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Phoenix/Glendale: Mother's 29 year old son attacks her inside her car, slashing at her throat with a box cutter, telling her he was going to kill her.

"He grabbed within the wound itself that he had created with his bare hands and he started pulling at my esophagus."

Neighbor shoots son twice, killing him.

"There was nothing else you could have done," Mendez said she wants her neighbor to know. "And as sad as I am to lose my boy, you did the right thing. And I thank you for my life."

Police are recommending no charges against neighbor.

Tough story.

wow!
how, as a mother, do you recover from that?

SewTexas wrote:wow!
how, as a mother, do you recover from that?

It's a hard question. With a son like that, her life might have been a nightmare up to that point; and as sad as she might be at losing him, her relief at surviving and the realization that he was a monster probably simply outweigh the grief.

That's not to say that there is no grief - just that its intensity is tempered by the other factors.

I'm thinking that with the realization that she may have lost him the first time he did meth, maybe that helps?
And maybe go on and live to try to prevent kids from doing drugs? You'd have to do something with purpose with the rest of your life.

Sad story. The neighbor is a hero. This story makes me think about all the times members of this forum have stated that if its not them or their family in danger they would call 911 and be a good witness. This approach would have been a death sentence for this woman. Thankfully there are still people around like this neighbor. I know if someone were attacking my loved one I would want someone to do more than call 911.
I salute this Good Samaritan and pray that he is blessed and the Lord brings him peace knowing he had no choice but to take a life.

jmra wrote:Sad story. The neighbor is a hero. This story makes me think about all the times members of this forum have stated that if its not them or their family in danger they would call 911 and be a good witness. This approach would have been a death sentence for this woman. Thankfully there are still people around like this neighbor. I know if someone were attacking my loved one I would want someone to do more than call 911.
I salute this Good Samaritan and pray that he is blessed and the Lord brings him peace knowing he had no choice but to take a life.

Such a sad story but becoming all too common. At least the mom didn't try to say what a good boy he was.

I think the closest I have come to shooting someone was my daughters now ex that was on meth. He was totally out of control and was trying to get to her to take what money she had left to buy more. The only thing stopping him was looking down the barrel of my shotgun. He made the comment that I wouldn't shoot him and then started backing up when I pumped a round in the chamber and assured him I would. She divorced him shortly thereafter. He spent a few years in prison, got out and right back to it. He eventually overdosed and died. She is still with us (kids are like boom-a-rangs) and has her CHL now and carries every day.

jmra wrote:Sad story. The neighbor is a hero. This story makes me think about all the times members of this forum have stated that if its not them or their family in danger they would call 911 and be a good witness. This approach would have been a death sentence for this woman. Thankfully there are still people around like this neighbor. I know if someone were attacking my loved one I would want someone to do more than call 911.
I salute this Good Samaritan and pray that he is blessed and the Lord brings him peace knowing he had no choice but to take a life.

I think the operative word here is "neighbor." So presumably, the shooter knew who was who and what was what. He likely wasn't walking into a situation cold and probably knew the mother somewhat and the son's history. That's different than seeing two strangers fighting in a parking lot somewhere. Ambiguity is the enemy of intervention when the choice is life, death, or prison.

A friend of my father tried to stop a man from beating a woman in a parking lot. They BOTH turned on him and he ended up the worse for it. We don't have law enforcement powers or immunity so we need to be very careful about putting ourselves into a situation that we don't fully understand.

jmra wrote:Sad story. The neighbor is a hero. This story makes me think about all the times members of this forum have stated that if its not them or their family in danger they would call 911 and be a good witness. This approach would have been a death sentence for this woman. Thankfully there are still people around like this neighbor. I know if someone were attacking my loved one I would want someone to do more than call 911.
I salute this Good Samaritan and pray that he is blessed and the Lord brings him peace knowing he had no choice but to take a life.

Nowadays, they don't call 911. They get out their cellphones and try to create a viral video. It's Kitty Genovese writ large.

VMI77 wrote:

jmra wrote:Sad story. The neighbor is a hero. This story makes me think about all the times members of this forum have stated that if its not them or their family in danger they would call 911 and be a good witness. This approach would have been a death sentence for this woman. Thankfully there are still people around like this neighbor. I know if someone were attacking my loved one I would want someone to do more than call 911.
I salute this Good Samaritan and pray that he is blessed and the Lord brings him peace knowing he had no choice but to take a life.

I think the operative word here is "neighbor." So presumably, the shooter knew who was who and what was what. He likely wasn't walking into a situation cold and probably knew the mother somewhat and the son's history. That's different than seeing two strangers fighting in a parking lot somewhere. Ambiguity is the enemy of intervention when the choice is life, death, or prison.

A friend of my father tried to stop a man from beating a woman in a parking lot. They BOTH turned on him and he ended up the worse for it. We don't have law enforcement powers or immunity so we need to be very careful about putting ourselves into a situation that we don't fully understand.

