What if: Unarmed assailant charges while you're holding a long gun

[0ddl0t]

Somewhere, long ago, @Mas Ayoob wrote why “freeze” is not a best choice, but cannot I remember what he wrote, though it seemed logical at the time I read it.

I did find one article in which he talked about a 1992 Louisiana case where the homeowner issued the "freeze" command and a costumed Japanese high school exchange student, at the wrong house for a Halloween party, continued advancing to his demise. But it was posited that the Japanese student thought the homeowner was an attendee of the costume party and just playing a role.

Rex, back in the 1970s Lt. Frank McGee, then head of the NYPD Firearms and Tactics Unit, told me their department had gone with the command "Police! Don't move!" The rationale was that "Freeze" was a mushy-sounding word, but the explosive consonants "P" in "Police!" and "D" in "Don't move!" were more clearly audible and distinguishable. It's been over 40 years, but if I remember correctly linguistics expertise and street cop experience were all involved in the study that led to the adoption of that specific command. I suspect John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was tight with NYPD, was also involved to some degree.

It made sense to me, and I've always taught "Police! Don't move!" for LE, and simply "Don't move!" for armed citizens. P-F members with NYPD experience may have more details to share on that.

Thanks Mas. I like the unambiguity of "Don't Move," but I'm not totally convinced "freeze" is that weak (an exclaimed "fuck" seems pretty strong even if you were to stop yourself from saying the "ck"). Still, I can definitely see how some foreigners might be confused by the use of an alternate definition of "freeze."

As for the hands, well, I got pretty good at belting out “Yo quiero mirar los manos!”

I've always wondered about this. As a citizen I don't need to be slapping handcuffs on anybody, so why would I want to give someone permission to move their hands away from their waistband? If they did come up with a gun, I'd be behind the eight ball because instead of being able to react at the movement I would have lag time waiting to process that they have a gun in their hand, right? So why not just have them freeze/not move until the cavalry arrives?

That and I hate hearing conflicting commands when watching body cam footage (e.g. "Don't move show me your hands hands hands don't move!"

[Sanch]

My lay person opinion.

If you find yourself facing down an unarmed man rushing you as you hold them at gun point with your long gun, or handgun for that matter, you probably need to shoot that person because they may disarm you and kill you with your own gun. A reasonably a prudent person would believe the only reason to charge someone holding you at gunpoint is to take your gun away from you and use it against you.

I render that opinion without context of scenario. Depending on the context, it’s murder, but regardless of context it’s tactically necessary for survival.

If you are performing a citizens arrest in a public place and you are lawfully not allowed to do that with lethal force, then this becomes murder. You probably saved your own life from the imminent moment you are facing down the charging person, but the events leading up to the shoot are what make it murder. You put yourself in a shit situation that required you to shoot, but you voluntarily put yourself in the shit situation where shooting was highly likely.

Imagine you are robbing a liquor store at gunpoint and the clerk pulls out a handgun. You have to shoot him because if you don’t, he will shoot you and you die. But it’s murder because contextually you were robbing a liquor store.

On the justifiable side, you are woken up at home in the middle of the night and there’s an intruder in your living room, and shoot this unarmed man as he’s charging you, it’s not murder because of context.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

On the justifiable side, you are woken up at home in the middle of the night and there’s an intruder in your living room, and shoot this unarmed man as he’s charging you, it’s not murder because of context.

That story has been used to kill an annoying spouse or partner. It's usually figured out. Oh, I didn't know it was beloved hubby, wife, girl friend, etc.

A colleague of mine was an expert witness in such a case. Wife supposedly wakes up and says, that threatening shadow was coming at me. I could not discern who it was - bang!

Oops, it was hubby doing the midnight peepee. My colleague (a USAF vet, vision scientist) did a rather high tech analysis of her vision (who knows why she consented to that), reconstructed the visual image of such a system and guess what - he was readily identifiable. Off to jail.

Didn't that South African athlete who decided to blast away at the 'intruder' in his bathroom, use that justification. Surprise, it was the girl friend.

