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November 2, 2018, 05:36 AM | #1 |
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Armed citizen in the Kroger shooting
I've been trying to keep up with the news snippets about the Louisville Kroger shooting. Between the killer shooting two customers, and being apprehended by police, an armed citizen (whose name is now released) engaged the shooter, they "exchanged gunfire," and nobody was hit or injured.
I'd be really curious how that went down. Did the citizen pursue the shooter? Cross his path? Fear for his own life, or act on behalf of others on the belief that this gunman would go and kill more people? Also would be curious how this develops and what the legal ramifications are. Will he be understood by the law as someone who tried to help? Or someone who made a bad situation worse? If he pursued the shooter and tried to protect others, does that mean he was not within his legal rights to open fire if he himself wasn't under direct attack? He could have hit the shooter, stopping or killing him -- though we know in hindsight that the shooter wasn't shooting anyone else. He could have missed the shooter -- his or the shooter's stray bullets could have killed or injured more people. I don't want to Monday morning quarterback the guy. Curious from an LE perspective -- what if this citizen had been an off-duty officer, or even on-duty but there alone? Would the response have been to engage? Or wait for backup? Follow along and observe? Opens all kinds of questions. Ultimately I can see this case unfolding and being used as proof as to why armed citizens shouldn't be armed -- they just interfere and boy are we lucky nobody else got killed as a result Of course if he'd stopped the shooter and potentially saved lives, the story would probably just be ignored. |
November 2, 2018, 05:41 AM | #2 |
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The shooter had aimed his pistol at the man's wife.
https://www.courier-journal.com/stor...fe/1839074002/ |
November 2, 2018, 05:50 AM | #3 |
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Thanks! Well that definitely changes the calculus, although this article says the shooter pointed the gun at another woman in the parking lot -- didn't see anything about his wife. But it was still an active shooting scene and this man and his wife were still in danger.
Drawing and asking a man who just shot an old lady "what's wrong?" Better to have simply drawn and fired, since the man was clearly shooting people as they stood talking on a phone? Or run like hell? I'm trying to imagine myself in the situation, not judge whether this individual did or didn't do something right or wrong. Behind my computer screen here, it's easy to say something stupid like "I'd have just drawn and stopped that killer right there!" In the moment I'd probably be shocked, confused and in disbelief that this had just happened in front of me For all I know I'd have just stood there frozen. I sure hope not. But I've never been in something like that, and hope I never will be. |
November 2, 2018, 07:30 AM | #4 |
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Wish the guy had trained more...he could have saved the Ohio taxpayer some money.
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November 3, 2018, 06:57 AM | #5 |
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Or Kentucky
Article says "car's length apart" and they missed each other. That's what...15" or less for sure? Seems like "wow, that's some terrible shooting," but again they may both have been in motion, the citizen had his wife there likely near him, so I can't judge the situation. I've personally never been even in a training situation in which I needed total situational awareness and was also in fear of my life. It's also quite possible that like many permit holders, he hasn't shot or cleaned his weapon since he got the license 5 years ago. Who knows. |
November 3, 2018, 07:02 AM | #6 |
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I've been in force on force scenarios where people missed each other at distances they would laugh at on the range, including myself. Adrenaline and movement can play hell with your accuracy, and a timer doesn't replicate the sensation. I know many people that look at reported accuracy rates of officer shootings and conclude that officers are deficient when it comes to marksmanship. My little stint with force on force convinced me otherwise.
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November 3, 2018, 11:45 AM | #7 | |
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November 3, 2018, 11:55 AM | #8 | |
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Defense of yourself doesn't necessarily support chasing an armed attacker down and using deadly force, once the threat has run, engagement should probably end. Assume that this attacker has fired upon yourself, and bystanders. He is still armed and not disabled. When the man runs, he still poses a threat to anyone who is in his line of escape. If a person is legally allowed to use deadly force in defense of others, it doesn't limit him to any simple measurement of area, such as a fifty foot circle. Defending the people who he passes as he runs away is still defense of others, pursuit doesn't change anything unless there is a clear statement in the laws forbidding pursuit of an armed attacker in order to defend members of the public who are at risk. |
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November 3, 2018, 12:08 PM | #9 | |
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KRS 503.030 is the general choice of evils statute. The controlling statute on deadly force to protect another is KRS 503.070(2) (emphasis added):
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November 3, 2018, 12:10 PM | #10 | |
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I believe, based on what I just read, that the guy followed law much too carefully.
