imported post
So here is a story I read that happened very recently. Below the story is a response from someone who clearly points out what will happen in the event of using your firearm to protect someone.
WARNING - THIS STORY IS PRETTY F***ED UP...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/16/toddler.killed.ap/index.html
Police shoot man as he beats toddler
-Man beat child behind pickup truck on dark, rural California road
-Passing motorists tried to stopped beating, called police
-Police shoot, kill man
-Boy pronounced dead at hospital
TURLOCK, California (AP) -- Police killed a 27-year-old man as he kicked, punched and stomped a toddler to death despite other people's attempts to stop him on a dark, country road, authorities said.
Investigators on Sunday were trying to establish the relationship between the suspect and the child they say he killed Saturday night. The Stanislaus County coroner said the boy appeared to be between 1 and 2 years old based on his size, according to county sheriff's deputy Royjindar Singh.
"It's been a long night of wondering, 'Why?' -- not only for the officers and the passers-by who stopped and tried to help out, but for anyone. Why would somebody do this?" Singh said.
Singh said the coroner does not plan to confirm the identities of the suspect and victim until Monday. Because his injuries were so severe, the child will have to be identified through a blood or DNA test, he said.
The suspect had a child's car seat in the back of his four-door pickup truck. The truck caught the attention of an elderly couple at 10:13 p.m. Saturday because it was stopped in the two-lane road facing the wrong direction, Singh said.
As they got closer, the couple saw the man beating the toddler behind his truck and throwing the child on the ground, according to Singh. Two or three other cars stopped, an unusual number to be passing through the remote area surrounded by a dairy, a cow pasture, a cornfield and a farmhouse, he said.
"What we got from witnesses is he was punching, slapping, kicking, stomping, shaking," Singh said. "They tried to intervene and get involved, but their efforts really didn't have an effect. The suspect was engaged in what he was doing. He just pushed them off and went back to it."
A sheriff's helicopter responding to emergency calls from the area landed in a cow pasture at 10:19 p.m. carrying a Modesto police officer who shot the man to death after he refused an order to stop beating the child, Singh said.
Paramedics tried to resuscitate the toddler, who was not breathing when they arrived. The boy was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
No children within the dead boy's age range have been reported kidnapped or missing in Stanislaus County, Singh said.
The killing happened on Bradbury Road about 10 miles west of Turlock, a city about halfway between Sacramento and Fresno.
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The Response...(after much talk about "what I would have done")
In more and more jurisdictions all the time, firearms are easily accessible to sworn LE and the folks who pwn them.
Reacting appropiately (with a firearm) to this situation where it unfolded would mean:
1. Stop car. Assess situation. Realize action is necessary. Summon LE. Ignore dispather's direction to stay in your car and observe. Ignore dispatcher's advice against selecting a weapon. Ignore (sworn) dispatch supervisor when you mantion that you're gonna intervene with a firearm.
2. Exit vehicle to get to trunk (only place to legally store firearm in more and more jurisdictions), hoping that tweaker dude doesn't decide you need a beating, too.
3. Remove your firearm from its locked container, keeping eyes on tweaker dude.
4. Load a mag (some jurisdictions are cool with loaded mags, others will be up your ass over it), keeping eyes on tweaker dude.
5. Yup, step 5 you're FINALLY in the fight. Weapon into operation. Angle of approach that minimizes chance of unintended consequences. Acquire. Engage decisively so tweaker dude can't pull a Jason on you while you're doing what you can for the child.
6. As you're providing TCCC to child, concoct a story about how you were JUST COMING HOME DIRECTLY FROM THE FIRING RANGE.
7. Hire a lawyer. And a therapist. The lawyer will broker your new relationship with the criminal justice system as a person if interest in a homicide investigation. If you don't need the therapists's help dealing with your actions on contact, you will need it through the processs of surrendering your weapon, being fingerprinted, photographed, and deposed over the course of the homicide investigation you're now the center of. Answer politely as people who have never been in a gunfight ask you "Why four shots? Why not just two?" Hope that the dimwits in the PD and the courts don't simply process your information as an arrest, which they absolutely will if there isn't a skilled court liaison officer (plenty of those at the station house early on a Sunday morning) or officer of the court standing over their shoulder telling them how to process the case.
8. Assuming that you're cleared of wrongdoing in the homicide you commited, write another check to your lawyer so that he can ensure that the declaration of factual innocence extends to the removal of your photograph and your fingerprints from the databases populated by others under investigation for homicide.
9. Try to find your gun. Might be at the lab (no procedures for releasing guns to material witnesses). Might be in someone's evidence room (byzantine procedures for releasing physical evidence to material witnesses). Know that guns processed as evidence are typically destroyed when the cases are closed. Hope that your prized Sig is #100 and that they destroy guns whenever they get 150. Hope that the investigator and DDA assigned to your case are both gun guys and are both cool with citizens taking action.
And #10: Get a referral from your criminal lawyer for a good civil lawyer. You are now the target of a civil case brought by tweaker dude's family (specifically the mother of that child--whose life you changed forever b/c you killed the child's only male role model and were medically negligent in the amateurish care you provided her child). The exculpatory findings from the criminal beef are unevenly admisable. Time for another visit to the therapist.
No gun? Substitute "tire iron," but round about Step 5 insert narrative about NOT getting said tire iron taken away and working another assault into the scenario.
And my wife wonders why I prefer the simple justice available on the streets of Baghdad...
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Its a long read, but its worth it.