OH: Robbery victim shoots robber with robber's gun

[csmintx]

I believe in most instances you need to be prepared to fight your way to the ability to draw your weapon.

[seamusTX]

Or maintain distance.

I was the victim of a strong-arm robbery by three men once. I was in condition white and literally walked into it. They were all obviously unkempt, ill-dressed thugs, which I realized when they grabbed me.

The comic-book scenario where a man with a handgun or big knife jumps out of an alley is history. Most robberies of individuals now occur in parking lots or similar environments where people are outdoors, or by home invasion. You should be able to see them coming.

- Jim

[ELB]

This was not any kind of tactical situation. It was a hand-to-hand struggle that ended up with the robber shot. It could easily have gone the other way.

So why is a hand-to-hand struggle not "tactical?" Apparently you have a different definition in mind. Me, loading and unloading the gun at home and cleaning it is "administrative;" fighting for my life with the gun (or anything else) is "tactical."

Which gives me an opportunity to repeat the principle that one should do anything possible to avoid being taken captive or hostage. It rarely ends well, and the experience of being captive for hours or perhaps days, tied up, beaten, and almost certain raped in the case of women is extremely traumatic.

This I understand and absolutely agree with.

[ELB]

This is one of those stories where you need to think "What could I have done" he was unarmed and did not have a choice of weapons single stack or double, we are not, so would you draw, run and draw, allow them to get control of your weapon etc.... It makes me wonder what can you do when they have the drop on you and your weapon is covered under a shirt. I see best option as taking a zig zag flight while drawing and seeking cover maybe even pop off a couple rounds into the ground while running away to draw attention. So WWYD?

Suarez in particular, as well as others, has several courses devoted to these questions...

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com ... urses.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[seamusTX]

So why is a hand-to-hand struggle not "tactical?"

I don't know any more about this incident than what was in the article that I linked to (it was the most detailed of several articles).

It sounds to me like the victim was bushwhacked, exactly as I said about myself above. At some point he realized that events were going rapidly downhill, and he might end up floating face-down in the Cuyahoga River. What he did was a desperate move. Courageous and successful in this case—but he had already let events get out of control.

I think of tactics as planned movements. For example, we often discuss what to do when someone is trying to get into your occupied residence. That's what I consider tactics.

I was mainly responding to the discussion of how many rounds are in someone's magazine and how many to use per attacker.

- Jim

[ELB]

I think of tactics as planned movements. For example, we often discuss what to do when someone is trying to get into your occupied residence. That's what I consider tactics.- Jim

Ah. I see. Of course, there are tactics for being bushwhacked too.

I was mainly responding to the discussion of how many rounds are in someone's magazine and how many to use per attacker.

- Jim

My put is "as many as possible" and "as many as needed and that is probably more than I would like." I think planning for two rounds per BG is not terribly "tactical." Neither is planning to have to reload to deal with more than one or two, or planning for his buddies to run away.

Switching back to this specific incident: One of the anti-gunner arguments against being armed is "the bad guy will take your gun away from you and use it against you." When Cramer's "The Armed Citizen" was still online ( ) he ran some stats after about 4000 incidents. IIRC, there were a dozen or more instances of a gun being taken away and used against the "owner" -- and the "owner" was always the bad guy.

[seamusTX]

IIRC, there were a dozen or more instances of a gun being taken away and used against the "owner" -- and the "owner" was always the bad guy.

I don't personally know any murderous felons, but I think the mentality is that having a gun will cause the victim to quake with terror and do whatever the bad guy wants.

Armed robbers are not bright people and probably do not have a plan B for when events do not go as they expected.

(This would not apply to hardened criminals, ninjas, or terrorists.)

- Jim

[Excaliber]

IIRC, there were a dozen or more instances of a gun being taken away and used against the "owner" -- and the "owner" was always the bad guy.

I don't personally know any murderous felons, but I think the mentality is that having a gun will cause the victim to quake with terror and do whatever the bad guy wants.

Armed robbers are not bright people and probably do not have a plan B for when events do not go as they expected.

(This would not apply to hardened criminals, ninjas, or terrorists.)

- Jim

They may not be Mensa members, but don't underestimate them. They may not be terribly literate and they won't likely be up on the finer aspects of Shakespeare, but they're extremely cunning. That's a specialized and extremely dangerous kind of smart that puts them far ahead of most folks who haven't spent time in their world when it comes to turning people into victims.

For the most part they are hardened criminals, and they give a lot of thought to what they do. They get lots of advice from other "practitioners" when they go to jail and incorporate that information into their tactics when they get out. If you do an after action analysis of these crimes or have the opportunity to listen to these folks talk about how they commit them, you'll see a lot of elements that were very intelligently addressed. Many also do plan to levels B and C.

