Amen!The Annoyed Man wrote:Lord, please grant me the awareness of what is happening around me, and the wisdom to understand and react appropriately to it, whatever that may require.
There are a number of situations on this board where I see people say they don't think force is justified and I read it thinking to myself that if it were me in that exact situation, I would say deadly force was not only justified but my only safe option. Frail young thing that I am with kids in tow, there's no way I would consider an elderly guy obstinately washing my window cause for anything more than patience and frustration (and a code orange).
I would probably wait there for him to finish and move aside for fear of moving forward with the car and harming him and if it got to be a ridiculously long time, I'd call the police if I had my cell or creep forward with the car angling away from him if I didn't have my cell and pray to God that I not run over him in the process. Rolling down the window and shoving him is not only an unnecessary escalation but also opened the driver up to all sorts of unknowns in response. I don't see how it could be justified in any way.
Edited to say that upon re-reading, it isn't clear if the driver was in the vehicle or outside of it. It says they were at a gas station, so it is possible the driver was outside the car. If he was, that seems even more imprudent when the elderly man showed no sign of aggression or ill intent. Further, the younger man's shove would have his full force behind him if it was done while he was standing outside the car, which would quickly overwhelm the elderly man. In this instance, the elderly man would have been justified in responding with deadly force after the shove had he not died from it, the shove being the first use of force in the situation. So very sad.