Having someone not comply to verbal commands is an interesting FOF for the civilian. Going to stand there when you say:

Hand up, Don't Move, Freeze and the guy answers you with some language YOU don't understand and smilingly walks towards you? Open fire?

Holding someone at gunpoint is a bad idea - get rid of them if you can. Let the law chase them down. It was debate at the old NTI. Warn before the shot and then what?

Do you assume that when you shoot, you are going to kill the person? They might well survive and say they were trying to flee and/or give up and you just shot them instead.

[Sero Sed Serio]

For the scenario where the confrontation is in your home* or occupied vehicle, Arizona's presumptions start out in favor of lethal force being justified: the occupant is presumed to reasonably believe force/deadly force is immediately necessary to protect self/others, and the invader is presumed to pose an imminent threat of unlawful deadly harm:

https://www.azleg.gov/viewdocument/?...s/13/00419.htm

The presumption does not distinguished between invaders armed with "deadly weapons" (designed for lethal use) or "dangerous instruments" (objects not designed for lethal use but capable of causing it--bats, chains, butcher knives, etc.), and "unarmed" invaders.

So for our scenario, AZ law starts in favor of the occupant, before we even get to discussing the issues of the invader's aggressive action, the possibility of the occupant being disarmed, disparities in size/strength/fitness, or other things that could be used to articulate the need for deadly physical force above and beyond those presumptions. The previous posters have done an excellent job discussing how lethal force could be justified in a weapon retention struggle.

These are rebuttable presumptions, but the burden is on the prosecutor to prove that he occupant wasn't acting reasonably and/or that the invader didn't pose an immediate threat. There are exceptions for family members, lawful residents, law enforcement officers, or when the residence is used in the commission of a crime.

My mom's old boss, a retired airport manager and law-abiding citizen who lived in a quiet, nice neighborhood, but had incredibly bad luck, was involved in two in-home self-defense situations: the first was the suspect in a police foot pursuit that jumped through his bedroom window and landed virtually on top of him--he physically threw the suspect back out the window. The second was a daytime burglary, where he fired a single, fatal shot into the burglar's head with a .38 snub. I don't believe that the burglar was carrying any sort of a conventional or unconventional weapon, and I'm not sure if the burglar made any threatening actions towards him. No charges were filed or contemplated in either case.



*Criminal case law supports a broad interpretation of "home" or "residence" to include being a lawful overnight guest, hotel rooms, RVs, and even in some cases tents or cardboard boxes.

[Sanch]

Hand up, Don't Move, Freeze and the guy answers you with some language YOU don't understand and smilingly walks towards you? Open fire?

This is actually a much scary visual than a guy silently with an angry face walking towards me while I held him at gun point. Context dependent, just because the person is encroaching on me smiling and speaking in a foreign or possibly invented language, does not remove lethal force justification from the table. If it did, then every bad guy in the country would smile and walk towards cops holding them at gunpoint and jabber off nonsense words and then when they are shot, claim a bad shoot.

Of course, it all depends on why the person is being held at gun point. I agree with you when you said it's a bad idea. In my mind, holding someone at gunpoint is reserved for situations where I have decided to shoot this person but am giving them an opportunity to not get shot depending on their actions. And if I can instruct them to leave the area safely, then I would do that. Get the f- out of here!

Personally, my pre-need decision making is that I would only draw a gun on someone if they were inside my home uninvited and unexpected or if they put me in fear for my life in a public place in a manner that I cannot safely exclude myself from the situation. I'm not doing third party intervention under any situation other than someone I'm out in public with such as a friend or family member. I'm not protecting strangers, my car or any other forms of property. I used to think I would intervene if a uniformed LEO was in trouble but upon deep self introspection, I'm not willing to give up my life for them and will not intervene.

I've pre-need decided there's very few situations I would actually draw the gun, and under all of those situations I'm immediately legally and tactically justified to shoot. There's no grey area, there's no hands up, there's no drop your weapon. Now if when I draw the gun, the circumstances change such that I no longer need to shoot, then there would be a temporary holding at gunpoint until the person either decides to leave and avoid getting shot or decides to come toward me and get shot.

