TN: If ya don't have a badge, ya ain't a cop

[seamusTX]

A handgun carry permit holder checking a neighbor’s home for a burglar narrowly missed being shot by a deputy after apparently refusing to drop his firearm early Friday in Walter Hill, a sheriff’s supervisor said.

The permit holder, whose name was not been released, was not injured in the shooting on Trailside Drive, said Detective Maj. Chuck Thomas.

“It barely missed him,” Thomas said. “He was lucky.”

A woman neighbor, who lives with her child, thought she heard a noise in her home and called her ex-husband and her neighbor.

Without her knowledge, the ex-husband called 911 and two deputies responded.

The permit holder armed himself with a firearm, searched the house but didn’t find anyone and walked outside, Thomas said. As two deputies approached, they spotted the permit holder with a gun but didn’t know who he was.

Both deputies reported they identified themselves and demanded the permit holder drop the gun, Thomas said. The permit holder told sheriff’s investigators they never identified themselves.

“He (the permit holder) points the gun at them and one of the deputies fires one shot and misses, hitting the doorknob,” Thomas said. “He drops the gun. He’s not hurt.

“Only one round was fired,” Thomas said. “It could have been worse.”

Detective Troy Hooker is investigating the shooting. Because he’s still investigating, Thomas said he would not release yet the name of the deputies or the permit holder. The deputies are not on administrative leave.

Thomas advised people who believe they may hear a burglar to call the sheriff’s office or police department who are specially trained to clear the house.

“Don’t go and try to handle it. In this situation, the deputies found a man armed with a handgun who didn’t comply with their commands.

“Then he points a gun at them,” Thomas said.

Although the permit holder didn’t know who the deputies were, “he wasn’t supposed to be outside with a gun,” Thomas said.

Investigators were supposed to review the case with District Attorney William Whitesell. No charges were filed.
http://www.murfreesboropost.com/news.ph ... tory=18449" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Count the mistakes made.

- Jim

[joe817]

The CHL holder should consider himself lucky he's still alive. That's crazy.

[BTin]

I have made a similar mistake, and I can see why people do this (the check out the house alone part).

I have a neighbor lady who came home to find an outside door open. She is pretty sure that she left it open, but wants me to check the house with here (I didn't bring my gun b/c no CHL at the time). No police showed up, no intruder showed up, and everything turned out fine.

Right or wrong, a lot of people feel a reluctance to call the police when they are fairly certain that everything is probably OK. In my case, I don't want to bother them when I feel like it is embarrassing, and that they will be irritated when it was just a noise or a door that I left open.

The police would have been called out to my house a few times by now if we called them every time an outside door was found unlocked when we got home or we heard a noise. I don't understand the people who say call the police 100% of the time. They either must be perfect and have super hearing, or they must have the police out to their house a few times a year.

[ELB]

Lotsa things to wonder at here. One of them: The guy says the deputies didn't identify themselves. The deputies say they did. Were they not in uniform? If not, I would count this as a BIG mistake on the deputies' part...

[seamusTX]

Presumably the deputies were on duty and were sent by dispatch. I have no idea whether they were in uniform.

Here's another story with some relevant details:

Shortly after midnight Friday morning (7/31/09), a Walter Hill mother heard a noise in the home. She thought someone had broken into their Trailside Drive home. The woman phoned her husband and he in-turn called the Rutherford County Sheriffs Office. While this was going on, she and her daughter slipped next door to the neighbors. The male next door grabbed his weapon and went to the home. Sheriff Truman Jones told WGNS News, “Deputies arrived at the scene and found a man with a weapon inside the home. They told him to drop the gun, but for some reason the unidentified male refused to do so. He then pointed the weapon at the deputies; who then fired in his direction.” The sheriff said the neighbor quickly put the gun down. The sheriff said the armed-neighbor was not hit, no one was injured, and no charges were filed.

http://www.wgnsradio.com/another-overni ... ting/8578/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If the man was inside the house, probably the lights were on and he could not easily see outside. I don't know what the lighting situation was, of course.

- Jim

[dicion]

Lotsa things to wonder at here. One of them: The guy says the deputies didn't identify themselves. The deputies say they did. Were they not in uniform? If not, I would count this as a BIG mistake on the deputies' part...

They didn't say exactly what time it was. If it's dark enough out, and there's a car with their headlights & Spotlight on (That thing's bright), he may not have been able to see the LEO's for who they were, if they were at their car doors. However, yes, there were numerous mistakes made by multiple parties in this situation.

[bryang]

This was one lucky guy!!

