McDonalds Attack - Justification or Not

Responses seem to break down along a few different lines.

1. Not my business.
Q. OK. Perfectly reasonable reason to not get involved. Though a little non-responsive on the question of whether or not deadly force is legally justified. So bring it closer to home. The victim is either your daughter/sister/wife. So now you have a dog in the fight. Is deadly force legally justified?

2. I'm strong enough I'd just smack down them thugs. No gun needed.
Q. OK. Perhaps you are strong enough. But what if due to age or infirmity you're not? Or if you just don't want to start wrestling people while wearing a gun? So we're back to the same question. Is deadly force legally justified? Remember if you're carrying, every fight is a gun fight. So if you don't think deadly force is justified why the heck are you doing bringing a gun into the fight?

3. What's a little beat down between friends?
Q. This girl is sufficiently beaten to the point that she loses consciousness and starts convulsing. Sounds like a deadly threat to me. But what do I know. Maybe no one has ever died from being beaten so it's no biggie.

I honestly am not sure I would get involved or not if the victim is a stranger. But I do not think there can be any real doubt that this beat down was a deadly threat. Therefore, I believe engagement with deadly force would be legally justified. IF I did engage, it would only be to stop the threat of death (or serious injury), and no I'm too old/infirm to wade in hands on.

Fenris said:

The victim is either your daughter/sister/wife. So now you have a dog in the fight. Is deadly force legally justified?

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I thought about that before I responded but decided not to include it. If that were the case they would all probably be dead or severely injured; the law be damned. Still doesn't answer your question...

Fenris said:

But I do not think there can be any real doubt that this beat down was a deadly threat.

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I agree, but I'm not certain a court would.

ed said:

I may have told the victim to get in the corner and stay behind me. I would verbally warn the others they should leave and if they came towards me I would drop them.

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Ed,

This is a relatively small space and there are two assailants. I'm not sure how to apply Tueller.

Would you have your hand on gun? Gun drawn? Held low or high?

Fenris said:

Ed,

This is a relatively small space and there are two assailants. I'm not sure how to apply Tueller.

Would you have your hand on gun? Gun drawn? Held low or high?

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Exactly. Now you have to worry about brandishing. I can't draw my gun that fast, and I have no hand to hand combat skills other than those provided by nature. I'm also not that strong, or at least not strong enough to keep back 3 raging women at once.

I think Ed is pretty close

Isn't the main reason we OC is to defend ourselves? We are not law enforcement officers. I would hope in this situation that OC without demonstration could have prevented or stopped this attack. Going back to point one, is this not a secondary reason to OC?
I would like to say yes.

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."
Robert A. Heinlein

t33j said:

I thought about that before I responded but decided not to include it. If that were the case they would all probably be dead or severely injured; the law be damned. Still doesn't answer your question...

I agree, but I'm not certain a court would.

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Yes, if it were one of mine, then I'll risk incarceration to protect.

What was NovaCop's rule: "Better to be beaten to death by an unarmed assailant than to defend yourself with a gun." Or something like that. Or was that Hank's rule. Sorry brain getting soft with age.

Curtis said:

What are you talking about? Did you watch Office Space recently and whip out your own jump to conclusions map? Throwing the attackers off, while not the same as shooting them to make them stop, is a form of defending the one being attacked... believe it or not. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail I guess.

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I don't know what "Office Space" is. Can you clarify? Throwing off attackers is great if you have that capability. But you are begging the question. Is there justification if "throwing off" doesn't work or you are not confident in your physical abilities. You have responded twice in this thread. Neither time did you address my question regarding the legal justifiability of using deadly force in the Old Dominion.

Do you have a response to the question? Just curious.

Fenris said:

I don't know what "Office Space" is. Can you clarify? Throwing off attackers is great if you have that capability. But you are begging the question. Is there justification if "throwing off" doesn't work or you are not confident in your physical abilities. You have responded twice in this thread. Neither time did you address my question regarding the legal justifiability of using deadly force in the Old Dominion.

Do you have a response to the question? Just curious.

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Nope! I'm just in here to opine with the rest of them. Sorry it's not of the type you'd like to hear. I'll leave you and your Captain Saves The Day fantasies alone now.

Curtis said:

I'll leave you and your Captain Saves The Day fantasies alone now.

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Ok... I actually laughed out loud to that one.

In response to the OP, do whatever you are prepared to go to jail for..... because it just may come to that. Maybe at your trial you can use the defense 'but someone on the internet said it was legally justified.....'

