Posted on 03/20/2017 7:19:05 PM PDT by Strac6
Never forget that when you shoot someone, however necessarily and justifiably, you look an awful lot like a killer and he looks an awful lot like a victim. The stereotype can take hold quickly if you don’t act to let the authorities – from the first responding officer to the designated lead investigator – know what happened. The old saying “You only get one chance to make a first impression” is absolutely true here.
Decades ago, I developed a five-point checklist of things I feel the righteous shooter needs to establish as soon as possible in the aftermath. It has been widely adopted, sometimes with attribution and sometimes without, and is now recommended by entities ranging from the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network to the US Concealed Carry Association. I’m rather proud of that.
Five-Point Checklist
Establish the active dynamic. That is, let the authorities know immediately what happened here. If you have harmed someone in self-defense, always remember that the active dynamic is not what you did to him, it’s what he was trying to do to you or another victim. The active dynamic is his action that forced your lawful response. It’s not, “I shot him.” It’s, “This man tried to kill me.” Or, “This man attacked my wife.” Whatever it was that led to your use of force.This makes it clear that the guy on the ground doing a convincing imitation of a victim is in fact the criminal perpetrator. It makes it clear that you, the person with the smoking gun who just shot someone, are in fact the intended victim. If one or more of your attackers has left the scene, explain that now, and give their description. It’s going to be hard for people to see you as the innocent party if you failed to let police know that a violent criminal was at large.
Advise the police that you will sign the complaint. There are two roles open in this particular play: victim and perpetrator. As noted, appearances can create mistaken role reversal if things aren’t immediately clarified. By making a statement to the police to the effect of “I will sign the complaint,” you reinforce the fact that you are the victim-complainant, the good guy or gal, and the person you’re signing the complaint on is the bad guy who forced you to harm him in legitimate defense of self or others. (Note: I would not advise using the phrase “I will press charges.” The reason is that legal terminology varies slightly jurisdiction to jurisdiction. While in many jurisdictions it is indeed the complainant who presses charges, there are some places where the local terminology is such that the prosecutor “presses charges.” If you inadvertently find yourself in one of those places and say “I will press charges,” it sounds to the police as if you have delusions of being the elected chief prosecutor, and you won’t be off to a good start. “I will sign the complaint” is neutral and universal.)
Point out the evidence. The scene will be chaotic. Witnesses will be trampling the scene. So will paramedics and police officers. I’ve seen cases of the bad guy’s gun being picked up by his accomplice or by a well-meaning neighbor who didn’t want to leave it where a child could find it. I’ve seen spent casings kicked away from their original resting place, or picked up in the treads of emergency personnel’s boots or the wheels of an ambulance gurney, thus altering the dimensions of the shooting scene and making it look like something it wasn’t. The sooner you point out the evidence to the first responding officers, the more likely it is to be secured. When you’ve done the right thing, evidence helps you.
Point out the witnesses. Witnesses worry about having to lose time from work to testify in court, or being the target for vengeance by criminals. A lot of them “don’t want to get involved.” Once they leave the scene unidentified, their testimony that would have helped to prove your innocence leaves with them. Point out the witnesses to the police at the first opportunity. (Some have asked, “What if the witness is a friend of the attacker and lies about what happened?” The fact is, he was going to do that anyway, so you haven’t lost anything. However, your having pointed him out to the police can be seen as an indication that you believed in your own innocence, or you wouldn’t have steered the police to him, and that can’t hurt.)
Politely decline further questioning until you have consulted an attorney. Studies show that, in the immediate aftermath of a life-threatening encounter, we may forget some things or get some details wrong. The questions to you will come at random as they occur to the officer, and you will answer them in the same order; in reviewing the cop’s notes and his recollection of the discussion later, this can create the false illusion that you were giving a narrative of events in the order in which they occurred, which of course is not the case. But later, when you do narrate events in the sequence of their occurrence, it creates a false perception that you have changed your story. Often, very frightening things that happened are blocked in short term memory by a subconscious that doesn’t want to recall them; when you mention something later that you didn’t mention at the scene, it sounds made up. You don’t want to answer detailed questions as to exact words spoken, distances, or time frames. None of us are human tape recorders. The tunnel vision that afflicts well over half of people caught up in something like a gunfight creates the literal optical illusion that things and people appear closer and larger than they are. If your memory tells you your attacker was six feet away when you shot him but he turns out to have been six yards away, you sound like a liar. Tachypsychia is likewise very common, the sense of things going into slow motion. It seemed to you as if the fight took a whole minute, and you say so, but a security camera shows it was actually only ten seconds, and now you look like a liar. The involved victim who had to fight for his or her very survival is the worst possible witness for measuring things in feet or inches, or counting how many shots were fired.
