A bad situation that thankfully didnt turn worse

[Kevinf2349]

Good thing you didn't get involved and try to hold anyone at gunpoint until the LEOs got there... an hour later

What is the difference between "citizen's arrest" and "kidnapping"?

Money?

[Purplehood]

Good thing you didn't get involved and try to hold anyone at gunpoint until the LEOs got there... an hour later

What is the difference between "citizen's arrest" and "kidnapping"?

TX CHL 1997
CO CHP 2005

A jury?

[RiveraRa]

On the topic of suicide...
Deadly force doesnt just mean killing or shooting someone but also any injury that causes "serious bodily injury". So breaking the arm of someone trying to shoot themselves is considered deadly force.

[A-R]

Take the OP's scenario a step further: The window-punching guy and the car driver guy come to blows, someone ends up dead or seriously injured (knife is pulled, tire iron, whatever). There is the "victor" in this "fight" standing over the beaten with weapon in hand (or just clinched fists). You're the OP standing there watching and waiting for 911 to show up (an hour later).

Now what do you do if ...

- guy goes for the girl (is she screaming not to approach? is she sitting their dumbfounded and speechless?)
- guy drives off alone
- guy drives off with girl (is this guy the "protector" of the girl, or is he driving her off to do evil things to her later?)
- guy comes toward you with weapon? with clinched fists and a vacant look in his eyes?

I bring all this up to show just a few of the nearly infinite possibilities of where this thing could go. Do each of you know what you would do in each of these scenarios and the others I haven't mentioned or even dreamed up?

This is not meant to be some "scary story" to warn you not to get involved. Nor is it meant to be an infinite game of "what if" (What if it turns out he's a zombie? )

Just throwing this out there for discussion because these are the real-world possibilities you must deal with if you wade into a confrontation such as this without knowing all the facts of the situation. Everyone has to make their own decisions how they would deal with such scenarios. We can be passionate about why OUR decision is the right decision, but baring some obvious breaking of the law there is often no universal right or wrong response.

EDITED TO ADD: Seems to me the OP did well. I might be more inclinced to be the person looking out his apartment window with 911 dispatch on the phone. But that's me. I have a wife and two young children to consider as well. So while I'm a bit more hesitant to get involved myself, I would be eternally grateful to the OP if that was my daughter in the car.

[Fangs]

I've personally seen a lot of bad situations stopped short as soon as the aggressor realizes he's out numbered and no one thinks it's cute. If it looked like it was needed I would have stepped in to help with or without a gun handy.

I have also heard screams in an apartment complex before and gone to investigate. Just seems like the right thing to do, and I think the OP handled it just fine.

I know the dangers inherent with getting involved in domestic disputes, but I also have a pretty good track record of knowing when and when not to step in. Guess it helps that I'm confident in my ability to articulate clearly why I did what I did to the officer and the jury if need be, and that I've never had to.

[baldeagle]

You are authorized to use deadly force to prevent a suicide attempt.

Ironic, isn't it? I've never understood this one.

There might be a reason you don't understand it. The law reads (Texas Penal Code Subsection 9.34 (a) "A person is justified in using force, but not deadly force, against another when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to prevent the other from committing suicide or inflicting serious bodily injury to himself." (b) "A person is justified in using both force and deadly force against another when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force or deadly force is immediately necessary to preserve the other's life in an emergency."

So the purpose of the use of deadly force must be to preserve the life of the suicidal person and may only be used when it is "immediately necessary....in an emergency."

Some possible scenarios are; the person has a gun pointed to their head and you shoot their hand to knock the gun away, or the person is about to jump into traffic or in front of a train and you shoot them in the leg to disable them. But shooting a suicidal person center mass probably won't be looked upon favorably in a court of law.

[TLE2]

I gotta get me one of these!

[Dad24GreatKids]

Good thing you didn't get involved and try to hold anyone at gunpoint until the LEOs got there... an hour later

I've got to believe that the PD would have arrived much faster if they had been told someone was holding a person at gunpoint. Not that I'm advocating that, but I think it would get their attention.

[loneranger4x4]

(b) "A person is justified in using both force and deadly force against another when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force or deadly force is immediately necessary to preserve the other's life in an emergency."

So the purpose of the use of deadly force must be to preserve the life of the suicidal person and may only be used when it is "immediately necessary....in an emergency."

Some possible scenarios are; the person has a gun pointed to their head and you shoot their hand to knock the gun away, or the person is about to jump into traffic or in front of a train and you shoot them in the leg to disable them. But shooting a suicidal person center mass probably won't be looked upon favorably in a court of law.

another scenario would be if that person was in a wreck and the car was on fire and their hand was trapped with no hope of being freed and you made a decision to amputate the hand to save their life, or any other emergency where you had to cut or use deadly force to save their life.
this is an extreme scenerio just to give another reference of the use of deadly force to save a life.

[Dragonfighter]

There was a situation years ago where a security guard heard a woman scream. He rounded the corner to see a man straddling her chest holding a butcher knife in both hands and covered in blood. He shot the guy off of her to learn later that he was a plain clothes LEO and the female had stabbed him with the knife. He had pulled it from his own body when the security guard came upon the scene and dispatched him. The security guard was no-billed. The point being, there will be situations that all of the information we have available may paint a compelling picture and it may be the wrong one.

But we have to trust our instincts. A deep breath and a moment to re-evaluate maybe, but in the end you have to make a judgment on the here and now and cannot possibly be cognizant of all of the circumstances, all of the time.

[Ageofease08]

good ol bryan response teams. that is one thing that i dont miss about BCS. I finished up school and drove very quickly, but not over the speed limit, to get out of there. thankfully, i finished college without any problems with the po-po. my friends ont he other hand, got thrown in jail for tossing a cig out the window.