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Excaliber wrote:

exbellicus wrote:From a legal standpoint is it advisable to give your side of the report to the officer without your lawyer present? I see that it worked out fine in this situation, but if the officer had believed the aggressor's side of the story and charged kingpinGT it could have been used against him later. Maybe one of your LEOs can chime in, but if kingpinGT had refused to give a statement, would you have detained and charged him?

The guy who calls first is generally assumed to be the good guy unless proven otherwise.

The OP made the first call. Since he was the complainant, he wanted to give a statement to give the officer the facts to investigate.

In this situation with no shots fired there's little risk in doing so.

I also had multiple witnesses in my vehicle.


Sidenote: I got my Beltman carry belt last week, and it's AMAZING carrying with a legitimate gun belt over my old $20 Kohl's special.

AdioSS wrote:My question is what were the sides of the road like? Were there yards or walls or trees or what lining the road? Sure, the home owners there might not have liked it much if the OP would've used their yard to escape, but there are worse things that they could've had to deal with.

I think the OP did a good job with the entire situation.

Houses on either side, no "yards" to speak of.

Excaliber wrote:

kingpinGT wrote:

eztarget wrote:Very interesting read. read almost all of this and I am new to it all. I have one comment about some posts that state "the aggressor left his weapon when he left his car". How do you know he was not carrying a weapon as well? In my CHL class I saw a picture of a horrific Knife attack on what we were told was a LEO.

bringing back my old topic, that was my initial justification of drawing my weapon. I didn't know what he was doing, what he had, or what his intentions were. He acted aggressively towards me and my family, and I responded with what I felt was necessary to stop him in his tracks.

Side note, this dude was a fool. Literally every person in my car with the exception on my infant daughter has their CHL and 2 of us(myself and my wife) were armed... granted she forgot where her pistol was stowed in the heat of the moment, but still....

Having a CHL of no help during an emergency unless one brings the firearm with him, knows where it is, and knows when and how to use it.

In the situation described in your post, you were the only one who was actually armed.

I made sure afterwards that i very clearly reminded her where the .38 snubby was in her car.

eztarget wrote:Very interesting read. read almost all of this and I am new to it all. I have one comment about some posts that state "the aggressor left his weapon when he left his car". How do you know he was not carrying a weapon as well? In my CHL class I saw a picture of a horrific Knife attack on what we were told was a LEO.

bringing back my old topic, that was my initial justification of drawing my weapon. I didn't know what he was doing, what he had, or what his intentions were. He acted aggressively towards me and my family, and I responded with what I felt was necessary to stop him in his tracks.

Side note, this dude was a fool. Literally every person in my car with the exception on my infant daughter has their CHL and 2 of us(myself and my wife) were armed... granted she forgot where her pistol was stowed in the heat of the moment, but still....

I just got the report from MoCo sherriff.

First, case was closed by the responding officer.

secondly, the dude said nothing about coming to a stop and blocking the road in front of me. he told the officer that he was peacefully passing me and then i opened my door and waved a gun around and told him i'd shoot him. OK PAL.

He also mentioned that he served overseas to the officer.

Excaliber wrote:

kingpinGT wrote:

Excaliber wrote:

Wes wrote:It's definitely good that everything turned out well, kudos for not being confrontational yourself and just trying to stop the problem advancing.

My concern with saying I'm armed in a situation like this is it almost seems like you potentially help the BG. What if he too has a gun but doesn't have it out yet? This might make him get it or take it out. Almost like a warning shot that causes further escalation. Don't know, hope to never encounter it myself.

One might consider saying "I'm prepared to defend my family and myself if attacked."

It conveys the necessary information without the hot button of mentioning a firearm.

It's a clear, very reasonable warning that sounds good on a 911 tape, and the controlled ambiguity is disconcerting to those who are not too chemically impaired to recognize it.

100% behind you on this, but I will say this: I honestly don't even remember what I said. I do remember saying "I am armed", and that was based on something a CHL instructor once told me to do.

other than that, I have no clue. I couldn't even really remember the color of the car

If you told the average person you couldn't remember the color of the car even though you were looking right at it, they'd accuse you of not telling the truth - but you are telling the truth.

The phenomenon that causes this lack of memory of something that was clearly within your view is called "inattentional blindness." You were intensely focused on the other driver who was the perceived threat. Other nonthreatening objects like the other driver's car were not important for determining whether you were about to be attacked or not. Your brain focused all your processing power on the threat, and discarded the other available visual information, even though it would have been readily recorded by a camera that was pointed at the same scene. In other words, you only remember seeing what you were looking at, even though other things were present and visible at the time.

People aren't cameras, and this is a very common perceptual phenomenon, even in non stressful situations. It is one of the things that makes the accounts of witnesses to the same event so often different, even though they were present at the same scene when it happened.

Fascinating. Kind of like a hyper tunnel vision? Seems like it could be dangerous in a multiple threat environment, no?

Excaliber wrote:

Wes wrote:It's definitely good that everything turned out well, kudos for not being confrontational yourself and just trying to stop the problem advancing.

My concern with saying I'm armed in a situation like this is it almost seems like you potentially help the BG. What if he too has a gun but doesn't have it out yet? This might make him get it or take it out. Almost like a warning shot that causes further escalation. Don't know, hope to never encounter it myself.

One might consider saying "I'm prepared to defend my family and myself if attacked."

It conveys the necessary information without the hot button of mentioning a firearm.

