Getting involved with 3rd party encounters

Firearm Training Mental Training
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So I always see this pop up same time of year every year the past few years.

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So recently I attended the USCCA Expo and attended church security classes, I took the smal class we had on Sunday.

One of the scenarios we were in, we were attending church, and a man comes in asking for his baby, yelling he wants his baby. Once he got near the mother, everybody tackled him, the church security team had their guns drawn, and we let the woman escape and subdued the man.

We did a little review and an investigation after scenario was over.

Turns out, the man was the one who had legal custody of the child, he has a restraining order against the mother, and the mother was going to stab the father if he got close to the child, and she kidnapped the baby from the nursery room.

After finding that out, the cop in the back of the room who’s a trainer, but is a cop in real life, told us everybody here in this room is getting arrested. The security team would be in deep trouble and everybody who attacked and tackled the man would be in cuffs heading to the prison for battery.

So I seen this post in a group and I stated what I witnessed in this force on force training and the response I got was “rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6”. And I had to tell him your life isn’t in danger in this scenario, you could of got out of it.

So I asked him, what would you do and how would you get involved if you see a woman seemingly becoming in danger, when you don’t know who is who? And after getting involved in an incident, and everything is not what it seemed, the cops are going to be laughing at you and you’re going to walk away with legal charges on your hand and a moment of feeling stupid.

Of course the only response they had was tackling somebody isn’t illegal, and I had to explain that’s battery, and eventually they took the post down.

So when you see a post like this, what do you think in your mind, when will you get involved, and how do you stop yourself from making a really big mistake?

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Sometimes it’s best to just be a good witness to what you saw. That is the one of the dangers to the hero complex. Knee jerk reactions and assumptions do often get us into trouble, and where a firearm is concerned it’s even more tragic. We’d just better know what we are doing before we just intervene on someone else’s behalf.

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No verbal intervention at all?
Everyone who tackled him, I consider a mob.

Also, my CCW instructor strongly suggested never making any assumptions as to who’s right or wrong in domestic disputes.

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Put your hands violently on a lesser opponent, elderly, handicapped, smaller etc. I have and will intervein. May not go hands on but, in one case I simply stood in between a guy and a lady and said “Nope, not while I’m standing here…”. The police were called, I was questioned and walked away, never heard a word from the courts or the police. We talked about it at the gym the other day, it’s just built in, lay your hands on a child or a significantly lesser opponent and many of us would react.

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I think there was not entirely sure, everything is a different experience when you’re sitting in the room, dealing with the situation at hand.

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This. Sometimes it’s best to just be a good witness to what you saw. Unless I absolutely know the who, what, where, and the why. I am not willing to risk my life or my freedom. I have a family to love and protect.

I know it feels great to be the hero. But the chances to blow your life up due to a heat of the moment decision where you don’t have all of the information is a definite :thinking::police_car::rotating_light:

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I completely agree with this and have given the same advice to others. Though I’m not sure I would be able to follow my own advice if I saw a person aggressively trying to pull a kid away from someone who appeared to be their parent. Especially if the kid was showing any signs of fear at the prospect of having to go along.

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If the child show fear of the person trying to get him/her,it would be a tossup for sure whether to step in or not

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The kid was a baby doll.

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Absolutely! Because the prosecutor is subject to go back days and weeks before the incident took place to determine familiarity with the subject or alleged victim, i.e., prior beefs or run-ins, bad blood, etc., to determine whether the event in question was a possible carryover from a previous interaction.

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A man pulls up to a mall jumps out of car and has an AR rifle, he then runs into the mall.
Stop him or not?
If you said stop him, you just shot a plain clothed officer going in to stop an armed man in the mall.

Damn if you do, damn if you don’t!

This is where being in a situation that is life threatening and reacting is different than seeing a situation and reacting are so different. AND with this maybe you can understand that after a situation the LEO will not know what is going on till the information gets sorted out!

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Totally legal to jump out of your car with an AR and walk into a mall… Just Sayin

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I was taught at a young age to break up a fight, get in between the two people fighting. I was also taught not to get involved in a domestic dispute.

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If when you call 911 and give a detailed description of what happened and explain to them that you are an authorized concealed carrier, the dispatcher will stay on the phone with you and also inform you (if so) that the person you described is a plain clothes officer, do not engage him.

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I’ve been watching you here the past few days, wish I could take a course with you. You hold a lot of valuable education and material.

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Brother, I make mistakes, but I try my level best to improve and echo what I’ve learned coupled with my experiences and try not to let all of my experiences overshadow my training and practice the way I train. I’m always studying, always evaluating, and I’m always learning, holistically speaking. But I thank you for that, it’ll motivate me to train even more. :muscle: :muscle:

Edit: That aforementioned notwithstanding, I could not be where I am (if I’m anywhere at all) without a proper attitude, excellent Trainers, a willingness to learn and the stick-to-it-tiveness to apply that learning.

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“Getting involved with 3rd party encounters”

= don’t

Maybe if you are pretty sure somebody is going to die or be seriously/permanently injured, and you’re willing to wager a decade in prison on your level of “sure” regarding the situation, and also willing to risk never seeing your family again (except from your casket) on your abilities.

