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Possible Assault Deterred Due to OC

RMafera

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Messages
34
Location
San Diego, California, USA
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So, I decided to go to Starbucks and Ralph's to get some coffee and a pack of smokes. I hung out at Starbucks for a while and talked with the employees, drank some coffee, talked to some awesome musicians outside for a while and answered the question, "Hey, is that a taser?" Haha. I still can't tell if he was joking or not. Cool guy though.

Anyways, I headed next door to Ralph's and outside the doors was a group of people and two people in the middle yelling at each other. I got curious like everyone else and walked up to about five feet away from the people arguing.

Right when I walked up it started getting really heated and the woman (who was definitely 5150) spat at the guy and missed. I was only there for about 10 seconds before she turned and saw that I was carrying. She then said one last f**k you to the guy and left.

I talked to the guy afterward and he asked if I was an officer and I said, "Nope" and briefly explained open carry. And he thanked me because he was worried that if that woman hit him, and he had to legitimately defend himself, that he would have gone to jail for battery of a woman.

I didn't say a word through that whole thing; I didn't stare threateningly at anyone; didn't touch my firearm or even move my hand toward it. It just worked its magic by itself. Cool :)

Mafera
 

bigtoe416

Anti-Saldana Freedom Fighter
Joined
Jun 3, 2008
Messages
1,747
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Oregon
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Sounds like a positive outing to me. It's sad that people behave differently when they think a police officer is present. We're all tasked with the job of maintaining our communities, not just the boys in blue.

Also, just to be really pedantically annoying, you probably prevented a battery from occurring. It sounds like she probably assaulted the guy when she spat at him. You can assault with somebody with words alone, they just have to feel threatened (I believe).
 

RMafera

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Messages
34
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San Diego, California, USA
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bigtoe416 wrote:
Sounds like a positive outing to me. It's sad that people behave differently when they think a police officer is present. We're all tasked with the job of maintaining our communities, not just the boys in blue.

Also, just to be really pedantically annoying, you probably prevented a battery from occurring. It sounds like she probably assaulted the guy when she spat at him. You can assault with somebody with words alone, they just have to feel threatened (I believe).
Yeah, you're right. Assault is attempting to cause damage. Battery is succeeding. She assaulted him by spitting and missing; if she would have hit him then it would have been battery. :)
 

ConditionThree

State Pioneer
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
2,231
Location
Shasta County, California, USA
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RMafera wrote:
I got curious like everyone else and walked up to about five feet away from the people arguing.
Be careful about injecting yourself into an already tense situation. While it turned out okay this time, its possible that police or onlookers will mistake you as the agitator and escalate the situation.
 

RMafera

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Messages
34
Location
San Diego, California, USA
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ConditionThree wrote:
RMafera wrote:
I got curious like everyone else and walked up to about five feet away from the people arguing.
Be careful about injecting yourself into an already tense situation. While it turned out okay this time, its possible that police or onlookers will mistake you as the agitator and escalate the situation
Dually noted. Like I said though, I was only there for a very short while. I was about to turn away and walk into Ralph's when she saw me. Also, this whole fiasco happened right in front of the doors so I didn't have much choice...:(
 

Theseus

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
Messages
964
Location
Lamma Island, HK
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ConditionThree wrote:
RMafera wrote:
I got curious like everyone else and walked up to about five feet away from the people arguing.
Be careful about injecting yourself into an already tense situation. While it turned out okay this time, its possible that police or onlookers will mistake you as the agitator and escalate the situation.
Yes, I can see how his open carrying could have made the woman spit on the man. Obviously the open carrier was the agitator.
 

RMafera

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2010
Messages
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Location
San Diego, California, USA
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Theseus wrote:
ConditionThree wrote:
RMafera wrote:
I got curious like everyone else and walked up to about five feet away from the people arguing.
Be careful about injecting yourself into an already tense situation. While it turned out okay this time, its possible that police or onlookers will mistake you as the agitator and escalate the situation.
Yes, I can see how his open carrying could have made the woman spit on the man. Obviously the open carrier was the agitator.
Condition is right though IMO. It doesn't matter if an open carrier is instigating anything or not. The only thing that matters is how others can possibly view the situation.

It's something I've been thinking about lately. If something is happening that I would normally jump in to stop (e.g. a fight) would I not do it because I'm carrying due to the possibility of being arrested or being falsely implicated in something? And if something bad does happen out of a good reason (again, breaking up a fight) how would that reflect in law enforcement's and the media's view of all OCers?

Even if everything turned out fine after an OCer broke up a fight and the cop was all, "Ok, well you're free to go and have yourself a good night!" how is the media going to play on that? "Last night at Ralph's there were several witnesses to a man with a gun fighting int he parking lot. Man seems to be part of Open Carry Movement..."

I believe this is something that all OCers should think about because it's fairly important. Didn't cross my mind much until what happened last night.
 

Pace

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2009
Messages
1,140
Location
Las Vegas, NV
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The media will do what the media does. You need to have good PR spin, provide what the other side will not. I don't particularly think the OC movement has done a "great" job in their PR campaign, for a variety of reasons, but they've done OK.

The standard answer to the police and media would be "I noticed a possible assault about to start, and I asked if there was an issue and if the person needed me to call the police." As for the OpenCarry issues: "Yes, I carry a firearm for personal protection as allowd by law, but at no time did I touch it nor threaten anyone with it."

Pratice that over and over again. :)
 

cato2

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Joined
Nov 25, 2006
Messages
159
Location
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ConditionThree wrote:
RMafera wrote:
 I got curious like everyone else and walked up to about five feet away from the people arguing.
Be careful about injecting yourself into an already tense situation. While it turned out okay this time, its possible that police or onlookers will mistake you as the agitator and escalate the situation.

+1, stay away from trouble!
 
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