" and it was kinda confirmed by some of the guys saying "yeeah well you didn't fight ME though, did ya??" So the Lumina is driving backwards north towards my place. While people are getting back in the car, a few people start yelling "We'll be back and this time we'll be shootin!! You better get in that basement!!"
So NOW they have officially made assaults of shooting and killing, and the one threat that they made the first time about coming back they followed up on. So at this time all the neighbors around are outside on the porches or front lawns (I live right around a few avid hunters and a few guys who work at a local gun shop , so I'm guessing I'm not the only armed neighbor out there) and the Lumina leaves. Three neighbors that I know of have called the cops. After four minutes the police finally arrive, two squad cars at first followed up by another one a few minutes later. They are interviewing the main house as well as a couple surrounding neighbors. A few of us had tried getting the license place number but the plate lights were not on and it was too dark to make it out without getting kinda close. Again, I plan on staying out of this thing completely until danger is brought to my house or my immediate neighbors, so I didn't walk up to the car "time out, let me just write this down real quick!"
So the police are around for probably 20 minutes and then they take off. I'm across the street talking with a couple folk and then we finally all go home. So what I'm considering is how the car group followed up with their first threat of coming back, and a (at least) 10 person fight resulted from it. Now they have threatened to come back shooting. Nothing else happened last night, but if they are serious about it, they've had all day to gather people and weapons. So for the next few nights I know I'm going to be having more than my twins readily available near me in the house.
This whole scenario has made me think about something more than I ever have before....Because we are law abiding gun owners with a great respect for the tools that we have for self-defense, does anybody feel like a 'protector' for your neighborhood? Such as telling some neighbors that if anything seems like it's going to happen, come over and I can offer you safety? For example, my neighbor across the street with a few kids, if a fire fight seems like it's going to happen, I wouldn't think the shooters would have a stand-off in the middle of the street (I could be COMPLETELY wrong on that, also), I would think that they would hide behind homes or take cover somewhere putting an innocent family in the line of fire, not to mention just stray bullets. Not that my house has armored kevlar siding, but if a shooter were to try to break in running away or something, my neighbor would be safer with me, armed, than alone in their house trying to calm the kids down with no defense. So this whole thing has me thinking about that. Sorry it turned out so long. We'll see if anything happens tonight (fingers crossed)

Ben
 

thecolonel

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Ben,

Buddy, this is a tough situation and I seriously doubt things are over yet. In fact, I think things are ramping up.

In this situation, I think I would be very defensive, keep the kids close to home in the back yard, wear your sidearm in the house, be vigilant when leaving as the way you describe the neighborhood as having one way in and out.

Be especially mindful of your neighbor across the street and keep the police informed of the comings and going. In fact I would set down and develop a defensive plan with your family and neighbors.

I know how you feel about being a protector, but where I live all of my neighbors are well armed. In rural Missouri hunting is something everyone does and virtually all homes have multiple weapons in them.

Keep us informed on the evnts.

Dave
 

Nutczak

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Dec 2, 2008
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The Northwoods, lakeland area, Wisconsin, USA
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I would tell people to get to the farthest side of their homes aspossible, a basement would be even better. Having people crossing yards and streets during a fire-fight puts them in the path of bullets and the shooters may think they are threats and purposely shoot at them too.

God luck with this situation, it does not sound easy. Maybe a video camera would be a good investment?? Something outside of the house recording onto a hard-drive or flash media. And also be able to be monitored from inside or over the internet,
 

spectr019

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Aug 8, 2008
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Lansing, Michigan, USA
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Thank you very much for the responses. This is by far the scariest thing that has ever happened on my street for as long as I've owned the house. I posted this up on Michigan Gun Owners forums for some feed back also, and a good point was brought up that I should have called the police AS SOON AS I realized that it was the same car, so I'm glad that some folk chimed in on that one.

I very much plan to be keeping a watchful eye out for awhile...I have never spoken with that neighbor down the street, and after these events I have absolutely no intention to become acquainted with them in any way. I don't want to admit it, but I think you're correct saying that this could just be the beginning. It was clearly ignited from a previous event and this has been the follow up.

I have a safe room in the house, and my neighbors (the close, immediate neighbors) know that they can come over if they have any worries or see anything. I do not have a basement, which I agree would be idea, and luckily for this specific situation, my safe room is the room furthest away from the action right now. A video camera is a damn good idea which I didn't think of previously, and with my dad owning an electronics store in the area, I'm going to be heading over to pick something up as soon as I get outof work. Thank you very much again for the support.

Ben
 

Hiredgun30

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Jun 4, 2008
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Location
caldwell, Idaho, USA
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hey spec.. you should have all your neighbors write down the dates and times that they see the car. sounds like a scary situation....

in november of 2007,about 7 hours after I bought an ar-15, i had 8 people in my front yard with baseball bats looking for rival gang members that happened to be my neighbors..after that incident we startd a "armed neighborhood watch" where everybody would get phone calls and open their garage doors and just sit with their weapons.
I was sad when i moved from that neighborhood
 

D94R

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Cliffs? (not serious, but the comment precludes my next one, which is off topic, but needs asked)



Ethernetweb, can you out of courtesy use the link function to insert that link? Otherwise, for those who don't have large widescreen monitors, we/they must continuously scroll left and right while scrolling down in order to read the OP's very lengthy post.

Use the following to insert:
Type something here to describe the link[/url}. substitute the } with ].
 
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