His word against yours

Please note that I am not advocating anything illegal. I am just presenting a scenario here and would like some opinions.

As much as many of us have had training and thought through some of these responses, we are not in the trenches as LEOs or criminals are so these are not every day occurrences for us. We will make mistakes and that is kind of what I am presenting here.

Enough of the disclaimer. That should prevent me from getting another warning. :yup: Here is the scenario.

You are walking down the street by yourself. It is later so there is no one else around. Why are you doing this? Who knows. Maybe you just got off of work of the swing shift, or a restaurant worker and you are heading to your car to go home. But as you are walking down the street, you get approached by someone who asks if you have a cigarette. You have read enough of these posts to suspect that this is not a good situation. You step back and in a commanding voice tell the “gentleman” you don’t and to leave you alone. At this point he pulls a knife and “requests” your money. You had your hand in your pocket on your gun and you draw and point. You then repeat your command to back off. The guy runs away.

I would probably be cleaning up my pants right now, but somehow you remain composed enough to high tail out of there. You are shaking, adrenaline rush, only thinking that you want to get out of there. You run to your car, start it and drive home.

You get home and try to calm down. As you are thinking through what just happened, you realized that you should have called 9-1-1 but didn’t. It is several hours later, late at night, so you just decide not to. The incident is over and everyone went home alive. You try to get some sleep.

In two days you get a visit from your friendly LEO. Apparently the would be mugger did call the police and reported that he was walking down the street, minding his own business and some nut job started waving this gun in his face. It turns out that the mugger watched you go to your car, took down your license number and phoned you in.

So the question I have is this. Assuming there were no other witnesses and no video surveillance going on (if there were, it would have shown the mugging taking place) wouldn’t it be his word against yours? You could explain what went on, of course, but if you just refused to talk to the officer (see previous thread about talking to police) there really is no evidence that you did anything. How could they charge you with anything? What would be the best course of action here?

I tell my wife to always remember to be the first to call the police. They are more apt to believe the first caller. Now if the knife weilding jerks have a rap sheet and you dont, then it would be easy. But always call 911 before they do. Even the lawyer at my CC course told us that

If it's serious enough for my gun to come out of it's holster then I won't forget 911. I have not been it that scenario but I try to condition myself to do certain things by reflex just in case. Calling 911 is one of those reflexes that I think about.

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Originally Posted by Danger Mouse

I tell my wife to always remember to be the first to call the police. They are more apt to believe the first caller. Now if the knife wielding jerks have a rap sheet and you don't, then it would be easy. But always call 911 before they do. Even the lawyer at my CC course told us that

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And that is kind of the point of this scenario. You should have called 9-1-1 but you didn't. We all make mistakes and that is one of the mistakes that was made.

Yes, we all make mistakes. This isn't one of them. Calling 911 should be as automatic as putting your underwear on before you put on your pants. However, given the premise of your situation, yes, I feel I could give my side of the story.

Yes, It would be his word against yours. And just like when we were kids playing with our siblings/friends, he who tells first has gained the trust of the person in authority. So unless you have some good evidence to clear yourslef you will be charged in the above scenario.

Don't repeat verbal comands (that did not work the first time) after the BG pulles a weapon. The reason for this is the BG can kill you while you are still in talky mode. BG produces weapon, go straight to fight mode.

Your scenario above should go from BG pulling knife to repeated gunshots center mass untill the BG is compliant or no longer a threat or is incapacitated.

Even if it went down like you described let me tell you what you are already thinking. YES. YOU ARE IN DEEP HOT WATER FOR NOT CALLING THE POLICE RIGHT AWAY. YOU WILL SEE THE INSIDE OF A JAIL CELL AND COURTROOM.-Jay

There actually will be evidence against you. If the mugger can describe your gun and where you drew it from and the police officer finds that you have a gun matching that description and a holster that fits where the BG said the gun came from, then there is evidence to support the BGs story. In person or through an attorney, you probably should talk.

If the situation warrants you pulling a gun you better be reporting it otherwise you may be the one charged

It's not just the BG you need to worry about. There are always prying eyes who may not have seen his knife and called the law. Now you're in real trouble.

Of course, everyone is saying that you "should have" called 911. In your scenario, you didn't, so I think in my case, when I got the visit from the friendly LEO, I would politely decline to talk, and not say ANYTHING, and call my lawyer. Either way, in this scenario, it's might be deep doo-doo for you, depending on the DA and how good your lawyer is.

Luckily, in my county, I know the DA and family personally for many years, and I feel that he would take that into account if the same scenario happened to me.

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Originally Posted by exactlymypoint

And that is kind of the point of this scenario. You should have called 9-1-1 but you didn't. We all make mistakes and that is one of the mistakes that was made.

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I know. The best thing I can say is to let them know you were always prepared to call 911, but when the SHTF all hell broke lose and things got jumbled up.

Criminals who go out and mug people at knife point don't file complaints. That guy is just happy to be alive. He probably thinks you're a cop. Should you call 911 right away? Yes. Is this scenario really worth wasting brain power on? No. There is only about a one in ten million percent chance that this could happen.

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Originally Posted by AZ Husker

It's not just the BG you need to worry about. There are always prying eyes who may not have seen his knife and called the law. Now you're in real trouble.

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I retract my above statement and bow to this logic.

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Originally Posted by atctimmy

Criminals who go out and mug people at knife point don't file complaints. That guy is just happy to be alive. He probably thinks you're a cop. Should you call 911 right away? Yes. Is this scenario really worth wasting brain power on? No. There is only about a one in ten million percent chance that this could happen.

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Actually a couple LEO friends of mine say that this has happened. In the end it was sorted out, but it still made a lot of trouble and a lot of lawyer fees for the accused.

To address the OP's "scenario" get a good lawyer. No one can tell you how it will turn out. May be ok, may be bad. One thing I will guarantee is that you will never again "forget" to call 911 after pulling your gun.

For future reference, placing a disclaimer on your "scenario" does not allow you to break the rules. So far as I know where you live it is not against the law not to call the 911 if you pull your gun and it isn't where I live either. So you did not violate the rule of advocating or placing people in the position of advocating illegal activity.

Your word against his, but I doubt this would be his first offense so you can probably get off by comparing his record to your elevated responsibility as a CCW holder.

But as stated I think that forgetting to call 911 in this situation would be rare, since you are running to the car and now driving home and have all that down time.

Your first action is to call 911 specifically for this reason...the first one to call 911 is the victim. For all you know, someone could have been watching from a distance and only saw part of the action, yet was able to get your license plate. You need to get your story to the PD before someone else does.