ProShooter said:

No Yankee would ever consider 3 women from Maryland to be "fellow Yankees". Where I come from, Maryland is considered part of the South.

I guess your view depends on where you are viewing from.....location, location, location!

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I keep telling you Jim, Yankee is a state of mind, not a property line. That's why you're a welcome friend here but Hank isn't.:lol:

To the rest..."What if" doesn't count.

Two young ladies (In a very general sense) beat the living hell out of another one. No it's not my business but I would have stopped it because itr was getting out of hand.

I'm old. Been shot, beat all to hell, broke one knee in two places, have pins in the other ankle...and kicked on many occasions and I'm still alive. Killing someone is a very serious thing and like many things, it's hard to live with so there should be a damn good reason.

But I'm going to quit arguing about it. The question was asked and I answered it. Try sticking your nose in a fight like that sometime, and use unreasonable force (Like shooting someone) and make sure you remember to not bend over to pick up the soap because all the jailhouse law about "What If" isn't going to keep you out of trouble.

My Great Grandmother who spent her Childhood during the war of Northern Aggression, lived to be 103 and smoked a pipe until she died....would lean back in her chair when someone started talking about killing someone, and smile when she said "I Killed The Bear'.:lol:

Well gentlemen, to all that would draw their plastic .40's and save the damsel in distress....I killed the bear:lol:

Curtis said:

Nope! I'm just in here to opine with the rest of them. Sorry it's not of the type you'd like to hear. I'll leave you and your Captain Saves The Day fantasies alone now.

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Just wanted to know if it was legally justified, and hopefully a rational explanation why or why not. not sure how fantasies got dragged into it.

Fenris said:

Just wanted to know if it was legally justified, and hopefully a rational explanation why or why not. not sure how fantasies got dragged into it.

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Curtis is one of the more rational members Fernris. He doesn't mean to be especially critical but these discussions tend to drift into a cross between Spider Man and GI Joe.

The answer is that you are allowed to use reasonable force and from what was shown in the video, using your gun is NOT reasonable force.

As predicted, the discussion went to "What if"

What if she were being killed...she wasn't.
What if she were your sister....she wasn't.
What if they had a knife....they didn't.

peter nap said:

Curtis is one of the more rational members Fernris. He doesn't mean to be especially critical but these discussions tend to drift into a cross between Spider Man and GI Joe.

The answer is that you are allowed to use reasonable force and from what was shown in the video, using your gun is NOT reasonable force.

As predicted, the discussion went to "What if"

What if she were being killed...she wasn't.
What if she were your sister....she wasn't.
What if they had a knife....they didn't.

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I understand. Wait maybe I don't. My point was that you don't know before any attack (stomping, stabbing, or shooting) is over whether someone has been killed. But you do know that stomping someone's head is a threat to their life. The sister issue was only brought up to get around the "Not my business" response. Family relationship I don't think changes the threshold for justification. I did not suggest they might have a knife. I did point out that if you are threatened with a knife it is a deadly threat even if you don't get stabbed.

I tried to keep things civil. And turn the conversation away from "I'd use my kung fu..." or "I'd dive in with guns blazing..."

I honestly don't know if I would engage. I do know, that unless I really thought that the girl's life was in danger I would not get involved at all. I can't agree with the notion that getting involved without a gun is a good idea unless it is to save a life. Given that you are carrying a gun, there is the potential for it to become a deadly force encounter. Unless deadly force is justified from the get go, I'm staying out completely. And I'm still not sure I would intervene even then.

I do not think anything I said can be reasonably construed as Ramboesque.

I am fairly sure that in Virginia someone being threatened (or assaulted) with guns, knives or clubs would be considered at risk of death or serious bodily injury. And therefore could use (or a third party could use) deadly force for protection. I am less clear how self defense is applied to unarmed but potentially deadly assaults with hands and feet. That is why I was asking and re-asking in different ways to try and get a better appreciation of the issue.

Unfortunately fairly early on apparently Curtis did not see it that way? Not sure why.

ed said:

I may have told the victim to get in the corner and stay behind me. I would verbally warn the others they should leave and if they came towards me I would drop them.

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Having read all of the posts to this point, and having seen the video, Ed's approach makes the most sense to me.

Running the situation through my mind, I just cannot imagine doing nothing. I am of the opinion that many of these attacks are done by cowards who attack through force of numbers and will stop if confronted by someone who is not a helpless victim. At the very least, I could have shifted the focus of attack from the defenseless person to someone (myself) better able to protect himself.

