Assault with a dangerous weapon charge?

[Maricopa]

Not that I blame him but shooting to protect yourself is legal, shooting at someone running away....is not.

[Ron61]

Maricopa is correct, but with the police more interested in such crimes as seat belts and refusing to come to houses here, it is now up to the home owners and businesses to protect themselves. To use deadly force you have to have an imminent threat to your life or bodily harm and a person driving away is not UNLESS they are shooting at you. Laws vary from state to state and even county to county, but it also depends a great deal on who the investigating officer is. If you shoot a friend of his and you have a knife in your chest that his friend stuck in it, he is still going to try to nail you for murder. The police up here want you to mail in a report if your house is broken into so they don't have to go to the house and make one out. Same for an alarm. Call them and verify that someone is in the house before they will dispatch and then only if they have a unit available. The police protection in this area seems geared more toward the crooks and dopers than the honest citizens and they wonder why everyone carries a gun.

Ron

[Silverback51]

Originally Posted by Ron61

Maricopa is correct, but with the police more interested in such crimes as seat belts and refusing to come to houses here, it is now up to the home owners and businesses to protect themselves.......

Ron

The reason they are more interested in writing tickets is that it generates money for the government. They don't get anything for catching a thief.

[Ron61]

Silverback,

We pay the Shasta County Sheriffs Department for a set amount of deputies to be our police force just as they do down in Orange County and other places. They are trained for traffic control and all the rest of the stuff that goes with being a city police force. Instead they are sent to the unincorporated areas which won't join the city as they want to avoid city taxes and we are left with no police. I fell this is the Sheriffs Departments job as they have always patrolled the unincorporated areas and why should we be paying a police force for the city that spends all of its time in the mountains and unincorporated areas? This is not the deputies doing as most of them are good and hard working cops. Maybe we should do away with this set up and just start our own police force. There are plenty of young men and women coming home from the military that could go to the academy and would be happy to have jobs here at home. Then the Sheriff's Department could spend all of their time out in the unincorporated areas.
As for generating money for the seat belts and such, just how much does it cost them every time some person fights it in court and it has been done successfully here.

Ron

[Ron61]

Ok, I will explain the situations we teach here for the use of deadly force. this will not apply to all places and is NOT meant to start a war, so please if you have disagreements, phrase them in a manner which can be answered in like way.
1. JAM = An acronym for Jeopardy, ability, and Means. Women can get by easier than men unless the man is in bad health and unable to defend himself in any other way.
JAM means the perp has threatened a person who has the mental capability to make a decision about if they fell they are in physical danger by this persons threats or actions. Ie, they feel they are i jeopardy.
Ability means the perp has the ability to do bodily and grave harm to the victim. A woman or a small man in bad health versus a 250 pound doper for example.
Means is just that. The perp has the means to inflict bodily or fatal wounds on a person. A weapon such as a knife, screw driver, brick, or anything that can be used to do so. The accepted distance is around 15 feet if they don't halt before that, then in MOST cases you are allowed to defend yourself.
Do NOT under any circumstances move or tamper with the body if you have had to defend yourself. Tampering with evidence is a major crime here. A good homicide detective can tell within the first 5 minutes if a shooting was justified, but you are going to be hauled down for the 24 hours anyway.
If you have the misfortune of having to defend yourself using deadly force, DO NOT make any statements at all to the police when they arrive. First call 911, report a shooting and that you have defended yourself, describe what you are wearing, put your weapon back in the holster so the arriving police don't see a gun in the open. Remember you could be the perp and lying and they can't take a chance on that. Remember that anything you say is recorded, so keep quite and if you say anything at all, just say I Am To Upset To Talk Now. Know and call a good criminal attorney. Even if you don't need one this could shorten your time in the station.
Also our qualification is done under combat conditions using FBI and other Federal agencies tactics. We have to fire in pitch dark, using flashlights for spot flashing the target, 10 rounds in 10 seconds at two targets with 5 rounds in each clip, and so on. This will vary from place to place and is not meant to start a big fight but just explaining how it is done in our county. Shooting a person in the back is not self defense UNLESS he is shooting at you over his shoulder and you have no place to get out of the line of fire.
Hope I haven't upset any of the law enforcement officers that have to do this on a daily basis, but we do have a right to defend ourselves as long as it is not abused. One last note that won't apply to many places. I live in the center of the major drug capitol of the Western United States and these dopers will not hesitate to shoot anyone including law enforcement that happens to find one of their big pot farms or Meth labs. And one last word. Many of those that carry up here do so because of personal safety and not as an ego trip because I can carry a gun. I personally detest the idea of having to carry a gun to walk down the street after dark. I have carried for around 20 years since leaving the service and have yet to do more than show my weapon on two occasions. Never even had to take it out of the holster.
Ron

[AMF]

Like I said,

Thank God I live in FL. If that guy had been here, the cops and the DA would have been trying to get him to sign up to marksmanship classes, not trying to prosecute him

[392cobra]

Originally Posted by Ron61

Shooting a person in the back is not self defense UNLESS he is shooting at you over his shoulder and you have no place to get out of the line of fire.
Ron

That is why they tell you in Texas to shoot them in the leg so they will turn around where you can get a good shot.

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by Ron61

Ok, I will explain the situations we teach here for the use of deadly force... etc... ...Never even had to take it out of the holster.
Ron

That's actually pretty good, Ron. Thanks for the insight.

I wonder if this country isn't due for some innovative law enforcement. We now have volunteer fire departments. I wonder if we couldn't have similar volunteer law-enforcement departments. There would immediately be a cry of Vigilantism, that it wouldn't work. But in reality that is what conventional law enforcement and firefighting units are made up of, ordinary citizens, trained and dedicated to a job but none-the-less. With proper controls and safeguards in place, I think it would work. It's really the same thing only part-time and volunteer.

It would be so important that no unnecessary public harm inadvertently occur which would mean a lot of volunteer training. Also, I have been told, and observed, that law enforcement jobs attract not only the altruistic, but also an unstable "Dirty Harry wannabe" element that must be most fortunately discovered and eliminated during a probationary period. Some cost involved sure, but quite possibly worth it.

There is a precedent. Back in the '60's and early '70's I was assigned to a newly formed MP company in the National Guard. The reason was that the Army was starting to crack down on excessive alcohol and drug use and the traditional wild two-week camp for National Guard tended to overwhelm local law in the nearby small town. Subsequently, we were sworn in as temporary deputies with the right to make an arrest or at least detain offenders until more professional help arrived.

The "deputy" idea worked pretty good although there were the usual overzealous enforcements from some rooky MP's with their "new-found" power. Wisely, they did not arm us with firearms, only nightsticks, but I think they would have provided .45's under the lethal threats found in your neighborhood. Keep in mind this occurred not too long after the Kent State/guard disaster.

Hard to believe a new-found MP gate guard would confiscate beer away from the same guy he abused alcohol with last year, but I saw it happen. Lucky we patrolled in pairs through bars. I recall the term "pig" was in popular use referring to police (us) at the time. After the first swipe attempt, I kept one hand on my nightstick. Probably wouldn't have been the first cop conked with his own stick, eh?

Before I was assigned to the 191st MP Company, I was a member of the 131 Engineering Battalion. Abuse beer?... heck, we were known as the hundred-and-thirsty-first (131).



...

[Cobrabill]

Wes,we'd be better off if every dectective in America was a "Dirty Harry" clone*.And every Chief/Sheriff was a Buford Pusser clone.


*but there are some wack-jobs that apply to the PD.