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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

10 Tips Before & After a Self-Defense Shooting




1)Make sure you survive. Make sure the bad guy is no longer a threat and be ready to face his friends if there are any. The home invader is down, he’s not moving and you carefully kicked the gun/knife away from him, but is he alone, or is there someone in the next room just waiting to shoot you? Is there an accomplice outside?

2)Stay put, don’t leave the scene of the shooting since this could be consider fleeing. The only case in which you should leave and its acceptable to do so is when staying there puts your life at risk.

3)Call 911 and report the incident, keep it simple. “Someone broke into my home” “Someone attacked me”. Don’t give any details. Don’t worry, the dispatcher will ask plenty of questions. Your answers should be short and to the point, as short as possible with no further details. You will be nervous, so do your best to control yourself and keep your mouth shut. Make sure you request an ambulance, no matter if he’s dead still ask for an ambulance. No, unless you’re a doctor do not touch or provide medical assistance to your attacker. Simply call 911, ask for an ambulance and let experts handle it. Call your lawyer as soon as possible after that.

4)Don’t touch or move anything. It will be considered tampering with evidence. No, you wont “trick” any forensic experts by moving dead bodies or tampering with the scene. You’ll only land yourself in jail.

5)Take photos of the attack, any weapon he may have used, take more photos further away of the general scene. Use the camera to film everything and everyone around you , 360 degrees. Make sure you have a cell phone with a good camera for this purpose. Don’t talk to witnesses about what happened but do ask them for their name and phone number so as to have witnesses. 

6)When the cops arrive, make sure you have no weapon at hand. Holstering your firearm is just fine. Don’t make any sudden movements and do ot draw it if the cops ask if you are armed. Simply say yes, and explain that your gun is holstered without moving your hands or touching anything. If it’s a long arm or you simple don’t have a holster, just leave it on the floor and step away.

7)”What happened here? well officer,  I double tapped this scumbag in the chest and landed a nice shot in his forehead as he was going down. Those JHPs sure did their job! I “looked for his friends” as I had trained and when I found none I did a tactical reload. They say killing someone is a big deal but being honest I don’t regret it one bit. Heck, between you and me, it feels nice cleaning the streets some, I’ll sleep better tonight knowing this guy is well ventilated”. No, no, no. Don’t talk with the police. Anything you say can and will be used against you, nothing you say can help you. Just tell the officer that you want to talk with your lawyer. Massad Ayoob, recurrent expert witness, says you should say you will sign a complaint and you’ll fully cooperate after talking with you lawyer. Nothing else, the less you talk, the better. 

Before the shooting:

1)Be normal, don’t be the neighborhood’s nutjob. Get training, so as to know how to use your firearm properly and get information on your local laws regarding shootings and self-defense.

2)Shoot to stop, never to wound. A person fearing for his life tries to stop his attacker, not just wound him, torture him or cause him pain. No jury will see it as humane, instead it will be seen as proof of you not fearing for your life and misusing a lethal weapon. Intentionally “wounding” someone with a firearm means you’ll spend most of your natural life paying for the injuries, disability and grief you caused. Your “wounded” home invader can now spend his life watching TV while you support him.

3)Avoid problems to begin with. Don’t be friends with stupid people, frequent dangerous places and avoid bad habits such as excessive drinking and drug abuse. That way you avoid this huge mess in the first place.

FerFAL

3 comments:

Maldek said...

Good and sound advice for 1st world country aka police states.

I understand that FerFal as author has to give this advice in compliance with the law.

However I as a reader am not subject to such burdens. So here it goes - Maldeks altered advice to be applied in south american countries like paraguay or argentina (exceptions maybe chile and brasil)

1) check
2) Depends on who you just killed and where you are. If you just killed the son of your neighbor, who happens to have a family of 20 and you are in rural paraguay. RUN. Not just RUN - leave the country and dont look back.

His family will go after you and they will try to kill you in revenge. Expect the house you left to be burned to the ground. It does not matter if you killed this guy in self defense or not - they do not care.

3) check. If you got cash in the house make sure it is on your person. Otherwise the police will steal it and then make you trouble ot cover their theft. Also it helps to have a big amount of cash at hand for the outcome of the investigation.

4) Chances are there are no forensic experts coming. They might not even take fingerprints in some countries.

If the attacker turned out to be unarmed or his buddies did take his valuable gun with them when they did flee it is always nice to have a second gun (unregistered version) in the house you can put in his hands. Otherwise a spare machete will do.
If he had buddies and they DID flee you may want to strongly consider 2) as chances are high, they will come for your blood.

5) check
6) check
7) check, but if there are survivors expect THEY will talk with friends and family. A lot. They might suddenly have 40 witnesses, most of whom were 100 miles away when it happened and all will testify against you. That is the norm, dont expect otherwise.
This comes in addition to 2) - they will be enemy witnessess but not stop at that. Always remember that.

Before shooting
1) check
2) If they are injured but alive they can talk. Maybe they were just drunk and wanted to take a shortcut over your land? If it was during they day, maybe the sun was too much for one of them and they wanted to take shelter in your house for shadow? Stupid stories like these will be told and as silly as it may be, they will stick.

Stick in a way that you will have to pay the police or judge to avoid jail. If you cant pay enough you are in trouble. It is lucky for you if there is no talking no more, still you will have to deal with 2) though.

3) Only 2 ways to avoid such things in south america as a "gringo" is to live in a fortress and have armed guards who will do the shooting for you. If they shoot, you didnt - no problems.

The other way is not to live here in the first place. Everybody else should expect something like this to happen one day. Prepare yourself and dont expect the police to EVER help you.

Anonymous said...

As an attorney I would affirm most of what you wrote. However, like Assad Ayoob, I do recommend that you oint out to responding officers the physical evidence and witnesses which will support your version of the occurance. Physical evidence and witnesses disappear quickly and may not wait for an attorney.

SED

Don Williams said...

1) Might be a good idea to find a good lawyer today -- and have his phone number in your wallet as well as with whomever you plan to call for help.

Police don't let you take a trip from jail to local library to find out who is highly rated in Martindale and Hubbell
( USA Consumer Guide to local Lawyers. Has ratings, albeit with shortcomings.)

Actually, some US shitholes may not have a Martindale and Hubbell --they may not even have a library. And police don't recognize a right to internet access or unlimited phone calls.

Plus if you have some kind of a relationship with your local lawyer, he can tell you ( or your outside helper) who to use if you get caught in a jam away from home.

Of course, by the time you get through paying off the predatory lawyer, you will probably wish you had just handed your wallet over to that nice, reasonable , and relatively benevolent mugger.