It's a clear, very reasonable warning that sounds good on a 911 tape, and the controlled ambiguity is disconcerting to those who are not too chemically impaired to recognize it.

100% behind you on this, but I will say this: I honestly don't even remember what I said. I do remember saying "I am armed", and that was based on something a CHL instructor once told me to do.

other than that, I have no clue. I couldn't even really remember the color of the car

I went ahead and filed a request for the report from montgomery county sherrif's office. should be interesting. no charge since i'm the complainant. :)

Thanks for being so supportive, everyone. I know i take my chances sharing my story but i'm fairly confident the situation was over and done with last night.

Again, I'm just happy noone got hurt.

n5wd wrote:

kingpinGT wrote:
At this point he stepped out of his vehicle in an aggressive manner. I immediately put my car into "park", unholstered my weapon, took it off safe, and kept it at low ready behind the steering wheel. He started coming towards us

I opened my door and stated very loudly and clearly that I was armed, that I am not afraid to use my weapon if he approached us. I repeated statements like this several times. He stopped approaching our vehicle. By this time HE and i both had vehicles behind us. my shot would have still been clear.

The adrenalin dump is the body's way of getting you ready for a fight -but, Oh, does it take a while to metabolize back to normal levels... I think you did Ok, but I'm unclear on one thing in the quote above.

When you opened your door, did you (a) remain seated with the gun out if sight of the other guy or did you (b) get out of the car and keep the gun from the other guy's view, or (c) get out of the car and let the guy see the pistol (whether you were aiming at him or merely had it at low ready)?

It was a tactical nightmare, with your wife, kiddoh and her grandma in the car, so the recommendation to leave would have been the most desireable choice, but like I said, I think you did Ok. Glad everyone got home safely!

I had one foot out the door, and the door was open. I could have used the door as a bench rest if I needed to do the unthinkable.

Beiruty wrote:Where you able to:
1) Get the number of the license plate of the other vehicle?
2) know if the PD talked to the other aggressive driver?

1. no he was just a little too far and the car was at a wonky angle. i couldn't read it.
but...
2. yes, because he brilliantly called the cops on *me* as well. the responding deputy came and talked to me first, then said he was headed over to talk to him. I'd have traded my carry gun to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

AJSully421 wrote:Stuff like that is why you carry a gun. That guy might have said a few words and gone on his way, he might have beat you to a pulp and then left, or he might have killed your whole family... you had no way of knowing what his plans were.

I always say to people about CCW that just because you have a gun does not mean that you have to shoot someone with it. In this case, simply telling him that you had a pistol was sufficient to deescalate the situation. Everyone went home with the same number of holes in their bodies, cops saw that the situation resolved itself and left it alone. Everyone wins.

ETA: Another possible course of action would have been to dump it in reverse and get out of there. Seeing that you have no duty to retreat, and no shots were fired, I cannot fault you for making the choice that you did.

you're 100% correct. I keep replaying the scenario in my head and I SHOULD have done that when I saw him get out of his car. The only thought that entered my head is "protect my family" and my hand absolutely instinctively went to my handgun and my thumb immediately flipped the saftey. it all happened so fast it was unreal.

incident occurred about 3 hours ago. i'm finally calm enough to post about it. I will try to post as much detail as I can remember, but my brain tends to freak out under stress(something that needs to be worked on for the future)

My wife, daughter(8 months old), mother in law and I had just gone to fuddruckers' for dinner. We were returning to my mother in law's house as our daughter is spending the night at her house tonight and tomorrow.

We had pulled into her neighborhood, and I just took a right at a stop sign. There was a car directly behind me who ran the sign. I was following the 20MPH speed limit. The vehicle behind me was so close to my car I couldn't see his headlights. I was coming up on a left hand turn that I needed to take, and the vehicle behind me seized an opportunity to pass me on the left and cut me off. I made the left hand turn. He sped about 20 yards in front of me, cut his wheel to the left, stopped, and blocked the street with his vehicle.

At this point he stepped out of his vehicle in an aggressive manner. I immediately put my car into "park", unholstered my weapon, took it off safe, and kept it at low ready behind the steering wheel. He started coming towards us

I opened my door and stated very loudly and clearly that I was armed, that I am not afraid to use my weapon if he approached us. I repeated statements like this several times. He stopped approaching our vehicle. By this time HE and i both had vehicles behind us. my shot would have still been clear.

he then stated "MAYBE YOU SHOULDNT DRIVE LIKE AN IDIOT". I told him that he needed to get back into his car and leave. he then stated that he would call the police, I told him that was absolutely fine.

He got back into his vehicle and drove off. my wife dialed 911. The dispatcher took my very jumbled and adrenaline-fueled statement, and a slightly clearer statement from my wife. She also told us that we did the right thing.

We dropped off my mother in law and our daughter at my mother in law's house. After 10 minutes or so, a sheriff's deputy came by to talk to me. I told him the same story I've posted here, to the best of my recollection. I asked him if he needed my IDs, and he declined. He also stated that I was justified in what I did, and that the other driver had called 911 as well because of a "guy waving a gun around". He responded to us first. He also stated that he has no idea why the other guy called because he was acting and driving like a jerk.

I just needed to vent this, and get advice on what I would have done better/differently. I know I probably should have gotten away from the situation as quickly as possible at first, and it was probably VERY stupid to try and confront this moron, but it was the decision I made at the time.

I'm simply glad that no one got hurt. I've never been so scared in my entire life.