Experts recommend 24 to 48 hours between one of these “critical incidents,” as they are now euphemistically called in the emergency services, and when the participant is subjected to a detailed debriefing. The Force Science Institute recommends “one full sleep cycle.”
This is why my recommendation – practical advice, not legal advice – is to establish the active dynamic, indicate that you’ll sign the complaint, point out evidence and witnesses known to you…and then stop. Be polite. Do not raise your voice. I for one would answer subsequent questions with, “Officer, you’ll have my full cooperation after I’ve spoken with counsel.”
Read more:
You are an idiot, and a very poor student of history. The moment you continue to shoot after the threat is reasonably removed, you can and will be charged with murder.
You shoot someone after they are down on the ground and not actively moving, it’s very easy to detect, and you will be charged, and convicted.
Drag a body into your house? You need to stop watching bad movies.
Please stop with this idiotic advice. You will get a good person put into prison for what might otherwise be a justified shooting.
This advice seems to involve saying a lot of things to a police officer in the heat of a very stressful moment.
I always understood that nothing, nothing, you say to a police officer will be of the slightest benefit to you and will probably make things a hell of a lot worse.
Crimes aren’t convicted on what is said or not said to the first police officer who arrives on the scene, the police officer’s first opinion of what may or may not have happened is utterly irrelevant to your being found guilty or not.
It is in the court room where the verdict will be decided, long after the event and your attempt at self-justificatory babbling to the first cop to show up will now be dissected and analysed in court by very clever prosecutors who will be delighted to put whatever slant they like on your, by now barely recollected words, to the jury.
I always understood that what you do is shut the freak up and say nothing until such time as your legal representative has arrived, and continue to say nothing afterward, let him do the talking for you.
Let me tell you Pal. My advice just kept some innocent person from jail. What is your advice if someone is breaking into your house on Meth to rape your 11 year old daughter. HUH? call 911? OMG
+1, Mick.
Wendle, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. An if you’d like a cops opinion on this, you just got it from me.
CC
Please reread Masod’s advice, and the REASONS FOR IT.
In the old days, total silence was good advice. No longer. If you do not tell your story first, trust me, the bad guy will tell his story, and at a minimum, you will lose big civilly.
Remember Michael Brown. All his friends were ready to tell their BS story and the PD did not get the real story out soon enough.
Tell your story, and just that story, then silence....
I appreciate your service to this country. I respect you . I will stop , Sir. No offense intended. God BLESS you every day. I will do my thing and you MUST do yours. Go man!!
1, I am not your Pal.
2, If followed, your bubbavice will ensure an otherwise innocent man would go to jail.
3, Someone raping my daughter?. Of course I would probably NOT shoot him. The chance of an internal ricochet from two bodies in such close proximity would be to risky. I would hit him in the back of the neck with something sharp and heavy, about C-3 to C-5 to ensure I broke his neck and spinal cord, ensuring he was a quadriplegic for thew rest of his life.
Happy.... a few days late.
Thank you
Thank you....
and I’m clear the active. Have a good evening.
Nope. Happens all the time. Never let the meth head in that broken window to your daughters room — or will you? Shoot to KILL!!
Horse shit!!
That was a case of winning a publicity battle on the airwaves, not a courtroom battle.
The legal advice that I always received from lawyer friends was simple.
“Whatever you say, say nothing”.
There is no need for you to explain a thing to a police officer, that’s your lawyer’s job, he’s paid to do that sort of thing.
for later read
Thanks. I enjoyed it for a change.
CC
No problem Wendle. Passion in the defense of liberty is no vice. but level headedness is what you need in a use of force situation. Mas Ayoob consulted on my agencies use of force policy. He knows what he is about. The above is good advice. Have a good night.
CC
His book, "In the Gravest Extreme" is a must have if you're going to carry a sidearm.
Mark
I read that in the Eighties. His focus to me was 1. Make sure you really should be shooting if you have to and 2. stay out of jail if you have to shoot. He's the real deal.
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