It's also worthwhile to keep in mind that armed robbery is not just an economic crime like stealing a GPS from an unoccupied car. It is a crime of direct confrontation with the immediate threat of death, and it has a significant power trip component somewhat akin to rape. These folks are vicious and respond like ticked off rattlers when their terroristic dominance over their victims is challenged. Whether they planned to or not, it doesn't take much to trip their switch to kill you in a heartbeat and without remorse.

If you don't see the situation developing before coming face to face and then decide to move directly against them, you need to pick your moment, go all out, and don't stop until the threat is clearly ended.

You get one chance with no do overs. You'd better get it right.

[seamusTX]

Excaliber, I bow to your superior experience.

I just keep thinking of the idiots who walked past a cop car to rob a donut shop, or the guy who tried to rob a gun store with a knife.

- Jim

[tarkus]

Action beats reaction.

So I have heard, I carry most of the time under a shirt so I don't think I could draw faster then it takes them to pull the trigger.

That depends on your training, mental/physical condition, and factors beyond your control.

[Excaliber]

Excaliber, I bow to your superior experience.

I just keep thinking of the idiots who walked past a cop car to rob a donut shop, or the guy who tried to rob a gun store with a knife.

- Jim

Jim,

You won't find any unemployed NASA engineers in that line of work, and lots of the folks who ply the street robbery trade in fact have low IQ's compounded by the ingestion / inhalation / injection of a bunch of chemicals that aren't good for anyone. Depending on their state of mind and chemistry at the time, they can do some things that just leave you shaking your head in astonishment like the ones you cited.

That being said, when most of their remaining synapses are firing, they can be remarkably cunning and do things that would take a pretty smart normal guy or gal quite a while to figure out on their own.

The thing to remember is that regardless of how much of the remnants of their minds are operating at the time, they're always vicious, extremely unpredictable, impulsive, and deadly dangerous. The things they'll do to people on a whim and without remorse are stunning in their savagery.

[baldeagle]

Let us say you are carrying, draw and engage the 4 hooded robbers. Each got 2 rds center mass and all died on the scene. Only 1 robber was armed. Any exessive deadly force used, any crime committed by the defendant shooter?
My.vote is the chler is still in the clear and his actions are justified .

First of all, two of the scumbags took off immediately, so there were only two left to shoot. Second, from the description of the incident, the victim never had control of the gun. He was fighting for control when it fired several times. This was not at all like a defensive shooting situation where you use your gun to defend yourself.

The story doesn't say what happened to the second guy after the first one was shot, but I suspect he too hit the bricks and get out of Dodge. Kudos to the victim for making the best of a very bad situation. I doubt seriously he would be alive today had he not resisted while they were trying to get inside his apartment. While it's hard to say if he should have had better situational awareness, he acted decisively as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

One can only hope that we would do as well in similar circumstances.

[baldeagle]

Reading this story had me wondering what the heck is wrong with Ohio. The BG who died was 20 years old. He had just gotten out of prison from a two year sentence for "robbery and weapons charges" and that was his second prison sentence. He had previously been convicted, at the age of seventeen, and sentenced to one year for robbery. If I were a citizen of Ohio, I would be furious with the legal system for such light sentencing for deadly serious crimes. The dead BG demonstrated complete contempt for the Ohio legal system by attempting to commit armed robbery just one week after being released from prison.

[Beiruty]

One has to ask, when one is hungry has no money and effectively homeless, he most likely will attack like mad grizzlies. Not justifying the crime, but one has to offer jobs for those convicts. Many will never give a job for violent criminals.

[seamusTX]

Reading this story had me wondering what the heck is wrong with Ohio. The BG who died was 20 years old. He had just gotten out of prison from a two year sentence for "robbery and weapons charges" and that was his second prison sentence.

Every state has this problem.

First, they have limited budgets because tax revenue is down (because the economy is down). Second, many drug offenses have mandatory minimum sentences, while other crimes have more flexible sentencing and parole.

Prisoners who keep their nose clean can get out sometimes in 1/3 of their sentence.

This guy was obviously a very bad actor, probably a sociopath; but he figured out how to work the system.

One has to ask, when one is hungry has no money and effectively homeless, he most likely will attack like mad grizzlies. Not justifying the crime, but one has to offer jobs for those convicts.

Most poor people do not commit violent crimes. They may beg and shoplift, live at the Salvation Army or in a box, or figure out what resources are available in terms of homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and missions.

Convicts generally get into the prison system at an early age. They have little education and a complete lack of work ethic or ability to cooperate on a job. Their job prospects are extremely limited.

Some are reformed, but not many.

- Jim