Another NOT GUILTY!

[jdhaines]

Another neat tip from Masaad Ayoob was from his Judicious Use of Lethal Force video. It was during a talk about home invasions, but it applies here. If an altercation is imminent, and you draw your weapon to a low ready or whatever your training describes as a ready defensive position, and the BG continues to attack...You can make some assumptions.

1) He knows that I have a deadly weapon in my hand because he can see it.
2) He can reasonably assume that I know how to use it and that it is not an empty threat.
3) I don't know anything about this person. He may be a thug, a retired Navy Seal, SAS, KGB, Honor roll student, etc.
4) In that situation I know nothing about what training he has, but he knows something about the training I have.
5) No one would continue to attack if they thought they had a major chance of losing.
6) Because the bad guy is pushing the attack he must be confident enough in his skills that he can still win the altercation even with me holding a gun.
7) He has enough training to win the attack unarmed against an armed gunman
8) The only way to stop him is to kill him.

My thoughts... exactly.

 

[SedahDrol]

Sounds like a good shoot to me. So long as the homeowner was in fear for his life or others. With Indiana law state of mind is everything. Had the criminal managed to disarm the homeowner because of hesitation, things could have turned out worse. The criminal should consider himself lucky he didn't get shot dead. Seems to me the homeowner went out of his way not to kill him. Hip and leg generally incapacitate. He stopped shooting once the threat was over.

Should he had called the police prior to confronting the threat. Yeah if he wanted the situation to have turned even worse due to time. Sadly police response isn't great. They can't be everywhere all the time. It's up to we citizens to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our neighbors.

 

[HICKMAN]

one punch to the nose can kill a person, unarmed doesn't mean not a threat.

 

[U.S. Patriot]

I'll take second on this...



It's just my IMHO that if a homeowner is rushed by an unarmed man, only after the fact that he (homeowner) brandishes a firearm. That that's not a scenario requiring deadly force. Maybe an @ss whooping, but not deadly force.

What if it was an older man. Without the physical ability to fight the perp off. Or what if he lost control of the gun, and the perp got ahold of it. I mean what do you do lay the gun down, and start going jackie chan? Obviousaly the perp meant to use deadly force, so in my eyes dealy force was authorized.

 

[SigSense]

Another neat tip from Masaad Ayoob was from his Judicious Use of Lethal Force video. It was during a talk about home invasions, but it applies here. If an altercation is imminent, and you draw your weapon to a low ready or whatever your training describes as a ready defensive position, and the BG continues to attack...You can make some assumptions.

1) He knows that I have a deadly weapon in my hand because he can see it.
2) He can reasonably assume that I know how to use it and that it is not an empty threat.
3) I don't know anything about this person. He may be a thug, a retired Navy Seal, SAS, KGB, Honor roll student, etc.
4) In that situation I know nothing about what training he has, but he knows something about the training I have.
5) No one would continue to attack if they thought they had a major chance of losing.
6) Because the bad guy is pushing the attack he must be confident enough in his skills that he can still win the altercation even with me holding a gun.
7) He has enough training to win the attack unarmed against an armed gunman
8) The only way to stop him is to kill him.

I work with two guys who are nationally-ranked Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competitors. One of them (6 foot, 200 lbs) used to be stationed in Okinawa, where he also was taught Tai Kick Boxing. The other one is 5'8" and weighs about 150, but can/will drop a man (and subsequently making him pass out due to lack of O2 to the brain) significantly larger than him. You never can tell what a man is capable of. Just looking at these two specimens in my unit, you'd not be able to ascertain their skills......

Righteous self-defense shooting in my opinion (based on the OP's story).

 

[mike4sigs]

I am still trying to figure out why the shooter put the shots in his hip ?? and knee ??
IMO he just opened himself up for a basket full of law suits dont we shoot to stop not to wound ??? just food for thought?

 

[shibumiseeker]

I am still trying to figure out why the shooter put the shots in his hip ?? and knee ??

