This happened this past week in Spartanburg County here in the Upstate of South Carolina. A LOT of lessons to be learned here!! I totally agree with Sheriff Chuck Wright that his big mistake was not staying on the scene and calling law enforcement and explaining his side of what happened. He should not have waited any time at all. Very luckily, there was video evidence, as the article says, that corroborated his story and it is being decided as a self-defense incident. But this could have turned out FAR worse!
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and for those who don’t support facebook, I assume this is the incident. Looks like a good call.
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Thanks for the non Fakebook link.
A lot of stupid in that story.
I don’t know why people act like that.
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Thanks. I don’t do Fakebook. So many things went wrong with this case.
#1 being that even though found to be justified, our shooter (Mr. Wright) in this story escalated the situation by continuing the conflict with exchanged words and aggressive driving. It would have been better for him (Mr. Wright) if he had pulled off on another side street or headed in a different direction. Or found any other way to de-escalate this situation.
#2 After discharging his firearm, Wright should have made those all important calls to 911 and his Attorney and Family members.
It’s an understatement to say that he was “lucky”. Let’s all learn from his mistakes here.
Stay safe out there.
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Yep.
“Leaving the scene of a crime” is often not a very good thing to do AND failing to report it !!!
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The only good reason I can think of for not calling the police in this situation is if he felt his actions might make him guilty in this case. Even then he should have called to put his spin on the story. He is very lucky a part of the incident favoring his case was caught on camera!
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There is absolutely no good reason for not calling 911. His “spin” on the story? Really?
This is very bad advice. Let me reiterate what the USCCA teaches (you can find it on the back of your membership card too):
If you are involved in a use of force incident, no matter whether you fired your weapon or not, you should call 911 and report it. You next need to call your attorney and then in certain situations you need to call your family. Anything less than that will not do you any good.
Don’t put a “spin” on anything. Report the incident and then communicate through your attorney.
Stay safe out there.
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Yes, this is the incident. Thank you mattm for getting the link up there. I couldn’t seem to make it work. Thank you all for your thoughts. They are all my thoughts exactly. Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright is a very fair and objective sheriff, otherwise things could have turned much, much worse for this shooter, even though he was in the right which was, thankfully for him, corroborated with video. So much did and could have gone wrong and there are, as has already been pointed out, so many lessons to be learned!
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This was not advice. This was the only somewhat logical reason I could see for him not calling. And not a good reason at that!
What I was trying to say is that there is no good reason for an innocent person to not call 911. If he was the true initial instigator and aggressor of this incident he might have hoped to flee the scene and not be tracked down. But with so many witnesses that was a stupid choice.
If he was completely innocent and justified in his self defense then there is no logical reason for not calling 911 and waiting for his lawyer so he could tell the truth about what happened. Either way not calling 911 was a stupid move.
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Amen Shamrock, well stated. My apologies if I misread your intention.
Stay safe out there.
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No worries @Frank73 My responses tend to get a little long winded so I was trying to keep that one shorter. But sometimes brevity can reduce clarity;)
One thing I should have added is that regardless of whether or not the shooter was the initial instigator and/or escalator, he appears to have taken no actions to disengage from or deescalate the situation. He likely had many opportunities to avoid having to pull the trigger. Legally justified and morally right might be too different things in this case.
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@Frank73 , I respect everyone’s opinions rather I agree or not. In this situation I do not agree with the state of Mr. Wright chosen another direction of travel, because if it happened to me I more than likely would not. I also would not have said much after I said I was in my lane. He should have stopped and called the police and lawyer, as I would have if placed in same situation but, take a different route because someone say I am to close to their vehicle on the streets.
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Shamrock what you meant to say was tell his side of the story RIGHT! Spin is a sinister word in this context we have individuals who are new to the gun culture and saying innocuous things can cause misunderstandings that can create a certain climate of indifference towards us
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In this case I did indeed mean to use the word spin. Since the only logical reason for not contacting law enforcement is if he felt guilty in which case he might be motivated to spin the truth. I am not saying he or anyone else should spin things. But guilty people tend to run, hide, and/or lie.
It is possible that he was not at all at fault in this case and his decision to not contact the police was simply an illogical one. Either way, he is lucky to not be behind bars right now.
Understood
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