I remember when this happened, there was a big deal about no weapons being involved but someone died. Nice to the County Attorney has a little bit of sense.
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So the homeowner used deadly force on home invader, and was found justified in its use. It is immaterial what tools the homeowner used for his defence.
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I’m very glad this worked out well for homeowner! But just to play devil’s advocate for the sake of discussion -
Assume everything went down as described in the story but the man in the chokehold goes completely limp and is passed out beyond any reasonable doubt but the homeowner continues the choke hold with all his might for many minutes, well after the home invader shows any signs of breathing. I think this could be viewed similarly to a homeowner who continues to fire at a home invader who has given up the attack and has left the house and is running down the street with no sign that they are returning fire or repositioning to continue the attack.
I find this to be one of the most challenging aspects of training for a self defense situation. You get attacked, your adrenaline goes through the roof and you take every action necessary to save yourself. Then the challenge becomes recognizing as quickly as possible when the threat has stopped. If you assume the threat has stopped too soon then the attack will continue and your pause could cost you your life. But if you don’t recognize the threat is over soon enough then you risk facing life altering legal consequences.
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Yea, that’s why I posted this particular article, to illustrate exactly what you are saying. He held the guy UNTIL the police got there. Too long? Maybe, but the CA didn’t think so.
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Glad you posted this!
Ideally the benefit of the doubt would always go to to the person minding their own business before an unprovoked attack. Unfortunately there seem to be more than a few places where the people in charge don’t seem to like it when someone defends themselves or their families and look for any possible excuse they can find to put the initial victim on trial. There are also those rare situations where there is not a lot of doubt to try and benefit from. Either way recognizing when the threat is completely stopped in a stressful situation is an important skill.
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