@JustinK I got more in the first few minutes of this video, than I have in the entirety of all the “news” footage I’ve seen.
Great video, covers all the available video (there isnt much, but its more than I’ve seen on TV), and possible angles of who is self-defending or not.
That mostly answers my question, in a broader context than this specific case. Which is at what point does USCCA go “hmmm. this is def not self-defense, exit stage left”. USCCA training will hopefully prevent us from being on the wrong side of the law to begin with, but there are cases (like this one) where its rather ambiguous/unclear and I wondered where that line is drawn.
The GA citizens arrest law looks pretty liberal but a lot would have to do with what the posse knew when this occurred.
The GA statute reads:
A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion.
If they saw the offense happen an arrest is justified. Likewise, if it is “within his immediate knowledge” it is justified. I’m not exactly sure what this is but I found some
Merneigh’s argument ignores the fact that the crime did occur within the presence of the food manager, one of the two persons attempting the arrest, and it occurred within the immediate knowledge of the store manager. OCGA § 17-4-60 provides, in pertinent part, that a private citizen may arrest an offender “if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge.” [10] It does not distinguish between misdemeanor and felony offenses. The term “within his immediate knowledge” enables a private citizen to use any of his senses to obtain knowledge that an offense is being committed. [11] A private citizen is not required to actually be present when a misdemeanor offense occurs.
In Williams, a panel of this court upheld a private citizen’s lawful arrest, finding that the misdemeanor offense was clearly made within the presence and within the immediate knowledge of the private citizen and that the arrest was effected immediately after the offense occurred. [12] Language in the Williams decision cited by Merneigh, which in isolation appears to suggest that a citizen arrest in a misdemeanor case may be made only when the offense was committed in his presence, is simply an application of OCGA § 17-4-60 to the particular facts in that case.
Merneigh v. State, 242 Ga.App. 735, 531 S.E.2d 152, (Ga.App. 2000)
Without additional information, I question whether the “within immediate knowledge” standard would have been met for a citizen’s arrest.
And as others have said, If the victim was confronted by a person pointing a shotgun at them, he would have the right to defend himself and the shooter would likely be considered the initial aggressor.
My gut tells me that in a case like this, it would have been appropriate for the prosecutors to present the evidence to the grand jury to decide whether to indict or not and then let the legal process proceed from there. This can even be done when the DA feels they have insufficient probable cause for an arrest to be made.
And as with all of these matter, we have only a small portion of the available facts. I prefer to withhold judgment until all of the information is available.
There is one significant exception to this, Epstein did not kill himself!
This specific case will be an interesting one to follow in the legal system. I don’t know all of the details and with state specific laws that play into each and every self-defense situation it’s not something that can be easily answered.
Do you think the two men in the truck were defending themselves, @Harvey?
IMO there was so much that could have been done differently in this situation to avoid this outcome… which is one of the reasons we pose our what would you do questions. Your body can’t go where your mind hasn’t been. If you haven’t trained yourself to avoid a possible bad situation or to be a good witness, you might not be able to do it in a high stress situation.
That’s interesting. When looking for a home I avoided an HOA like the plague. I could see the benefits in the situation you mentioned, but it also can become a nightmare for a home owner. City owns my street.
On a separate note, There is a lot wrong with this story, and I cringe at trying to find a way to justify what happened. This is definitely not going to look good for the gun community.
I’m not saying this is how I look at it, BUT some people are going to be saying that a Black man can’t jog without being in danger, but a white man can walk the streets with their ARs and be perfectly safe. I know these two things are not relevant, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t something really wrong with this picture myself.
The more video comes out (like @JustinK’s link above) the more I lean towards they were defending themselves in that moment, but it was a situation of their own making. Is it still self-defense if you put yourself in danger? So while perhaps legal, morally & ethically… not so much. But! As mentioned in the video, and I should know better by now, without all the facts of the case it is hard to come to any conclusions.
This is key. I can’t come up with a scenario where I would have chased this guy down. Bringing a gun to the citizen’s arrest, while maybe legal, increased the danger level significantly and it played out poorly in this case.
