Threatening incident last Sunday night (Forest/Marsh)

[buffalo_speedway_tx]

I am glad you got out of the situation. I agree with Beiruty that you should file a report. IMO there are alot of us with CHL's that may never find ourselves in such a situation (THANK GOD!), but I can only hope that if I ever do I react as well as you.

[Fangs]

I think you did well. Out of curiosity, after the guy got back in the truck, how did you get back into your car and leave? Did you walk right back to between your car and their truck or did you hop in the passenger side and slide over?

[Oldgringo]

DANG!

You city folk have all of the fun. It was predicted by "some" that if we voted "wet" last May, these sort of things would happen here in our little Pineywoods hamlet. Well, the "wets" won and life is still without the excitement that you guys have. Why there haven't even been any of the good wrecks or that other beat-up stuff that was supposed to happen due to the "demon" being out in the open on the shelves of our one grocery store.

I'm studyin' movin' to the city where I can use my CCW.

[VoiceofReason]

POSTER ANSWERED IN NEXT POST MY APOLOGIES! The gentleman approaching you was quickly invading your personal space by putting his arms out and walking toward you while you were confined between his vehicle and yours. I don't know what his intentions were but you had to stop him from coming towards you in some way or another and doesn't sound like you had time to verbally command him to stop with how close he sounds like he was.

Would you say he was less than 10 feet away from you and closing in?

The only thing I know that you could have done different would be to turn and run away and try to retreat. Then, stand your ground and command him to stop and return to his vehicle. If he does not comply with that then I think that would be the best time present your weapon and make him aware that you mean business. But, in any case your actions stopped him from whatever he was trying to accomplish and thats what matters. You made it home safe and no one was hurt in the process.

Others, if I am off basis please correct me.

I don’t think I would have wanted to turn my back on him to run. Glad it turned out as it did.

[VoiceofReason]

The "fog" you describe is a neurophysiological effect that stems from a rapidly escalating heart rate and the stress hormones that are being dumped into your system. The higher your heart rate goes, the greater the impairment to your ability to think your way out of the situation. In these circumstances, your brain will "default" to what you have trained yourself to do - if you have trained yourself to do anything specific. If you haven't it will come up with the equivalent of a "404 - page not found" error when it looks for the "program". In that case chances are excellent that rapidly occurring events will overwhelm you before you can recover and react.

The importance of having pre thought out reactive sequences for various situations is obvious. They probably won't exactly fit the circumstances you confront due to the number of possible variables, but if you have the major elements under control, you can successfully fill in the blanks, even under stress. There are also breathing techniques that can reduce this effect and are well worth learning.

Excaliber once again posts some really great info. Any one who has been trained for combat-type situations will tell you that you almost go into auto-pilot if everything works right.

In the two shooting events I was involved in as a LEO (not the shooter, but one of the group engaged), as well as a couple of other high-stress emergency type situations with guns going, I literally had to go back during debriefing and step by step rebuild the event in my mind to recall exactly how I reacted and what transpired. I had the steps there in my head and could recall them all one by one, but until I sat down and really thought about how they played out, it was almost nothing but a blur. It is kinda like the Chesly Sullenberger landing on the Hudson; you have been trained well, and your experience puts you through the right steps to quickly do what you need and react properly, all the time almost subconsciously doing them like a robot or on autopilot. At least that is the way it hopefully happens!!

Good post. Excaliber seems to have very good human insight and Keith B brings experience.

I would like to post my reactions and ask your opinions.

I have found that the worse a situation becomes the calmer I become and I am able to think very clearly.

When I was in law enforcement, the first time I thought I was going to have to shoot a man, I was extremely calm. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t angry. I didn’t feel sorry for the man. Nothing.

When I got home, took off my uniform, gun belt and Kevlar this started bothering me. It bothered me for about a week. I was thinking that if you believe you are going to have to end a human life you should feel something and if I didn’t then maybe I should not be in law enforcement. After about a week I realized the emotions were there, I had just suppressed them so much in order to do what I had to do, that I was not aware of them.

Is this common?

[Keith B]

Good post. Excaliber seems to have very good human insight and Keith B brings experience.

I would like to post my reactions and ask your opinions.

I have found that the worse a situation becomes the calmer I become and I am able to think very clearly.

