Kids at Bus Stop -- Now what?

[FLSquirrelHunter]

This is hypothetical, but real. There is another thread about the incident. This thread is simpler: what is the right response??

You're walking your child to school. The response is simple; draw, do not fire; seek cover and concealment, and egress the scene trying to keep yourself in line between threat and child.

But what if ... you're driving alone and see a person waving a gun at kids at a bus stop?

What if the person is dressed in a uniform?

I'm asking because just the idea of seeing either of these makes me wonder what I would have done. Almost all of my forethought involved being indoors (home or store), or in my truck, or at worst, accosted at an ATM. Never imagined being around children.

How the heck do I handle idiots who choose to threaten where children gather? How do you assure a safe backstop along an open road?

I'm thinking about it. What are your thoughts? Maybe I should just avoid Jax?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[retsupt99]

I slow down or park off to the side...
I absorb as much info as I dial 911...
Remain a witness only...

[Bark'n]

Situations like that, I would just play it as I see it play out.

Highly unlikely scenario for me to stumble into. I'm not saying impossible or that something like that hasn't happened... I'm just saying highly unlikely for me to stumble into something like that.

These types of situations are highly fluid and dynamic and lots of variables. Not being a LEO I am not duty bound to act and If I were to hit an innocent kid... The ramifications would be disasterous!

Oh yeah... and what is the level of stress are you bound to be in during that situation? You are gonna be in a full body alarm mode with tons of adrenalin dumping into your body! You could easily start to experience tunnel vision and auditory exclusion which can really obscure critical information you need to process. And if you try to take aim, take a look at how bad you are probably shaking. Can you gurantee expert shot placement? I don't think I can. Not without attempting to manuver into a better position.

Possibly the best thing to do would be to be on the cell phone to police and discribing the situation and being a good witness.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be getting any more involved than keeping my grandkid (my situation) out of harms way and notifying LE and being a witness. If they were to actually start shooting... you have a whole new scenario and not the one stated here, but definitely a different scenario.

[Sheldon J]

If he is in uniform and I am assuming you mean police then if you are not dialing 911 and feeling a complaint, well you get the idea. Next still do a 911 and observe and make ready, the 911 operator will want continuous data while they dispatch a unit.

[ccw9mm]

If with my own child, with many other children/people around, my child survives ... I'll see to it, if it's the very last thing I do. Now, my response depends wholly on the threat. Anything short of a lethal threat, and I'm simply taking my chilid and exiting the space. Walking "that-away." Little different, really, from many other situations. I'm removing my child from the immediate area. If followed, the child's welfare comes first. If attacked, I'll refuse, if able, including whatever disabling is required. If lethally attacked or the person is obviously armed and threatening, I will do everything I can to terminate the threat.

If driving by, though, and I witness the situation blowing up with someone waving a gun, ditto on the wait-and-see approach. I'd almost certainly pull over and witness what was going on. If it blew sideways and became lethal, I'd have to think very hard about whether to get involved. Depends on how it was going. If children were being mowed down, I do believe I'd go right after the attacker and stop him/her if I could. But anything short of that? 911, witness, patience, all done from behind cover.

If the person waving the firearm is in a "uniform," it depends on what that uniform is. The law isn't too kind on folks who gun down police officers, so there's a definite risk to any involvement in that scenario, of course. Which is why felons are taking steps to dress in appropriate uniforms when they seriously want to appear to be LEO. If, however, that person (uniformed or not) began mowing down children, I believe I would attempt to take out the shooter. It would have to be blatant and obvious, though, given the risks.

Data point: On a smaller, two-lane street, I once saw a group of teens walking by, when one of the group pulled out a pistol (Airsoft, BB, whatever) and began pointing it at passing cars. I drove another couple of blocks, called 911 and waited. They turned a corner and I did not hear back from police. Uncertain of the result, though nothing appeared in the newspaper the next day or two. No children involved, per se, though they were mid-teens in age. The biggest (and apparently most-stupid) of the group was the one aiming the gun at passersby. He looked the oldest, by a couple of yrs. Should have been caught, prosecuted and appropriately jailed/fined for that stunt, serious as it was. BTW, this was about the time of the Columbine murders.

