When fighting back fails........

[Guinnessman]

Here is a sad article about a recent bank robbery this week. In the other robbery thread someone mentioned the consequences of escalating a fight vs. de-escalating a fight.

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/06/16/1-shot-during-south-strabane-bank-robbery/

[41magfan]

I think that response was rather foolish ..... leave the catchin' & fetchin' to the police under these sort of circumstances.

[Nephrology]

trying to engage a fleeing suspect in his own vehicle with a pocket knife is not good tactics, IMO. Still terrible that he lost his life over it.

[Mr. Goodtimes]

Sad that he lost his life, but this is why you don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Makes me wonder what he was thinking, or wasn't.

[orionz06]

Trying to be the hero when he was not initially involved got him killed in front of his daughter. All over money that was not his.

[EMC]

I'm all for not encouraging bad behavior in society, but that money is insured by the FDIC. Not worth your life.

[TCinVA]

Saw a mention of that on Facebook. I'll say here what I said there: my primary goal is preservation of my life and my quality of life. Seeing a guy fleeing the scene without any direct danger to me or bystanders I'd be very reluctant to try and stop him. I'd reach for the cell camera before my gun.

[Byron]

Those of you saying he made a bad decision... I guess you don't get it. Oh well.



Sad that he lost his life, but this is why you don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
I think his choice of weapon would fall near the bottom of the list, were we to tally the poor decisions here. I don't think that him having a pistol would have miraculously lifted him out of the hole he dug himself into.

[Jay Cunningham]

Those of you saying he made a bad decision... I guess you don't get it. Oh well.


The whole "you just don't get it" response is disgustingly pervasive in the training industry, sometimes coming from instructors, but usually coming from sycophants and acolytes of instructors. Or just from would-be tough guys.

It's a cop-out and it generally means the person stating "you just don't get it" simply cannot put a proper explanation into words.

[Mr. Goodtimes]

Those of you saying he made a bad decision... I guess you don't get it. Oh well.



I think his choice of weapon would fall near the bottom of the list, were we to tally the poor decisions here. I don't think that him having a pistol would have miraculously lifted him out of the hole he dug himself into.

His choice of weapon was what escalated the situation. People (including the victim) knew that the perpetrator was armed with a gun. The perpetrator was in his vehicle, fleeing the scene when this guy decided to try and reach in there with a knife and stab him, thus escalating the fight to a level that he wasn't prepared to deal with. It's great to see that some people still have a set and are willing to stand up for what's right but sometimes one has to look at the risks vs the potential payoff. In this case the payoff would have been recovering money that was insured by the federal government and potentially saving someone down the road (the guy hadn't shot anyone yet). The risk is getting yourself or a bystander shot, which is obviously what happened. Like I said it's a really sad, crappy situation but I can honestly say I wouldn't have gotten involved in this one. I'm not the police and I don't have the training to deal with complex situations like this.

Had I been involved in the robbery itself I would have likely intervened, however, once the guy leaves the building he's not really a threat to my self anymore and I would not chase after. Call the cops, report what I could and count my blessings.

[orionz06]

I thought most reports were that the dye pack was what set the robber off and made him go to guns.

Not sure, heard a few minor conflicting things, none of which matter if someone decides against being a hero.

[Byron]

His choice of weapon was what escalated the situation.
...
The perpetrator was in his vehicle, fleeing the scene when this guy decided to try and reach in there with a knife and stab him, thus escalating the fight to a level that he wasn't prepared to deal with.
I just don't see it as a hardware issue. I agree with your second quoted statement: that entering the vehicle escalated the situation. I just don't think his choice of weapon matters much in this particular story.

Might he have fared better with a gun? Maybe: it is possible. It's nowhere close to a certainty, however. Simply having a gun, rather than a knife, would not have magically solved this problem that he jumped into with both feet.

Let's work out the scenario. What if he did have a gun? At what point would he have been justified in throwing shots? It's not like this happened in TX; he couldn't have just shot the suspect in the back while he was fleeing. He wasn't there for the initial robbery; just to give chase.