When I was in law enforcement, the first time I thought I was going to have to shoot a man, I was extremely calm. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t angry. I didn’t feel sorry for the man. Nothing.

When I got home, took off my uniform, gun belt and Kevlar this started bothering me. It bothered me for about a week. I was thinking that if you believe you are going to have to end a human life you should feel something and if I didn’t then maybe I should not be in law enforcement. After about a week I realized the emotions were there, I had just suppressed them so much in order to do what I had to do, that I was not aware of them.

Is this common?

Actually, Excaliber brings MUCH more experience than I do. He can probably answer this much better than I can. However, it is similar to what I was describing. I was not nervous, and extremely aware of what was transpiring, but almost like it was a training exercise and I was on autopilot. However, I had to step back and think about each step to piece the incidents all together vs. one big run-on event. The adrenaline dump did hit though and I had the shakes and nausea for a short time afterward.

In my two shooting situations I was not the shooter, but right on the edge of being the one that shot the guy. The things thing that helped my post event reluctance that someone was shot and killed was two-fold: In one of the shootings the guy was shooting at us already, so it was totally self-defense. We also found out that 6 hours earlier he had hacked his Mom and Dad to death with an ax in Kentucky. The other the guy was robbing a convenience store and once his record was reviewed we found he had a rap sheet longer than my arm. He actually was on parole from the state pen on a previous armed robbery and attempted murder charges where he had shot a stop & rob clerk during a robbery.

[OldSchool]

I think you folks have helped me with the ageless question, "Will I shoot?".
[remainder deleted]

[VoiceofReason]

Good post. Excaliber seems to have very good human insight and Keith B brings experience.

I would like to post my reactions and ask your opinions.

I have found that the worse a situation becomes the calmer I become and I am able to think very clearly.

When I was in law enforcement, the first time I thought I was going to have to shoot a man, I was extremely calm. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t angry. I didn’t feel sorry for the man. Nothing.

When I got home, took off my uniform, gun belt and Kevlar this started bothering me. It bothered me for about a week. I was thinking that if you believe you are going to have to end a human life you should feel something and if I didn’t then maybe I should not be in law enforcement. After about a week I realized the emotions were there, I had just suppressed them so much in order to do what I had to do, that I was not aware of them.

Is this common?

Actually, Excaliber bring MUCH more experience than I do. He can probably answer this much better than I can. However, it is similar to what I was describing. I was not not nervous, and extremely aware of what was transpiring, but almost like it was a training exercise and I was on autopilot. However, I had to step back and think about each step to piece the incidents all together vs. one big run-on event. The adrenaline dump did hit though and I had the shakes and nausea for a short time afterward.

In my two shooting situations I was not the shooter, but right on the edge of being the one that shot the guy. The things thing that helped my post event reluctance that someone was shot and killed was two-fold: In one of the shootings the guy was shooting at us already, so it was totally self-defense. We also found out that 6 hours earlier he had hacked his Mom and Dad to death with an ax in Kentucky. The other the guy was robbing a convenience store and once his record was reviewed we found he had a rap sheet longer than my arm. He actually was on parole from the state pen on a previous armed robbery and attempted murder charges where he had shot a stop & rob clerk during a robbery.

Footnote: My partner and I got the gun away from the perp with no one getting hurt. I never did have an adrenaline dump. Is this unusual? Is something wrong there?

[Keith B]

Footnote: My partner and I got the gun away from the perp with no one getting hurt. I never did have an adrenaline dump. Is this unusual? Is something wrong there?

I misread your post and thought you had shot the person, or they had gotten shot.

I don't think there is anyting unusual or wrong in your scenario. My guess with your situation the adrenaline may have never escalated to the 'rush' stage. I have had those events too where something happened so quickly and was over so fast, that unless there was an extremely traumatic ending (like a dead person) then your psyche interprets all OK, the rush never hits and you go on. My guess is your mind interpreted the threat, your training kicked in and your mind and body responded to handle it without the epinephrine rush. I think this is very normal for veteran officers or soldiers, and those who are well trained. They handle the situation and move on with their business, as it is just part of the job. Once you got home, your mind slows down after you are off duty and have time to start post-analyzing the situation and what 'could' have happened, then you have the post traumatic stress of the event which includes it bothering you that you might have had to take a life.

Excalibur has a lot more background in the psychological and physiological affects than I do and will probably have better insight and what really happens. I was just a grunt officer and never had any formal training in the psychological side.