According to what I read the injured woman did not know the neighbor who shot her son.

jmra wrote:

VMI77 wrote:

jmra wrote:Sad story. The neighbor is a hero. This story makes me think about all the times members of this forum have stated that if its not them or their family in danger they would call 911 and be a good witness. This approach would have been a death sentence for this woman. Thankfully there are still people around like this neighbor. I know if someone were attacking my loved one I would want someone to do more than call 911.
I salute this Good Samaritan and pray that he is blessed and the Lord brings him peace knowing he had no choice but to take a life.

I think the operative word here is "neighbor." So presumably, the shooter knew who was who and what was what. He likely wasn't walking into a situation cold and probably knew the mother somewhat and the son's history. That's different than seeing two strangers fighting in a parking lot somewhere. Ambiguity is the enemy of intervention when the choice is life, death, or prison.

A friend of my father tried to stop a man from beating a woman in a parking lot. They BOTH turned on him and he ended up the worse for it. We don't have law enforcement powers or immunity so we need to be very careful about putting ourselves into a situation that we don't fully understand.

According to what I read the injured woman did not know the neighbor who shot her son.

I didn't read the article but that only slightly changes the situation. I've had neighbors I didn't know, but still knew they were my neighbors, and still knew something about their situation. Enough to know, for instance, that a son was a problem kid and someone to watch out for. He might only have known that the kid was a meth head and not even known he was the woman's son, but he wouldn't have been making a cold read on the situation. To the shooter may not even have known or recognized the woman and simply read the situation as meth head attacking a woman, still a different situation than complete strangers tussling in a parking lot. Or maybe he didn't know either, didn't know anything about the situation, and was just lucky what he did turned out to be the right thing.

If you're making a cold read you're taking big chances. Take the same scenario, but it's a young man who appears to be attacking an older woman in a parking lot. You call out to him, stop, or I'll shoot. He doesn't stop, you shoot. Then it turns out that the woman is the assailant....she has a gun below your sight level and the man was trying to stop her from shooting him. All I'm saying is that if you interfere in a situation you know nothing about it may be more ambiguous than it appears and you're risking serious injury, death, or prison.

In fact there have been similar real-life cases where what looked very much like one thing turned out to be very much another thing. I read about one incident where a security guard came across a man straddling a woman, struggling over a knife, the woman yelling "rape, help me." The security guard shot the man and saved the woman. Trouble was, the man was an undercover or off-duty cop and the woman was a nut case who had attacked HIM with a knife. The security guard was certain he was doing the right thing....turned out he wasn't.

I'm not arguing that one should never intervene to help another that isn't a family member or loved one. I am saying if you decide to make a choice that is essentially life and death for someone else and for yourself, you need to be sure you really understand what's happening and who's who, and not merely assume that the scene before you is exactly what it looks like.

jmra wrote:Sad story. The neighbor is a hero. This story makes me think about all the times members of this forum have stated that if its not them or their family in danger they would call 911 and be a good witness. This approach would have been a death sentence for this woman. Thankfully there are still people around like this neighbor. I know if someone were attacking my loved one I would want someone to do more than call 911.
I salute this Good Samaritan and pray that he is blessed and the Lord brings him peace knowing he had no choice but to take a life.

AMEN!!!

I think if I see a guy slice someone's throat and pull at her esophagus, I'll take my chances on them turning against me or any potential legal issues that may arise.

There is never a guarantee in life. Sometimes doing the right thing involves some risk. I don't think I could live with myself knowing I could have helped save someone and didn't because I was scared of potential repercussions.

mojo84 wrote:I think if I see a guy slice someone's throat and pull at her esophagus, I'll take my chances on them turning against me or any potential legal issues that may arise.

There is never a guarantee in life. Sometimes doing the right thing involves some risk. I don't think I could live with myself knowing I could have helped save someone and didn't because I was scared of potential repercussions.

Could you live with yourself if you intervened, got it wrong, and killed the good guy, like that security guard did? Saying doing the right thing involves "some risk" seriously understates the issue. It strikes me as rather casual to speak of a life and death decision as involving "some risk." And it isn't just the risk of not doing the right thing but the risk of doing the wrong thing that I'm attempting to address.

I'm trying to speak to the issue in generalities....I'm sure I could come up with many unambiguous situations that call for intervention like this one may have done. I doubt anyone posting on this board would refuse to intervene and come to the aid of another person where the threat and the role of the participants is unambiguous and they could do so at their own risk. If you want to assume the risk in an ambiguous situation and you're only responsible for yourself, hey, go for it. But if you have any responsibility for other people in your life it seems to me that the decision is not so easy since it's not just you at risk, whether or not at that particular moment you're by yourself.

If you are referencing the same security guard situation I'm thinking of, he didn't shoot anyone. He stopped a situation, the guy got his bike back and everyone except the guilty walked away.

When one party is dominating another and has a weapon, intervening is not a bad thing. There have been many on here that has specifically said they would not intervene if it didn't involve them or there own.

I addressed a specific situation and you are discussing generalities. Why quote me and try to make an argument then?