The Richmond Beat-down, How Would You Handle This Situation?

[Mr.ViperBoa]

I would like to say that I would never be in a place like that but I cant. What if you end up in a place like that at night because your car just happen to break down somewhere, where you had no choice but to walk through a place like that. Been there and done that. I don't run very fast any more but I would have tried that first. I don't think they can run very fast with out loosing the saggy pants they had on. While I was running, I would have already unholstered my weapon and been ready to turn and give warning. After the warning, any advance I would have perceived as intent and at least one of them would have been there with me when the cops showed up. No doubt about it.

I'm not worried about being justified because I can almost promise you that by their actions in the video, that these young men were no strangers to crime and probably have a record.
Most likely this would be considered a P.P.A. (Positive Population Adjustment) or at least thats what the officers call it in the section of town I worked in.

[Excaliber]

When they catch up with you (and they will), you'll likely find they'll be pretty unreceptive to protestations of innocence and legitimate self defense after noting that your behavior after the incident is a much better match with that of a bad guy than a good guy.

What's the closure rate for aggravated assault and homicide where the people don't know each other and the actor isn't there when the police arrive twenty minutes later? If you don't know the national rates, you can post the rates for your agency.

It's really good for those easily trackable people who have jobs, homes, cars, cell phones, bank accounts, credit cards and other data footprints on the economy. It drops off fairly steeply for transients, itinerant gangbangers, and foreign nationals who move around a lot if they aren't identified shortly after the incident.

In the agency I worked for, we had very few ( 2 or 3) unsolved homicides in the 20 years I worked there. Those were apparently committed by folks in the categories named above and, although we had plenty of evidence to attach someone to the scene, we didn't have a person to match that evidence against.

A suspect has a very short time in which to try to cover his tracks at the scene, and it's virtually impossible to commit a crime without leaving some of yourself at the scene and taking some of the scene with you. It's even harder when the incident wasn't carefully planned ahead of time.

A good investigator secures that scene and goes over it inch by inch over a period of hours and sometimes days with a variety of sophisticated tools. Although clearly not every crime is solved like on TV, it's MUCH harder to obscure one's presence and actions at a major crime than most folks would believe. Some of it is science, some of it is luck, but it all adds up to make it really difficult to get away with something like homicide.

Prisons are full of folks who thought otherwise.

[rmr1923]

I would like to say that I would never be in a place like that but I cant. What if you end up in a place like that at night because your car just happen to break down somewhere, where you had no choice but to walk through a place like that. Been there and done that. I don't run very fast any more but I would have tried that first. I don't think they can run very fast with out loosing the saggy pants they had on. While I was running, I would have already unholstered my weapon and been ready to turn and give warning. After the warning, any advance I would have perceived as intent and at least one of them would have been there with me when the cops showed up. No doubt about it.

I'm not worried about being justified because I can almost promise you that by their actions in the video, that these young men were no strangers to crime and probably have a record.
Most likely this would be considered a P.P.A. (Positive Population Adjustment) or at least thats what the officers call it in the section of town I worked in.

excellent point. countless times i've heard the argument from people that they wouldn't have gotten themselves in that situation to begin with, but sometimes these situations just seem to find you. my dad and i were in a pretty hairy situation similar to this several years back when the alternator on his truck went out while we were traveling at night. we were in a not-so-nice part of town trying to get home and we had no choice but to pull over and walk to find help (this was before cell phones). we came across a couple guys that had some bad intentions, when we got out of the truck my dad slipped his .38 special into his pocket. these two guys pulled out knives so my dad pulled out his gun and told them what he intended to do if they didn't leave us alone, so they turned and hightailed it out of there. if they had advanced on us i have no doubt he would have pulled the trigger without hesitation, and he would have been in a legal mess because of it (wasn't licensed to carry a concealed handgun), but he told me later that he'd rather go to jail than have both of us end up dead.

[RollTide In Texas]

I would like to say that I would never be in a place like that but I cant. What if you end up in a place like that at night because your car just happen to break down somewhere, where you had no choice but to walk through a place like that. Been there and done that. I don't run very fast any more but I would have tried that first. I don't think they can run very fast with out loosing the saggy pants they had on. While I was running, I would have already unholstered my weapon and been ready to turn and give warning. After the warning, any advance I would have perceived as intent and at least one of them would have been there with me when the cops showed up. No doubt about it.

I'm not worried about being justified because I can almost promise you that by their actions in the video, that these young men were no strangers to crime and probably have a record.
Most likely this would be considered a P.P.A. (Positive Population Adjustment) or at least thats what the officers call it in the section of town I worked in.

excellent point. countless times i've heard the argument from people that they wouldn't have gotten themselves in that situation to begin with, but sometimes these situations just seem to find you. my dad and i were in a pretty hairy situation similar to this several years back when the alternator on his truck went out while we were traveling at night. we were in a not-so-nice part of town trying to get home and we had no choice but to pull over and walk to find help (this was before cell phones). we came across a couple guys that had some bad intentions, when we got out of the truck my dad slipped his .38 special into his pocket. these two guys pulled out knives so my dad pulled out his gun and told them what he intended to do if they didn't leave us alone, so they turned and hightailed it out of there. if they had advanced on us i have no doubt he would have pulled the trigger without hesitation, and he would have been in a legal mess because of it (wasn't licensed to carry a concealed handgun), but he told me later that he'd rather go to jail than have both of us end up dead.

Yes, good point. There are times when you just can't help being in the wrong place. And fact is, YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE THERE!

Under PC 9.32:
(c) A person who has a right to be present at the location where the
deadly force is used, who has not provoked the person against whom
the deadly force is used, and who is not engaged in criminal activity at
the time the deadly force is used is not required to retreat before using
deadly force as described by this section.