At a guess I'd say the shooter was not a highly skilled shooter and jerked the trigger in the adrenaline rush of the moment. Looking at it this way, he did better than an LA shooting!

It takes training to be able to shoot well under high stress situations and not everyone trains with their guns like we do

 

[Arm America]

To the OP, thanks for your willingness to serve on jury duty
as well as sharing this case on INGO for discussion.

It's his post and related discussion that help make the site
as interesting as it is. Reps to him.

 

[BigMatt]

I like this discussion. It makes us think.

 

[Ashkelon]

Worrisome part is it took 7 hours of deliberations to get the unanimous not guilty vote.
This shows the split of jurors and those that were willing to convict a man for protecting him and others in the generality of his home.
Sad times indeed when a man faces multiple years in prison for a situation such as this.

 

[shibumiseeker]

Worrisome part is it took 7 hours of deliberations to get the unanimous not guilty vote.
This shows the split of jurors and those that were willing to convict a man for protecting him and others in the generality of his home.
Sad times indeed when a man faces multiple years in prison for a situation such as this.

7 hours isn't that bad. There are procedural issues that take some time. A good jury foreman can speed up the process, and a poor foreman can slow it down.

 

[Bob45]

I think I would have used my gun, too old to take an *** beating and take the chance of harm to my family

 

[ssgjason]

OP, good job!
I pray that I never have a jury trial with some of the other posters.

 

[baldguy637]

To all who inquired about shooting the bg in the knee/hip, the homeowner stated he did not want to kill the intruder, just stop him from advancing. His exact words as i remember it were "i aimed low and pulled the trigger as fast as i could untill he stumbled back, thats when i went inside, put the gun on the table, and called 911. I grabbed some dishrags to help stop the bleeding untill medics arrived."

 

[SedahDrol]

wow he even attended to the assailants wounds. I honestly can't say I would do that in his shoes. This guy true intent was not to kill the assailant but to merely stop him. Why in the world this even went to trial is beyond me.

 

[ThePope]

I really don't care how big or small the perp is ( BTW, most people are larger than me...) I am too old to fight ( could IF I had to, to a point...) and too slow to run.

Bad feller comes at me intending to harm me or family, he gets possibly injured by the implement of destruction I have in my hands at the time, be it a bat, a rock, a fist or a firearm.

Bad guys' fault, he saw the potential danger, decided to ignore it, bad mistake on his part, for if I pull on anyone, by that time, I have already decided I fully intend to use it, make NO mistake about that.

There is a saying..." never pick a fight with an old man, he'll just shoot ya...."

I am Out ...

 

[ddenny5]

I believe that the age of the shooter should be taken into consideration. My father is 66 and I would rather him shoot in this situation. The shooter may not have been physically able to fist fight.

 

[dross]

In my opinion, a wiser course of action would have been to call the police and then inform the guy that they were on their way, only showing the gun if the guy got agressive. Admittedly, I'm second-guessing based on a very sketchy description.

As to fistfight vs. shooting, that's something you'd better figure out the day you start carrying. I'm 6'2", 260 pounds, and not a fat guy. (When I was a fat guy, I weighed 330.) Anyway, I'm not a guy that typically gets confronted physically. Yet, I don't care if you weight 100 pounds soaking wet, I'm not going to fight you with my fists when I'm armed. I can't afford to let a guy who has proven his intent to cause me physical harm to have a chance to get a hold of my deadly weapon.

 

[baldguy637]

Both men were in their 40's, homeowner was around 5'7-8" 170lbs i would guess. At the time of the shooting, the intruder i would guess by the pics to be around 5'10"-6' 200lbs. As far as size goes, the intruder's upper body was twice the size of the homeowners.

 

[ocsdor]

Have been on jury duty this whole week. Long story short..... Homeowner had an intruder come into his house two seperate times, unanounced, and began arguing with a female acquaintance of the homeowner. Both times, the homeowner managed to get the intruder to leave....

Two opportunities to have put an end to this menace without the threat of jail and big lawyer fees.

Of coarse, in my house, there is a strict policy on how to deal with intruders.