[VoiceofReason]

I wanted to relate an incident that just happened in the Tom Thumb parking lot at Forest and Marsh in Dallas, last Sunday night. It was the first time I had to present my weapon to a civilian. It happened so fast and I'm not sure I did the right thing or not... I know I've been approached like this in the past and did not have/present the weapon...and all was OK. For some reason, last Sunday night just felt different. In any case, I can't think of any other way to say it, so I'll just spill it out, fully, like it happened.

I went to the Thumb at 7PM. I was alone and was in my VW. I parked in a far spot, closer to the street than to the store in other words. I went in the store and got my groceries. Walking back to my car, I became aware of a silver/grey Toyota truck going up and down the parking lanes. It wasn't looking for a spot to park, or so it seemed to me at the time.

I approached my Beetle and heard the truck. I turned and saw it come in rather fast and pull into the spot next to me. I was standing next to the VW's driver door and the truck was next to me. The passenger window rolled down and a large, Black man grinned. "Hi there," he said. I remembered what had happened to me when I was a kid, when some goons tried to distract my father one day while another sneaked up behind, and I looked around to see if there was someone else coming up in my blind spot. I backed up to where I was between the Beetle's and the Toyota's tail lights. The driver was Black as well, and the truck's engine was still running. The passenger door opened and the big guy got out. He was huge. "Can I talk to you?" he said, grinning far too widely for my comfort. There was something particularly menacing about it all. His hands were coming up and at my head level. That's when I decided to draw my pistol. I think I said something to the man, but I cannot remember what I said. I might have said "Oh no," or I could have recited the Napoleonic Code. I simply cannot remember. I didn't even flick off the safety (this is a 1911), though my thumb was riding right on it. His eyes got as big as saucers and he said, "I'm going to live in this car." He then quickly drew back into the cab, shut the door and put his hands on the console. He stared straight ahead; so did the driver. I got into my VW and kept my eye on him. I got out of there and they were still in the parking lot. I called up the manager at the Tom Thumb and related this entire incident to him. He said he would get Security out there, pronto.

Anyway, that is what happened. I don't know why they did not leave; I don't know why I did not call 911 right away (or even if I should have). Things were just moving quickly. I guess the Never Again moment, here, is that never again will I let someone get that close to me in such a threatening situation.

I believe you did the right thing.
I hope I would have recognized the threat in this situation in time and done exactly the same.

[Excaliber]

Footnote: My partner and I got the gun away from the perp with no one getting hurt. I never did have an adrenaline dump. Is this unusual? Is something wrong there?

I misread your post and thought you had shot the person, or they had gotten shot.

I don't think there is anyting unusual or wrong in your scenario. My guess with your situation the adrenaline may have never escalated to the 'rush' stage. I have had those events too where something happened so quickly and was over so fast, that unless there was an extremely traumatic ending (like a dead person) then your psyche interprets all OK, the rush never hits and you go on. My guess is your mind interpreted the threat, your training kicked in and your mind and body responded to handle it without the epinephrine rush. I think this is very normal for veteran officers or soldiers, and those who are well trained. They handle the situation and move on with their business, as it is just part of the job. Once you got home, your mind slows down after you are off duty and have time to start post-analyzing the situation and what 'could' have happened, then you have the post traumatic stress of the event which includes it bothering you that you might have had to take a life.

Excalibur has a lot more background in the psychological and physiological affects than I do and will probably have better insight and what really happens. I was just a grunt officer and never had any formal training in the psychological side.

Voice of Reason, there are two possibilities here: Either there's nothing wrong with you, or we both need a checkup from the neckup because I've had experiences very similar to what you described many times. I'm pretty sure the former interpretation is correct.

Here's my understanding of what's going on:

If you are well trained and experienced in managing critical incidents, when you see that things are going south and your heart rate begins to escalate, your brain reaches for the "default program" to handle the situation. If it finds one, there is no panic because you still feel in control. Your heart rate doesn't go nearly as high as it would if you had no idea what to do and felt death reaching out for you. You execute what you've trained to do and in most cases that is sufficient to resolve the situation. In this case you may well not experience the altered consciousness or post incident crash in these circumstances because you didn't reach a high enough state of arousal to dump all the stress chemicals into your bloodstream.