He was within a zone of about thirty feet or less, and even a blind man could have fired at random and killed him or other customers on the lot. He was at risk of death and justified in his use of deadly force in self defense. When he walked out of the door carrying a gun, there was no evidence that he was going to kill people, in fact, he was doing nothing but openly carrying a firearm. shots fired out of sight of any would be defender could not be assumed to be a deadly attack. Quote:
I believe that he should have backshot the guy as soon as he leveled the gun at the old lady. After he shot the old lady, ditto. Waiting until his wife had been threatened was unnecessary under those laws. |
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November 3, 2018, 12:12 PM | #11 |
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Jim, that's where I found them.
They aren't terribly clear, but they are short and succinct. There isn't a lot of prevarication, it is simple enough to understand the few sentences in each entry. I reached the choice of evils section first, and I felt that the passage that I underlined said everything that needed to be said. |
November 3, 2018, 12:26 PM | #12 | ||
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1. Suspension of Belief. This shooter did not want to process the totality of his circumstances. As you correctly point out, his situational awareness was lacking. You must be mentally prepared to fight and win. Certainly not a condemnation of the man as I believe many CCW holders would be in the same situation. I saw highly trained soldiers in combat loose their lives for this very reason. They simply did not want to believe they were in a life threatening situation when it was suddenly and without mercy thrust upon them. That woman might or might not be alive but he most certainly would have been better mentally prepared for the upcoming fight. 2. Brings us to the next point, lack of training. Like most CCW holders, I am sure this guy went to the range and considered himself proficient as the vast majority do. Quote:
You are correct in marksmanship is not combat skills but rather only a part of the equation. This shooter faced a relatively rare situation and a difficult combat situation in the fact that rarely is a fight a toe to toe, face to face shoot out. Rather is generally a series of ambushes with one side or the other getting the drop on their opponent and firing at an in the moment unsuspecting target. The face to face fight is when your marksmanship skills must be instinctive at engaging a moving target with precision. You must know to shoot whatever you are presented and shift that point of aim as more vulnerable areas come into your sector of fire. All of this comes down to how you train and your mental attitude. This situation was a good justified shooting. I think there are some lessons to be learned and frankly some common errors I saw on the battlefield being repeated here. Take in the totality of the situation and without judgment, learn from them. Last edited by davidsog; November 3, 2018 at 12:32 PM. |
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November 3, 2018, 12:33 PM | #13 |
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I believe that when a time comes again I will be able to make an accurate shot if called for. My sights went right to the target and I had center chest sight picture.
Will I make the decision or will I hesitate too long? I don't really have a clue about any other questions, but I put sights on targets. I think that a quail hunter may have an advantage due to reflexes. |
November 3, 2018, 03:41 PM | #14 |
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Stress and adrenaline changes everything. A person never really knows how much it will affect them unless they've been there.
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November 3, 2018, 03:46 PM | #15 |
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some people have already been there.
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November 3, 2018, 03:53 PM | #16 |
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Right. I don't think anyone doubts that some people have already been there. That doesn't change whether or not the person in this story had.
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November 3, 2018, 03:56 PM | #17 | |
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I certainly do not want to harm anyone and most of all, a innocent bystander. That said, I can either fight when attacked or not. I made the decision long ago that I am not going to simply allow someone to take my life without a fight. I will never use a firearm unless my failure to use it will likely result in loss of life. If that is the circumstance, I will do my best to use only what force is required and I will endeavor to keep all shots on target. I will concede that bullets sometimes go astray and sometimes innocent people are caught by friendly fire. Its simply the nature of combat and if ever I feel that I cannot deal with what might result from a gun fight, I wont carry a gun. That's just me
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November 3, 2018, 04:12 PM | #18 |
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I think most can agree that considering the consequences of your actions, especially in a life or death situation, is important. What I have found in talking to other people and in thinking on my own is that many people get caught up in the possibility of something going wrong. Armed intervention can certainly result in the loss of more life. But if you're in or witnessing a violent encounter and you can gauge that inaction on your part seems certain to cause a loss of life, isn't it worth that possibility to stop what will most definitely be a loss of life otherwise? Obviously that's not something easy to gauge, and you have to live with the consequences.
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November 3, 2018, 11:25 PM | #19 |
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I believe that the guy let it go much too far. when he walked out the door with the gun in his hand and the guy saw the gun, my mind would set that at a level 1 "WTH?" moment and my thoughts would have immediately gone to thinking about my own gun. By the time he shot the old woman who was on the phone he had already passed 9.5 and the shot took it to absolute ten.