HOAs are a double edged sword. A well run HOA keeps your community looking nice, and your property values up. No HOA means your neighbor can just leave their rusted out car on their lawn indefinitely, completely abandon their lawn so it looks like a crack house, and drop your property values (seen it happen). And your property value is a long-term investment you dont want to mess with.
But they can also be real annoying with HOA Karen’s taking a ruler to your grass height (seen that happen too). If you are able, join the HOA board and have a say in the rules and their enforcement.
We are a small, 20+ houses, neighborhood surrounding a small lake. The road on both sides of the lake dead ends and there is only one way in and out. However the road is county maintained and therefore public. We have no ‘official’ neighborhood watch, but we do watch. People wandering though and staying on the road might get a wave or a ‘how are y’all’, but no direct confrontation. People who stop and try to fish, are checked and asked to please leave as this is private property. One guy tried to argue the fishing by saying he was on county property, the road across the damn, and could fish from it. Of course there are a number of reasons why that is not true but suffice it to say that he loaded up and left when I informed him I was calling county LE to come explain trespass law to him. Anyway, if someone gets off the road and onto private property we will nicely explain their mistake and have them leave. Failure to do so will get a LE response and to attack a homeowner would not be a wise move.
I’m fortunate to be in a neighborhood where everyone takes care of there property without having to be told to. I’m probably the worst neighbor right now. Trying to get these weeds under control 
. I’ve seen neighborhoods similar to what you’ve stated though.
%100 agree. As gun owners we should try to learn what we can from these stories too.
I also think events like this are why I carry. That’s Why I liked Colion Noir’s response. I also agree with waiting for more information, but this did happen back in February… it didn’t become well known until the arrest was made recently.
I believe you should receive a fine for every weed on your lawn. $1/weed.
My lawn is green because of all the clover. There is grass interspersed. $1 a weed, I would be broke.
Then you deserve to be broke. 
My yard looks awful. It use to be pristine.
I believe you should receive a fine for every weed on your lawn. $1/weed.
“A weed is just a flower in the wrong place.”
green is green
Wait for all the info to come in. Here is a good explanation of the events.
That’s the type of transparency the MSM needs to reveal to us if they want to gain back our trust!
I’ll admit I jumped the gun and felt it was a bad shooting. I’ve learned to wait for facts. However facts are hard to come by through MSM. Facts should be revealed no matter what they conclude. Not what I come to conclude after 10 seconds of video.
From the reading I’ve done, it seems like the attempted citizen’s arrest, while legal in GA, was an imprudent move on the part of the men who are currently jailed on murder charges. I think a major motivation for them in pursuing the shooting victim has a lot to do with the fact that Travis McMichael was the victim of the most recently reported theft in their neighborhood, when a gun was stolen from his unlocked vehicle on Jan 1, this year. One of the other reports was also a theft of guns from another vehicle in the same neighborhood, in early Dec, 2019. I believe having been a victim of the theft probably played a part in triggering the response to pursue Arbery, rather than waiting for the imminent police response to the 911 call. There’s more than one instance of irresponsible behavior at play here.
Very interesting. This video is basically what @Mr.Spock has been saying. We will see how this plays out.
The shooters are beyond the stupidity of a box of rocks! First order of business, if there is no threat, never contemplate use of deadly force. Even if some breaks into your home, and is armed, but when confronted runs away - you do not shoot. Period. Furthermore, you do not pursue, and thus create a confrontation where someone most likely will actually get shot - even you! I’m an old white southern boy (79), but this has all the appearances of pure unmitigated racism, which is disgusting! It is this kind of act that continued to fuel the divide in our country. The young man had little choice - I feel if he’d put his hands up & complied with the demands of these two POS, and then demanded the police be called, that might, and I do mean might, have saved his life. If these two were trolling just to kill a Black man, then there’s little he could do. Very, very sad. May God bless his family with comfort and healing. The hurt must be so, so deep!