On the other hand, if you're suddenly confronted with a deadly situation you didn't expect or the supposedly controlled situation suddenly explodes on you, the chemical dump and neurophysiological changes hit instantaneously as the heart rate goes through the roof. When this happens, there will be significant aftereffects similar to what Keith has described as the chemical changes wear off a short time after the incident.

The emotional experience aspect is a bit different. LEO's see a great deal of trauma of all types. Most of us learn to reflexively suppress our emotional responses during an incident because allowing them to spill out would seriously interfere with doing what we need to do right then. If we're lucky (like when we can talk about these things with trusted people like our spouse, close coworkers, etc) and have other non work related interests we engage in often, we're able to deal with the feelings soon afterward when we can afford to sort them out and decompress. When this sequence takes place, in most cases we'll bounce back pretty well. There's nothing wrong with remaining mentally and spiritually healthy while doing things that would tear up many folks for good with one exposure, and doing them over and over during the couple of decades of a police career. It's a special gift to be able to do that, and one that's unique to warriors.

If we're not lucky, we keep those feelings bottled up inside because we think cops are supposed to be tough and unaffected by what we experience or because we have no one trusted enough to confide in. In that case, the effect is like squeezing a water balloon - you can compress one area, but for sure another part will pop out in some other unpredictable area out of control. That's not good and, over time, leads to broken marriages, mistakes on the job, and self destructive behaviors that are engaged in to try to deal with the internal pain.

[03Lightningrocks]

DANG!

You city folk have all of the fun. It was predicted by "some" that if we voted "wet" last May, these sort of things would happen here in our little Pineywoods hamlet. Well, the "wets" won and life is still without the excitement that you guys have. Why there haven't even been any of the good wrecks or that other beat-up stuff that was supposed to happen due to the "demon" being out in the open on the shelves of our one grocery store.

I'm studyin' movin' to the city where I can use my CCW.

I am starting to really like your posts...LOL. They said the same thing when Plano went wet several years ago. I was in High School at the time. They said it would make alcoholics of all us teenagers and that we would all start driving around drunk. Of coarse all of us teens got excited about it and were looking forward to some good times, but then we found out we would not be allowed to buy the Beer and Wine until we were 18. It was rather disappointing for us. 22 years later and Plano still doesn't have wild out of control crime in the streets.

[03Lightningrocks]

What scares me when I read posts like this is that I don't think I would have drawn my weapon. I would have said get away from me in an unfriendly way, but my first thought is usually not to shoot a guy. I typically am not to afraid of hand to hand situations. It's not that I fancy myself a tough guy, I am just not afraid of a fight. I would probably have gotten the crap kicked out of me...LOL.

[seamusTX]

I am going to recap the facts as I understand them:

• Driving a VW Beetle
• Parked in a remote part of the parking lot
• At night
• Driver male, about 5'11", 160# (from other threads)
• Wearing a suit and tie with a trench coat
• Alone
• Confronted by possible robber who approaches with his hands in a position where he could restrain or strangle potential victim
• Possible robbers displayed no firearms, knives, clubs, or the like
• Upon presentation of sidearm, "His eyes got as big as saucers and he said, 'I'm going to live in this car.' He then quickly drew back into the cab, shut the door and put his hands on the console. He stared straight ahead; so did the driver."

I agree with Excaliber that this was most likely an attempted strong-arm robbery, and Kestrel was fully justified in presenting a weapon to defend himself [PC 9.32(a)(2)(b)].

The following factoids contribute to this conclusion:

• Potential victim alone, isolated, after dark
• Well dressed and probably had something worth stealing
• At a physical and numerical disadvantage relative to assailants
• If the potential robbers had been armed, they probably would have struck fast to overwhelm escape or armed response.
• When confronted by a firearm, the potential robber responded as though he had been through that experience many times.

I considered possible carjacking, but the VW Beetle is relative rare and easy to spot on the road, thus not a good car to steal. In fact, it is on a list of least-stolen cars in the U.S.

I am guessing that the robbers had criminal records (felony conviction, on probation or parole) and did not want to risk being caught with weapons. They sound like cold-blooded characters who know what they are doing. Most likely they left the parking lot right after Kestrel (realizing that he was not a cop).

- Jim

[OldSchool]

I finally have to ask: What did he mean by "I'm going to live in this car"? I have thought of several possible meanings, none of which makes sense.