Skiprr wrote:This afternoon, the Fox Houston affiliate posted the 15-minute investigation video taken right after the shootings...
Okay. I wasn't going to editorialize about the video, but I can't help myself.
Most of us have already agreed that Mr. Horn simply talks too much for his own good, and has done so on several occasions...and continues to. I have a feeling that's just Joe. If you invite him over for BBQ, I'll bet he will talk freely about anything you choose...including this case. That he is giving media interviews makes me cringe.
You'll notice something else in the video that makes me cringe. This is a 15-minute-long police interview recorded about fours hours after the incident. The 911 call came in around 2:00 p.m., and the officer mentions seven minutes into the video that the time is 6:30 p.m. My guess is Joe has been talking loquaciously the whole time.
What's missing in this picture?
An attorney!
I certainly don't condone being uncooperative with law enforcement officers, but geez, Joe: you just shot two guys. Don't yammer for four hours and then even agree to give a video deposition without having an attorney with you!
When police are involved in a shooting, the first thing they do (at least in large metropolitan areas) is call their union, and the union has legal representation on the way to scene right away. LEOs respect the right to legal representation because it's what they need if they are ever forced to pull the trigger.
CHL holders need to learn a lesson from this, IMHO. In the event you ever have to move to the last resort and go to Cooper's Code Red, in the immediate aftermath
do not say any more than you need to: it's not that you don't want to cooperate with the police; it's not that you have anything to hide; it's not that you're the bad guy. It's that you're jacked up on adrenaline and are under severe emotional stress, whether you realize it or not.
At that time--minutes to hours after the incident--you cannot be your best witness or representative.
You need to do and say enough to convey to the responding officers that you're the good guy, and to--as Charles says--convert the static snapshot of the scene they first see into a mental movie that provides the officers with the
essential information about what transpired. You need to be honest, genuine, and not frantic...to the extent possible. Do not let your mouth or actions turn any part of that mental movie bad.
Know when enough is enough. And then respectfully convey that you are absolutely willing to cooperate in every way possible, just as soon as you contact your lawyer and get his advice.
You will be shaken up. You will be trembling, your pupils will be dilated, and you may slur your speech or try to speak much faster than normal: recognize these are effects of the adrenaline pump and its aftermath. Recognize that your immediate perceptions of the incident are probably wrong: remember all you've heard about sensory exclusion, tunnel vision, time dilation, and remember all you've read about LEO shootings where they thought they fired four rounds and it turned out to have been twice that number. Recognize, in the moment, you may feel any emotion from elation to tragic sadness to actual physical illness. Recognize that your state of mind will change by the hour: what you recall and feel now is not the same as it will be one or two or 24 hours from now.
Check the Horn video: he clearly contradicts important evidence recorded in the 911 call. He uses a racial qualifier when first describing the men he saw at his neighbor's window. He is so hyped-up that he is answering "yes" to questions before the officer has completed his sentences. It would be an interesting study to try to pick out everything that Joe did wrong--as in being a poor witness for himself--based on this video.
This is the aspect of CHL responsibility where I think it so important to attend one of Charles Cotton's lectures on the ramifications of deadly force. Maybe there are others equally qualified to give that kind of presentation and include both legal and practical matters, but I don't know any.