You don’t “Know”. BUT, if a person was to get involved by stopping everything. “You’re the Good Guy?” “Cool”. “I’m on with 911, Let’s all just chill until the police get here”. That way the “might be the good guy” may be less inclined to pull the trigger…
Begs the question, how do you “get involved by stopping everything”. What action do you take to stop everything and does it potentially result in shooting someone?
In this scenario, The guy on the ground looks distraught, the guy with the gun looks aggressive. So I pull my EDC, hold it to my side making sure Mr. Aggressive knows I’m armed (since his firearm isn’t working I have time to at least slow thing down). Start the conversation… and let the Chaos begin. After all, after he shots Mr. Distraught he may want to eliminate all of the witnesses.
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How do you know he shot someone? Serious question.
The elimination of witnesses comment would seem to imply you have reason to believe it was an unlawful shooting. What is that reason?
Be very careful making assumptions about a third party interaction to walk up on
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Watch the video.
I did. I saw one guy on the ground, one guy standing playing with a gun. Lots of things could have happened to create that scenario.
In fairness, I’m fairly particular/have a high standard when it comes to inferring what has happened in the past for a third party situation.
That magic word articulate, what can we articulate to demonstrate why we reasonably believe (to the point of drawing our gun and maybe shooting) that person A shot person B?
And further, how you concluded that the inferred shot(s) were unlawful?
…is it possible, for example, the guy on the ground was attacked by someone else, the guy with the gun defended the guy on the ground, and the attacker is now gone?
I do not disagree with you on the idea that we don’t know everything when we walk into a situation on the street. I just like to believe I would be able to react in a manner that just might stop anyone from getting shot. As we all know, when dealing with some people things can go crazy really fast.
Scenario: Traffic on the road is stopped and backed up. You hear at least one gunshot. There is a cop on the ground. There is an anxious man holding a gun walking away from the cop on the ground.
What do you think and what do you do?
Watch this video ONLY from 1:18-1:24.
Six seconds should be more than enough to take action as a man of action, watch those six seconds, that’s what you walk or drive up on…what do you do. A cop is on the ground, a shot was just fired, and this anxious guy is walking away with a gun in his hand.
How would we articulate the difference between this scenario and the OP video, or are they not so different and the suggested reaction would be to draw our gun and give talk to the guy with the gun because we have inferred he shot the guy (cop) who is on the ground?
It would suck to draw your gun, and the guy holding the gun points it at you so you shoot and kill him.
His reality: He saved the cop’s life by shooting the cop’s attacker, and now the cop’s attacker’s friend (you) is trying to kill him so he acts in lawful justified self defense and kills you. Or maybe you are faster and you kill him and now what?
It’s that easy
Too many “What If’s”.
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Yes!
That’s the bottom line.
Those are all what ifs because you cannot know those things upon entering an ongoing third party encounter.
It’s easy to talk about a specific incident with the full hindsight of a video of the end, but when you jump in in the middle, you don’t know how it ends and you don’t know how it began either. You might even think you know what the current situation is, but could be wrong, dead wrong, simply because you haven’t been presented with enough information to tell
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With all the what “ifs” we may as well keep our firearms holstered and stay out of the way! If it’s going to take more than six seconds to determine the bad guy from good guy, there’s no point.
However in that particular incident , if that was the Florida case, the officer was giving orders to the civilian to shoot!
In no way does it seem reasonable that a good guy is sitting on the chest of a law enforcement officer!
Who’s just been shot, is he administering first aid, or reaching for the officers gun?
We are in dire straits if we can’t figure bad guy from good guys!
“Well, maybe I should wait for the report to come out, read it, and THEN remember”. - Nick Memphis in Shooter
What I do know for sure, if it was my wife, my kids, grandkids or best friend on the ground, I know who’s in the wrong.
Probably the only time I drawing down!
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But did you as the one who just came upon the situation hear those orders from the officer? You’re in your car with the window up, then when you open it/get out, that point is past, or you are too far away to hear?
In a situation similar to that it is quite conceivable that those commands may be absent or otherwise just not something you are privy to as you enter the scenario.
It’s an example of how seeing a person agitated/distraught with a gun right after a shot was fired and another person is on the ground does not necessarily mean the person you see, shot the person who you see on the ground/whatever.
IT’s just so extremely risky to go to lethal force or put your life/liberty on the line based on what is necessarily incomplete information
To bring it back to an unanswered question from prior discussion, what would a person articulate for the OP video to explain a reasonable belief that the man with the gun had shot the man on the ground and further, that that shot was unlawful. Articuability (is that a word? It is now! lol) is a pretty big thing (even though you probably shouldn’t get into that with responding LE immediately, at that time, you will cooperate but first you need your attorney)
Yes, if it’s your wife or child lying on the ground that is an entirely different situation
More accurately, the ambiguous answer to the question, is we’re entering the “fog of war” as we approach!
We can’t know anything without the proper intelligence! So, for the most part, unless we are part of the scenario, we don’t know s**t.
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We only “Know” what we are seeing at the moment. That may or may not be an accurate indication of what is and has happened.
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Yep, one filming and one watching. A great example on why to Carry Haven’t read story on this one though.
How in God’s name do you just watch a man get murdered when you have the ability, time, and opportunity to intervene?!!! As I stated, I’m fit enough and trained enough to do so. I have several tools in my toolbox. Sometimes you just have to let the chips fall! How do you say to whomever interviews you; to the kinfolk of that person, to your friends even, “I just stood there and let it happen?!” I’m not built that way. I wouldn’t do it, even if it were YOU!!! I am NOT a gutless wonder!
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But got to admit, if it’s not real, or if there’s more that we don’t know, it’s one hell of a scenario. I’ll tell you this, it got in touch with ME, that’s for sure. I truly believe (knowing me) I would deal with that situation righteously. I don’t mind having fun but I aint play’N. I don’t play games, and I don’t suffer fools.
I have questions; Who was the guy in the blue shirt? Was he coming to the aid of the LEO? Did the guy in the blue shirt shoot the guy that was on top of the LEO? Do we know the status of the LEO? We know that no one should be sitting on Cop’s chest, period! So, unless something else happens, which it’s a good guess it has, then the guy in the blue shirt will have to explain his actions. One thing is for sure, he got involved. Hopefully the Cop is ok. And hopefully it will be deemed a righteous shoot if it was in defense of the LEO. But there is a lot of the story we don’t know, looking at this particular video.
Because you don’t have hindsight to look back and know that’s what the situation is or the crystal ball to see that that is what will happen in the future.
“Sometimes you just have to let the chips fall” is a personal decision. I’m not willing to bet my kids growing up without me for the rest of their lives on me being that absolutely confident that I know what that third party situation is and where it’s going based on so little information and having no way to know what transpired prior and that those things I know even though I don’t have enough information to know them, will be understood by the prosecution and the jury as well