He should never have armed himself and went inside the neighbours house. Unless some one was in imminent danger. He should have called 911 and would have learned that a unit was already dispatched to the location.

I wonder if he went to Church this morning?

-geo

[DoubleActionCHL]

Y'know, I'm constantly preaching to people that WE are the front line. The police are our backup. This, however, speaks to the spontaneous potentially lethal encounter. Hearing a noise in your house doesn't qualify. This is the time to call the police. The neighbor who performed a solo house-clearing was foolish. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and say he didn't really believe there was a burglar and was just humoring the woman, but he called 911. He's lucky to be alive.

[webb3201]

I sat through my CHL class this week with around 50 people. While talking to many of them during breaks, I was amazed and somewhat shocked that many seemed to be taking the class on a lark. I spent a long time thinking through my reasons for carrying, the logistics of carrying , and my philosophy regarding what would prompt my firing of my weapon. Some of my classmates have no plan in place or no thought about any of these things.

The most difficult scenarios, and those that will trip up those ill prepared seem to focus around third parties. It's one thing to have scenarios in place to protect you and yours, its quite another to have them to address things that happen. This incident is one of the many that illustrate that we should be extremely careful to choose our guns over our phones.

[seamusTX]

You're taking the right approach. Most of those others will not carry when they find out that sitting on a pistol is not all that comfortable.

- Jim

[txbirddog]

He better be very thankful that the deputy wasn't "marksman" status.

[Excaliber]

At the risk of being repetitious of my remarks in other threads, this is another specific example of the hazards of leaving the inside of your own home where you have strong tactical and legal advantages to go outside with gun in hand. There are way too many unknowns and gotchas that can ruin (or permanently end) your day.

Anyone who's done lots of house clearing against real bad guys can tell you that a solo house search in a city or suburban area by a civilian, particularly in someone else's house, is a clear sign of either world class tactical ignorance combined with a Rambo syndrome, or a death wish.

I have personally done more initial building searches at felony crime scenes than I could possibly count, and I have seen more surprises and things go wrong than most folks could make up if they tried. I can also tell you with absolute certainty that if I came home and found something not like I left it (like a door ajar or a window broken) I would immediately back off to a safe observation distance, call 911, and let the LEO's do their jobs. If a neighbor presented me with a request to help him with the same situation at his house, I'd invite him to join me at a safe observation position and once again let our very capable local officers handle the nasty parts.

Police work is plenty dangerous enough, and one doesn't make it through thousands of incidents to retirement by doing stupid things that unnecessarily put one's safety at risk.
In my LE agency where we handled around 400 - 600 burglary incidents a year, lone officers were prohibited by policy from doing solo interior searches. The only exception was the extenuating circumstance where we had reason to believe a victim was being actively attacked at the time and immediate intervention could mean the difference between life and death. Then it was the on scene officer's call.

Our procedure was the first two units took up perimeter positions outside at diagonally opposing corners where they could each observe two sides of the house (putting the entire perimeter under observation) to prevent escape. Two additional officers were dispatched to clear the inside while the other two remained outside. Only uniformed officers were allowed inside to prevent mistaken identity issues, and they announced themselves and ordered anyone inside to identify themselves and give their locations before they started the search. Good guys complied. Bad guys did too sometimes, but it gave us a lot of confidence that anyone who had not responded and was found inside was probably not an innocent. If not enough personnel were available to do it the way we wanted, the compromise was on the perimeter. Risking a bad guy's escape was considered acceptable when balanced against an unacceptable risk to the safety of our officers. If we didn't have two officers to go inside right away, one waited outside until another could arrive. We did not allow allow a lone officer to clear a known or suspected crime scene, and we did not allow plainclothes personnel inside until after the scene had been cleared and secured.

When the guys that do it all the time use these types of procedures, there's a lesson to be learned by those folks who might find themselves in a position to make a decision on how to react to a possible crime once or twice in their lives. Those who take foolish and unnecessary risks, like the subject in the original post in this thread, serve not as heroes to be emulated, but rather as examples of the types of folks whose purpose in life may be to serve as a warning to others.

[seamusTX]

At the risk of repeating myself, the math here is pretty simple:

The worst that a bad guy can do in an unoccupied house is steal a bunch of stuff or burn it down.

The worst that can happen to an unlucky citizen confronting a bad guy is spending the next 20 years in a coma, on a feeding tube, until his bedsores become infected and he dies.

I continue to be baffled by the fact that middle-class people who own perhaps half a million dollars worth of stuff (house and contents) will not install a burglar alarm.

- Jim