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I just wanted to say, thinking back on the situation; I was aiming low so that I could see if he was pulling a weapon out of his coat. If the pocket had been lower around his mid section, one that he could reach into and fire a gun from. He would have been dead before he got his hand in there. I was a Forward Observer in the Army and I feel my training was the only thing that kept that kid alive. If I had not been drilled on situations like this, I would have not felt confident and might have shot sooner. I will say one thing to people, if you find your self in a bad spot, watch their hands…

Just before Christmas, my family and I were confronted with a situation that escalated very quickly causing me to draw my pistol on what appeared to be a 15 year old. We were living in a low income area and not to nice of apartments, but hey it was cheep and close to the sick mother-in-law. Around 9:30 that night we hard glass breaking in the parking lot just out side of our patio. I told my 17 year old son to not rush out there, until I have my weapon on hand.

As soon as I concealed it, we proceeded out of the back area into the parking lot to see if the glass breaking had come from my car. This had given the burglars time to flee because I really didn’t want to get into it with them anyway. We noticed that the car two parking spots down was the one broke into and that my car was fine, so we proceeded back into the apartment where my wife was already on the phone with the police. As my son entered the patio gate, I noticed two people running at me from my right.

It was dark with a little light from the parking lights, but I could not see them very well traveling between the parked cars and the patio fence area. The first one saw me when they were about 2 cars from me and dove between the cars. The second then noticed me standing there and reached into his jacket. At this point I drew my weapon and yelled STOP. I noticed that I had taken aim at his lower section or leg area and was watching his hand very closely. I was confident that I had the upper hand and that my 1911 would have kept it for me. This kid looked all of 15 with big eyes as he turned and scampered away into the dark. I took this as my chance to leave the area to and went into my apartment.

I will have to say that as surprised as I was, the thing that shocked me the most was when the officer arrived and was mad at me for not shooting this person and that he had been hunting them for months. I did find out that the reason he reached in his jacket was because he had cut his hand on the glass and was trying to hide the bloody hand.