[TN_Mike]

The attacker is described as a bearded black man with a law enforcement or security officer outfit, a gun belt and silver badge, the report said.[/I He had a tan jacket, tan shirt and blue jeans and was armed with a Taser gun.

I don't know about anyone else, but to me this is not "dressed in uniform". Real cops do not wear a uniform shirt and blue jeans when on duty. Also, motorcycle cops do not try to force people onto their bikes. Motorcycle cops do not transport people, they do that in cruisers, not on bikes. The article does not say if the bike this creep was on was decked out to look like a police bike or not but I suspect it wasn't. That would be another tip off.

So, to answer that question, if I saw this scenario playing out in front of me, then I believe I would understand that it is an abduction and not a police officer interacting with someone and I would do what I thought I needed to do. That could mean being a good witness or anything else up to and including engaging the bad guy.

[Bark'n]

I don't know about anyone else, but to me this is not "dressed in uniform". Real cops do not wear a uniform shirt and blue jeans when on duty.

Mike,

I would say in metropolitan jurisdictions this may be true... However in tons of rural area's of the country, it is quite common, and believe it or not, most of America is rural jurisdictions!

I can name probably 15 small towns in Missouri where there may only be 3 or 4 officers on the department who wear a uniform shirt with an identifying shoulder patch, a badge and blue jeans with a duty belt.

They may have a "complete" uniform for special occasions and functions, but for day to day duty, it's blue jeans. And there probably are a heck of a lot more towns then the ones I know about.

There are still police departments in Missouri where officers have to supply their own vehicle! Imagine that!

Just watch CNN, you'll see police officers, sheriff's deputies, and sheriffs all over the country giving press reports on TV from time to time for some local crime wearing their standard, uniform shirt, badge and blue jeans with a gunbelt on.

Just remember, what's true in your area of operation... may not be true in everyone elses area of operation.

[BigEFan]

Unless it were my kid being threatened, I will have to say be a witness. Not that I don't mind protecting children I don't know (in a situation where there are less risks to the innocent I probably would engage) I just dont think it would be wise in this situation. WIth that being said, if the BG begins to fire, reassess and engage. I would rather a person shoot at me than innocent children. I think I stand a better of chance of coming out alive.

[gotammo]

your driving right you cars a better stopper than anything on your hip. As far as someone in uniform who's going to be waving a gun around at a bus stop? Is there a police car there a security company car?

[FN1910]

I think the situation you describe is much more of a reality than all of the practice scenarios that everyone thinks up. Not necessarily at a bus stop but in general. Think of at a park, ball game, shopping mall or Chuck-E-Cheese. You sneak your gun into a high-school football game and all of a sudden you see two youths arguing and one pulls out a knife. What do you do? Of course you pull out your Glock 26 and yell stop. He immediately turns, lunges at you and being ever alert you fire. Only thing is that you hit his arm and it goes though killing a 3 year old.

How about at the bus stop you talked about. Can you get a clean shot or should you even worry about it. Stopping and watching while dialing 911 may be your best option but you can play every possible chance over and over just to find that either one comes up that you never thought of, or you just can't remember.

Something to always remember is that things may not be as they seem and dead heros are still dead.

[Hawk]

Mike,

I would say in metropolitan jurisdictions this may be true... However in tons of rural area's of the country, it is quite common, and believe it or not, most of America is rural jurisdictions!

Just remember, what's true in your area of operation... may not be true in everyone elses area of operation.

I am pretty sure he was referencing the article in question, which was a story about a Jacksonville incident. In that context he is quite correct. There is never a time you will see a police office in blue-jeans with a department uniform shirt waving a tazer around. Additionally, FWIW, tan is not the color of our Sheriff's Department uniforms.

[FLSquirrelHunter]

your driving right you cars a better stopper than anything on your hip.

good thought for the guy on a bike!

just driving up to it (directly, but not aggressively) may be enough to send him away