There was no physical interaction between the parties before the suspect got into his getaway vehicle.

The deceased didn't even attempt tool access until he had gotten into the back seat of the robber's getaway vehicle... with the robber in front. Multiple reports are saying that he was shot while trying to access his belt.

Even if he had a gun on his belt at that point, and even if he had been able to draw it faster than his knife, there's a good chance it would have been a very close range gunfight, VCAST style. That is a suckfest. Period. There's a decent chance it would have ended with both parties shot.

In my mind, narrowing in on his choice of weapon is analogous to watching a businessman jump into the tiger habitat at the zoo and saying, "That's why you don't wear wingtips for running," after seeing the guy chased down and eaten.

[Mr. Goodtimes]

I just don't see it as a hardware issue. I agree with your second quoted statement: that entering the vehicle escalated the situation. I just don't think his choice of weapon matters much in this particular story.

Might he have fared better with a gun? Maybe: it is possible. It's nowhere close to a certainty, however. Simply having a gun, rather than a knife, would not have magically solved this problem that he jumped into with both feet.

Let's work out the scenario. What if he did have a gun? At what point would he have been justified in throwing shots? It's not like this happened in TX; he couldn't have just shot the suspect in the back while he was fleeing. He wasn't there for the initial robbery; just to give chase.

There was no physical interaction between the parties before the suspect got into his getaway vehicle.

The deceased didn't even attempt tool access until he had gotten into the back seat of the robber's getaway vehicle... with the robber in front. Multiple reports are saying that he was shot while trying to access his belt.

Even if he had a gun on his belt at that point, and even if he had been able to draw it faster than his knife, there's a good chance it would have been a very close range gunfight, VCAST style. That is a suckfest. Period. There's a decent chance it would have ended with both parties shot.

In my mind, narrowing in on his choice of weapon is analogous to watching a businessman jump into the tiger habitat at the zoo and saying, "That's why you don't wear wingtips for running," after seeing the guy chased down and eaten.

I agree with all of this, and thats essentially what I was trying to get at. A gun is worthless if not employed correctly. Given the way things went down, I think that if you replaced "knife" with "gun" things would have turned out the exact same way, or maybe resulted in both parties getting shot. The only way I really see this having ended well would have been to shoot the suspect while he was fleeing or to have engaged him from outside his vehicle while his gun was on his seat.

[David Armstrong]

Shoot because you have to, not because you can. Probably worth extending that to other methods of using force. Tombstone courage is nice, but you're still dead.

[cutter]

We recently had a murder trial end with a life sentence in a armed robbery gone wrong. A executive was walking home one morning from a coffee shop when he was stalked by the robber. Apparently he was aware of this for when the robber approached him from behind and pointed the gun at him. The executive attempted a disarm by grabbing the gun and got shot. According to the robber, the gun discharged when he tried to pull away from the grab and if his description of the way the grab was done is true the victim either did the disarm wrong or didn't have any training.

Not to speak ill of the dead but outside of the obvious of carrying a gun, I can think of several things to do before going for the disarm.

[TCinVA]

We recently had a murder trial end with a life sentence in a armed robbery gone wrong. A executive was walking home one morning from a coffee shop when he was stalked by the robber. Apparently he was aware of this for when the robber approached him from behind and pointed the gun at him. The executive attempted a disarm by grabbing the gun and got shot. According to the robber, the gun discharged when he tried to pull away from the grab and if his description of the way the grab was done is true the victim either did the disarm wrong or didn't have any training.

Not to speak ill of the dead but outside of the obvious of carrying a gun, I can think of several things to do before going for the disarm.

"See, your honor, I accidentally shot that guy to death while I was attempting felony armed robbery! It was his fault for trying to take the gun!!!"

Can't imagine that went well for him in court.

[cutter]

Jury was out just long enough to go to the bathroom.

[JHC]

His friends from his motorcycle club Brothers of the Hammer sure speak highly of him (the deceased)