It's too late to defend the poor old woman who would have been lying on the ground, but an armed killer was still possibly going to take more lives. I know that no matter what I did I would be risking trouble. In the situation, I would not have been able to draw and fire before he killed the old woman. I don't think that I could have forced myself to shoot the guy. Once that pistol went off, though, all restrictions are out the door. I would have gone to my grave regretting that I hadn't acted before he fired. |
November 4, 2018, 01:02 AM | #20 | ||||||
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"After the couple witnessed Bush shoot Jones, Kiera Rozier said her husband, a concealed carry permit holder, drew his gun and asked Bush what was wrong. Quote:
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What is necessary, and what normal people seem to find very difficult is ACCEPTING that what they are seeing is happening and not trying to explain it away. You don't have to EXPECT trouble around every corner. You don't need to keep looking around to see if anyone's going to attack you. But when things start to turn ugly, you need to be willing to ACCEPT reality and not waste time standing there trying to talk yourself out of acting. Don't be the person on the news who says: "I never really thought it could happen to me. I couldn't believe it was really happening." Be willing to accept reality and to act without delay when necessary. Quote:
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November 4, 2018, 07:34 AM | #21 |
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"This can't be happening . . ." is the #1 reason reason people come in 2nd in a gunfight.
That ... and they then take too long thinking through/deciding on "proper" reaction. This is not in any way a slam on people who are part of an otherwise civilized society -- up to that instant in their lives. But He Who Decides First Wins should never far from the back of y`all's minds. |
November 4, 2018, 07:55 AM | #22 | |
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I'm trying to imagine what might be going through the head of anyone like this man who's just walked into the prelude to murder and has no idea what's going on. Code Orange or not, I imagine this would be my situation: Walking up to the store:
Then he points it at a bystander on the phone:
And in that amount of time, he's got his gun aimed at me, my wife, or maybe someone else. That's the disparity of evil. Even if I'm in Code Red 100% of the time and I'm the fastest draw in the world, I'm worried about hurting someone else. He isn't. He doesn't care if he misses and hits a bystander because he'd shoot them next anyways. We don't want to hurt people. We just want to go to the store and buy milk and get back to our homes. Anyways, this story has made me think a lot about this stuff. One other thought I had was that -- so I'm told and have read -- attackers often/usually disengage when they're counter-attacked. Some run, some resort to suicide, whatever, but they break off their attack. So Mr. Armed Citizen here may have waited too long, and missed what my range buddies would say was an easy shot. But the very fact that HE ENGAGED may be what caused the killer to keep running and not shoot anyone else in the parking lot. Quite likely that he DID in fact save lives, and possibly his own and his wife's. |
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November 4, 2018, 05:18 PM | #23 |
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Surviving a armed attack is probably not going to hinge solely upon a 1 second draw or expert marksmanship. Its more likely going to hinge on how quickly you realize that an attack is imminent /underway and how quickly you commit meaningful action toward your defense. A one second presentation is great but how long will it be before your brain flips the go switch.
I have seen plenty of expert shooters fail miserably in force on force simply because they are conflicted about how they qualify action and what action is appropriate. Essentially, they hesitate as they try to navigate mental, moral, ethical barriers. What is worse is that when they finally flip the go switch, they are 200% pure tunnel vision because they are not experienced in dealing with how the human body responds to stress and danger. When it actually comes down to it, good people are typically going to be conflicted about the use of substantial force. We have been taught all our lives that violence is bad and to a large degree, it is. Never the less, if you are going to carry a gun for lawful self defense, you might ought to do some figuring and soul searching well ahead of time and decide exactly what you are willing to do if suddenly faced with perilous danger. I doubt your attacker will be very conflicted about what he is doing and is probably counting on you being bumbling in your response.
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Life is a web woven by necessity and chance... Last edited by FireForged; November 4, 2018 at 05:39 PM. |
November 4, 2018, 05:47 PM | #24 | |
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Most of what people think is training, isn't and shooting prowess is not the same as fighting prowess.
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November 4, 2018, 11:53 PM | #25 | |
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as a scenario, two people walking down a street are confronted by a robber with a big freakin knife. Gimme your money, take off your shirt, yadda yadda, whatever the demand or threat is, this is not the time to be deciding who you are and what you are able to do. A while back I realized that I was getting soft. I had a possum that had been causing trouble around here. I trapped him and was going to kill him, but with the muzzle on his brain stem, I couldn't do it. I drove it half a mile down the highway and threw it into someone else's yard. There I was, the situation called for one thing and I wasn't spiritually ready for it. If the thing had threatened me, it would have been different. |
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