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It’s situations like this that cause people to pull out their cameras instead of getting involved. People have gotten in the middle of domestic disputes, only to find out that the person they tried to protect was the guilty one. I have also personally witnessed a man stepping in to break up a fistfight between a male/female couple, only to have both of them turn and gang up on him.

Although I am capable of physically stopping an attack, within reason, I do my best to verbally de-escalate any situation, as a member of my church security team. Thankfully, we also have attentive uniformed and undercover officers at the church campus I attend, in the event we need an officer in a hurry to sort out the situation and make any arrests.

@Forensic_Wow Thank you for sharing this.

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My nephew got knocked out cold doing exactly that.

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You can skip all the wall of text and just scroll down for the “to long didn’t read” it version.

When I was younger, my cousin was the number 2 rated kickboxer in the Professional Kickboxing Association (PKA, an early version of MMA). My aunt took me in for reasons. She lived in West Palm Beach and she put me into a Catholic School. I got picked on alot, and would fight anyone anytime. She got tired and told her son to teach me, The Martial Arts. So every day, he would pick me up and we would crross the bridge in West Palm to the rich side of West Palm, where his Dojo was. So I became an exhibition dummy for his classes. Then when all the classes were over, I would clean up and then he’d start teaching me. His one Unbreakable Rule was that I could not use what he taught me against other kids. So I kept getting my a$$ kicked but as I learned more I got to where I could block the punches and occasional kicks. A couple of the bullies were enrolled in his classes and since I didn’t fight back. They would give me hell at school and in the Dojo and I would just take it because I wanted what he was teaching me.

On weekends my cousin would compete at or judge Tae Kwon Do tournaments. After 6 months he would let me try to get my belts for competition Tae Kwon Do. I got my black belt in the next 6 months. I had put on some weight and I was all gristle and n bone and quick twitch muscles. So a year goes by and I’m everyone favorite punching bag at the Dojo cause I always let them do their workouts on me. My cousin then decided to teach me Judo. I have my Black belt in Judo, in 6 months. Next door is a little Filipino grocery store and he gets the owner to teach me Escrima. I fall in love with Escrima, mainly cause Escrima has a real focus on improvised weapons that peasants could use because they couldn’t have real weapons. I focused on Tonfa’s and Karambits. So I am 15 and change and all I’ve done is focus on Martial Arts, for 2 solid years 6 days a week.

Well, over Christmas Break, my cousin shuts his Dojo down so he can focus on an upcoming professional bout. So I don’t have any friends, so I go to the school every day and shoot hoops. Well 2 of the rich kids come to the school and after I leave, they break into the schools gym and just destroy it. When school let’s back in everyone finds out the gym has been destroyed. The 2 little rich pricks have been bragging and they quickly get turned on. Well they decide they don’t want to go down alone and they say I was with them. There’s lots of video showing me out on the outside courts. So the school charges all 3 of us. I go to court and swear up and down I didn’t do anything. No one believes me. The 2 rich kids parents have hired very good attorneys and they promise to pay for all the damages. So the Judge lets us all go with a stern warning that he should never see any of us ever again. I am so mad because my Aunt doesn’t believe me. So she is making arrangements to send me back to my bio sperm donor.

I am still going to school but I’m now 5’11 and about 150". So I start watching to see how those little shits go home. They usually take a route that goes over a canal, that has Alligator’s in it and they cross using this huge pipe. I know I am being sent back and I know what’s coming. So I skip my last class of the day and I wait at the pipe for them. When they show up I wait till they are half way over and I beat the brakes off of them. Next day their parents show up at my Aunt’s house and tell her how I beat their boys up. They are blistering away at her about how I had done these horrible things to their boys.

I am well and truly pissed now and I lay out how these boys have been bullying me for 2 years. My Aunt backs me up because I was coming home several times a week with black eyes and ripped up school uniforms. They leave and my cousin comes in and tells me to get in his car. We drive to the Dojo and he tells me to get my Gi. When I come out he is working on the Heavy Bag. He hands me protective gear for my head, ribs, and fit. He then gives me the most thorough education in that he had taught me all I know. But he hadn’t taught me all he knew.

So, wtf does this have to do with this thread. This isn’t a therapy thread. Well I join the military and do 8 years. I get a scholarship and I move to that college. I meet this crazy hot girl and we are going on our first date. As we are leaving the restaurant there is a girl screaming bloody murder and 2 men are fighting in the back of a car. So, I decide to be Billy badass, impress my date, and wade in to break them up I pull the first guy out of the car and put him down pretty hard. I grab the second guy and I am about to put him down , and this girl who had been screaming for help lands on me from behind with her stiletto pump and begins to enthusiastically beat on my head. Fortunately the girl,l I am out on a date with, peels the girl off of me. But now I am in a fight with 2 big beefy frat boys, that ■■■■ my cousin told me about using his training. Went straight out the window. I eventually put them down, but now the police are here.

I was extremely lucky because all of it happened in front of a security camera.

TLDR. Got a lot of martial arts training tried to break up a fight and at that point I had to fight the 2 guys who had been fighting each other.

Moral of the story: Don’t jump into stuff unless you, absolutely, know all the details.

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