What might that look like? I'm inside my house and there's someone snooping around in the fully fenced in backyard. I draw my gun and approach from behind. Legally I can shoot them but I want more information. Is it the neighbors kid sneaking home? I might hold at gun point giving orders to identify them. If the person suddenly reaches in their waistband and turns towards me, they've forfeited their right to not get shot. I was justified in shooting them even before this point, but legal justification is not ethical justification and I'd like to make sure it really is a bad guy. That's the limited situation I've decided to hold someone at gunpoint, and it's if I can safely give them an opportunity to talk/act their way out of getting shot in a way that doesn't jeopardize my tactical position.

Someone snooping around my backyard with a ski mask on and has a crowbar in their hand? I don't notice them and I'm outside and they startle me. I probably need to draw the gun and shoot immediately since they are too close and can smash my skull in with the crowbar before I can draw my gun and issue commands. But if I have the positional and time advantage then maybe I temporarily hold them at gunpoint provided I can do so safely.

Personally, even if a stand your ground state, I would attempt to leave if possible, unless it's my residence.

[Le Français]

Many PFers know this first hand, but I think it may bear repeating: Do not have rigid expectations about how people will react if/when you confront them with a firearm.

Some will run, others will posture and threaten, others will insist that you shoot them right away (some of these will be sincere), others will freeze, others will pull out cell phones and start recording, and still others will attack in earnest. Some will simply keep doing exactly what it was that they were doing or intending to do before your entrance on stage. Don’t believe me? Ask any patrol officer.

It pays to have at least visualized some of these possibilities, and played out the scenarios to various possible conclusions. Force on force training is awesome for this, if you have good partners/role players. One thing you’ll learn from such training is that it’s good to have intermediate force options, like OC spray and striking/grappling abilities. The gun won’t solve every problem whilst also keeping you out of handcuffs.

[Coyotesfan97]

Heard the same argument for giving a command to a bad dog. BAD DOG is something that most dogs have heard and gets their attention. Has worked for me at times. Of course, dogs don't have human speech detectors but probably learned it from their trainers. Don't know if this has been intensively studied.

Dogs recognize the tone and the sharpness of the command. Most will know bad dog but you’ll probably get a better reaction using a harsh NO! Just as an example of this I often encounter dogs when working. If they advance on me I yell PFUI! (PHOOEY) which is a Dutch dog command that I’ve used frequently working with Dutch trained dogs. US dogs wouldn’t know it but they react to it almost every time.

[Odin Bravo One]

You can beat the fuck out of someone with a long gun, just saying.

An ocular fracture of the cheek bone, and eye socket from a muzzle strike has proven to be pretty damn persuasive. (From what I hear) A skill I always teach at any course that isn’t entry level.

[Odin Bravo One]

Butt strike or muzzle strike: is one more effective than the other?

A buttstrike poorly executed has good odds of putting you in fist fight over the gun. Fights between are 50/50 at best. Muzzle strikes in the other hand, have a long, and illustrious history of being pretty damn effective.

My opinion and worth what you paid for it. YMMV.

[deputyG23]

Rex, back in the 1970s Lt. Frank McGee, then head of the NYPD Firearms and Tactics Unit, told me their department had gone with the command "Police! Don't move!" The rationale was that "Freeze" was a mushy-sounding word, but the explosive consonants "P" in "Police!" and "D" in "Don't move!" were more clearly audible and distinguishable. It's been over 40 years, but if I remember correctly linguistics expertise and street cop experience were all involved in the study that led to the adoption of that specific command. I suspect John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was tight with NYPD, was also involved to some degree.

It made sense to me, and I've always taught "Police! Don't move!" for LE, and simply "Don't move!" for armed citizens. P-F members with NYPD experience may have more details to share on that.

This command is the one we have taught in our basic academy for years. Clear and concise.