I just don't think I could live with myself if I had been in that restaurant and done nothing.

Unfortunately, this happened in the PRO Maryland where law abiding citizens are not allowed to provide for their own most effective form of defense.

In Virginia, you may use deadly force to protect another person if you could put yourself in their shoes and be in fear of imminent serious bodily harm. In other words, they must be in the same sort of immediate danger as would you need to be if you were to use deadly force for your own protection. Now the caveat to this is you had better darned well be certain of what is taking place and therein lies the rub. Who is the true victim and what has transpired prior to what you see happening? Who are the players in the encounter?

Those who mentioned stepping in to try to break up the attacks and protect the victim are on the right track. Add to that a 911 call for police and medical services. Playing guessing games is just that, but they are valuable attempts to help figure out how we might react to a sudden and completely unexpected situation. Many times I have sat in a fast food place and played "what if" scenarios in my mind. The idea is to live to see another day... and to be able to live with ourselves.

Does anyone know how the victim wound up? Was there any permanent injury/damage?


INAL.

Fenris said:

). I am less clear how self defense is applied to unarmed but potentially deadly assaults with hands and feet. That is why I was asking and re-asking in different ways to try and get a better appreciation of the issue.

Unfortunately fairly early on apparently Curtis did not see it that way? Not sure why.

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Again, Curtis was just addressing the what if mentality.

As to the hands and feet assault...Yeah, the girl got a whippin. Sure didn't look life threatening to me though. Those weren't seizures she was having, it was squirming from having some large chunks of hair pulled out.

In my misspent youth I used to frequent mountain bars, especially one on Hanky Mountain...where that would have been considered normal Saturday night entertainment. I can't remember anyone dieing from it.

We also don't know what started it. She may have deserved that beating.

YES!! The girl should have shot both of them!
Why in the world didnt any of thsoe punks step up and do something.
When the two peices of human trash decided to gang up on the girl, I would have busted both of their skulls open!
If I were to walk in and see them trying to drag her away" Kindnapping", I would have kill both of them!
What in the Hell is wrong with people who stand by and watch this kind of BS happen!
Defend your fellow man!
Damn!

And YES, They should be DEAD! :cuss:
rant off.

peter nap said:

Again, Curtis was just addressing the what if mentality.

As to the hands and feet assault...Yeah, the girl got a whippin. Sure didn't look life threatening to me though. Those weren't seizures she was having, it was squirming from having some large chunks of hair pulled out.

In my misspent youth I used to frequent mountain bars, especially one on Hanky Mountain...where that would have been considered normal Saturday night entertainment. I can't remember anyone dieing from it.

We also don't know what started it. She may have deserved that beating.

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Seriously, Peter? "She may have deserved that beating?" Blaming the victim?

I'm gonna say the head kicks and stomps justify lethal force legally--immediate and otherwise unavoidable threat of grave bodily injury or death. Given the opportunity for a disabling brain injury, or as I've learned from this video a seizure, I'd say we meet the standard for grave bodily injury.

Also, Massad Ayoob in his video Judicious Use of Deadly Force* talks briefly about a victim who is down being unable to roll with kicks. He comes right out and says plenty of people have died from being kicked while they are down. I'll add: never mind broken ribs that puncture a lung, spleen, etc.

So, this non-lawyer would say lethal force would be justified. Would it be wise, though? I dunno. Having the benefit of reading (skimming) the earlier posts, I might wade in and throw a few punches myself rather than start with lethal force.

Also, I suppose commanding, "Stop or I'll shoot!" Or, "Stop! One more kick or punch and I shoot that person!" While, holding at low-ready. I offer this idea based on a gun magazine article I read about 8-10 years ago. A firearms tactics training class. Cops maybe. Scenario training. The student walks "down the hall, having arrived at work," and discovers in an "office" someone sitting atop another, repeatedly stabbing the one on the bottom. All the students except one shot the stabber (simunitions or something). Exactly one student drew and ordered the stabber to cease or be shot. Later, the instructors asked that student why he didn't shoot (like all the others). The student explained that as an (ex?)-cop, he had learned that the stabber is not necessarily the aggressor. It would be entirely possible the stabber had wrested the knife from his attacker and was neutralizing the attacker (before the attacker could get the knife back and finish the victim, I guess. It was unsaid.)

*The video is now on YouTube in two parts. Its about 40-50 minutes. Worth watching if you haven't seen it.