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:
That’s the one! (see my #60)
I've trained under Ayoob, and he DOES recommend studying martial arts and hand-to-hand techniques.
His viewpoint is that the purpose of hand-to-hand techniques is to survive the first few seconds of an attack, and to create the time and distance you need to get to your weapon.
heh
“Why did you shoot him 15 times?
“Because that is my magazine capacity”
This is not true. As long as a person has given you (or another person) reasonable reason to fear for life or safety, you are justified to continue to take whatever means you need to eliminate the threat. If he is moving, you can continue to shoot. If he is a threat, then moving is considered a threat.
The fact that we have crazy DAs out there who will try to charge you for nothing is not relevant. They will try to charge you no matter what.
If (God forbid), I ever have to shoot someone, I will empty the mag, with the knowledge that I will probably be financially destroyed....at least re: assets they can find.
the book is highly useful for the mindset and psychological issues discussed,
That was always the best part, IMO.
You may not realize how right you are.
You are justified in eliminating the THREAT, but not the persons life.
The advice posted here earlier (now wisely removed by the Admin Moderator) that after the initial confrontation you should walk over and put a bullet in the prone perp’s head, then drag him into the house to try to establish a Castle Defense was in reality a plea to be indicted for murder.
“Moving” is a sticky point. Crawling away is not a threat. Trying to bring a gun to bear is.
re: The DA/SA. When you “tell your story” without answering questions, you have established playing field. Although you have the right to counsel, much greater weight is given to what is said as an “initial utterance.”
Also, someone is going to tell the cop “what happened”. That will be in his/her report. That will then be the story the media tells. Never let the other person, the other person’s friends, or in these days, even those of the perp’s “other” race make up a story to tell the cops.
As it turned out, in Ferguson, the people who claimed the LEO shot Brown unnecessarily COULD NOT have seen what happened. They were elsewhere, but because the PD didn’t tell Officer Wilson’s “story” for days, the perp’s “friends” story was the only one the media had.
Based on the fact Wilson was found not guilty, what do you mean?
Correction, the Grand Jury decided not to indict Wilson and Wilson walked.
They’re both gone. What’d they say?
Rule 1: “Be the first one to call 911”
Rule 2: “When Police arrive, have weapon on ground with your hands raised”
Rule 3: “Be respectful and cooperative”
WOW.
Paraphrasing the very bad advice that was removed:
#1: After you shoot someone and they are down, go over and shoot them again in the head. (Angle of shot, powder burns, bullet frags in ground and blood spatter would make this so obvious Stevie Wonder would see it)
#2: Drug the body inside, wipe away blood, so it will look like they broke in (attempt at Castle Defense that Luminal would detect in about 60 seconds)
These were advice that would easily get a person who might have originally used a weapon in a proper self-defense mode charged with murder.
Good work by your Admin Mod got them off ASAP!
Be well.
Had cops “told their story” early, the other side’s story would never have gotten legs.
As it is, Hands Up - Don’t Shoot is still accepted BS by many.
Good lawyers get you out of trouble.
Great lawyers keep you out of trouble in the first place.
Outstanding lawyers keep you out of trouble, and crucify the other guy so he puts his head deep in Rectal Defilade and crawls away, never to other you again.
On occasion.... ever so rarely, I was an outsta.......
:)
“In addition, has intensively researched the training of numerous police agencies including, but not limited to:
NYPD Firearms and Tactics Unit
NYPD Emergency Services Unit
NYPD Armed Robbery Stakeout Unit
LAPD SWAT
LAPD Firearms Traning Unit
Metro-Dade Police Firearms/SWAT Training Unit
Illinois State Police Ordinance Section
NH State Police SWAT
Ohio State Peace OFficer Training Academy
Arizona Highway Patrol Firearms Training
Kentucky State Police Firearms and Special Reaction Team Training
London, England Metropolitan Poice Firearms Training and Special Services Unit
==
Why would doing research on training procedures be something to include as a qualification?
Just researching is something that anyone could do.
.
Ed
Suit yourself.
So what? The Grand Jury decided not to indict Wilson and Wilson walked.
Had cops “told their story” early, the other side’s story would never have gotten legs.
It didn't get any legs, just media bull sh*t. Do you not understand Wilson was not indicted?
Thank you that is exactly the clip I was thinking of when I said say nothing to the police.
But don’t u understand that if cops had told their story in a timely manner, we would never have had Hands Up - Don’t Shoot, the whole DOJ investigation, BLM, the riots even any Grand Jury or anything else that minor shooting ended up triggering.
In a example of the same thing, Republicans in the House have finally learned that regardless of whomever is right, if one side is speaking and the other side is silent, the speaker wins.
The concept here, as Abood says, tell your CONTROLLED story, then lawyer-up.
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