This scares the hell out of me

[mzmtg]

This guy's story seriously disturbs me. I can't get over what almost happened...

http://www.jobrelatedstuff.com/forum...5&f=10&t=30959

I live in Panam City florida, I work in Panama City beach. The two are seperated by a bridge...and one side seems more sane than the other to me. The beach side is where I always read about trouble.

Today for lunch I hit a drive thru, then decide to cruise along the beach before heading back to the office. I drive a jeep wrangler so driving along the beach with no top or doors is just one of those little pleasures.

After a couple miles I decided to head back. There is a main highway running paralell to the beach about 2 miles north with lots of roads heading north / south to get from the beach to the highway.

I turned right up one of these north / south roads. The road was a going through a mostly undeveloped woodsy area until about the last 3/4 of a mile where a neighborhood had been built on my right. A very nice looking neighborhood. With houses that look like they were in the $500,000 range.

A blue suburban stops at a stop sign before pulling out of the neighborhood. Instead of remaining stopped, it pulls out into the street and stops hard blocking the lane. This forces me to put my brakes on harder than I would like to in a jeep. I came to a squeeling stop and was staring at the driver with a W.T.F. look. He was probably around 17 or 18. There are three other kids in the suburban around the same age. The kid in the passenger seat gets out leaving his door open. I'm still sitting in the jeep and starting to feel uneasy. That's when I see the kid who just stepped out of the suburban holding a handgun in his right hand, he racks the slide and I throw off my seat belt and break for the rear of the jeep drawing my S&W 9mm and flipping the safety off. I took aim at the kid with the gun and announced very loudly that I was armed and dialing 911 (I had my cell phone out but handn't flipped it open yet). The kid hears this, is close enough to see me and my gun drawn on him and freezes. He drops his gun and runs for the suburban yelling at the driver to get them out of there. He jumps in and they speed off while the kid is still closing the door.

I then dialed 911 while trying to catch the plate. I spoke with the dispatcher and told them I needed police when asked what type of emergency I was experiencing. I told the operator that some high school aged kids had just forced me stop my jeep and one of them approached me with a gun. I described the blue suburban and gave her the few characters i was able to read off of the plate as the suburban sped away. I gave the street name and highway and where I was relative to those locations, she told me police were on their way and I hung up.

At this point I had walked to the kid's dropped gun and leaned over to take a closer look at it. It had no markings on the slide, looked really plasticky...and then I noticed the shoddily covered orange tip. Looked like he had colored over it with a sharpie. I didn't touch it, just waited on the cops to arrive to let them deal with it. I had only bee nable see a few of the letters on the plates... partial was all I could give in my statement. The cops were talking about how they've been having problems with kids and airsoft guns around here lately.

I know that summer has just started down here so kids are out of school, but WHAT THE HELL KIND OF UPBRING DID THESE KIDS HAVE THAT MADE THEM THINK THAT THIS WOULD BE A FUN THING TO DO ON A WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON???

The police checked my CCW and Drivers license. The cop riding shotgun asked me what I was carrying and I told him, he asked if he could see it. I guess I looked at him kind of funny, he said he was just curious, so I told him its in my holster. He said he still wanted to see it, so I slowly reached back and slowly drew my gun, dropped the magazine cleared the breach and locked open the slide then handed it to him. He was truely just curious and said it was "nice little gun" he looked at for a minute and then handed it back to me. I reloaded and reholstered. The two cops with me called in over their radios for everyone else nearby to be looking for a blue suburban with the partial plate numbers I gave them. They took my contact information and said they would call if they needed any more info from me and told me to have a nice day.

Now. Panama City beach is not a very big place, and these four retards chose a nice conspicuous vehicle to drive around and cause mischief and heart attacks. I didn't ask the two officers the one question that was at the front of my mind, because I really didn't want to know the answer. That question is: What if I had shot the kid with the toy gun? I really did believe that I was in life threatening danger. But what kind of shitstorm would ensue because I shot a kid with a toy gun.

I'm deducing that at least one of these morons lives in that neighborhood, so it shouldn't take too long for them to be caught. I would really like to be called in to identify them, and be able to tell the kid who brought the toy gun that he could have been killed.

I'm taking the rest of the day off.

And the update:

Got an update:

one of the cops from yesterdays incident called this morning.

Last night they posted a cruiser near the entrance of the neighborhood where this all happened. Around 8:45 a blue suburban drove into the neighborhood, the cop was sitting so that he saw the plate as the suburban drove past him, the first three characters matched the partial I gave the police.

He pulled them over, and had the four boys get out of the truck, he found 2 airsfot guns sitting on the back seat. After calling in that he had the suburban and the kids he was joined by two more cruisers. They took the four boys in last night.

On the phone the cop told me it didn't take long for the one boy who got out of the suburban to confess and make a statement. Basically he asked if the kid had anything he wanted to say before they started, the kid said no, thay asked him if he had used a toy gun to threaten anyone earlier that day, kid said no, they said "so your prints aren't going to match the ones we got off of a toy gun that was in the street today?" The kid copped to all of it.

Then the cop tells me, that the kid wants to know if they got "that crazy guy who pulled a gun on him". The cops at the station asked the kids if they knew what a CCW was, the kids had no idea, so they educated them to Florida's laws on concealed carry, legal use of deadly force, and told them that if I had shot their friend in the street that I would have been completly justified in doing so. That seemed to put things in perspective for them.

The driver was 17, the kid that got out of the suburban was 16 and the two in the back seat were 15 and 16. Since they are all minors, this will be handled by juvenile services. I'm not sure where they go from here, jail, juvey, home with their parents? no idea and I didn't ask. The coop also told me the parents were livid with their kids. I hope the parents take this seriously. I hope they get the full story about a CCW holder.

TravisJ1, on the hang up during my 911 conversation. I don't remember now if the operator told me to stay on the line, if she did, my bad for hanging up. Right after she confirmed that police were enroute and should be there shortly I said thanks and closed my phone, I hung up on her. The police did show up probably less than a minute later. When they arrived one of the officers called in over his radio that they were 'at the scene'.

After it was over and I called 911 I was pretty shakey, so I may have missed the part where she told me to stay on the line, either way, police showed up and I was there when they arrived. This is the second time I've used my gun for self defense. The last time was 7 years ago. It's not like I do this sort of thing every weekend so I'm not really used to it or considering it a routine. So it is very possible that my 911 etiquette was less than desirable.

Anyway, it all ended with no one getting hurt, and the perpetrators caught.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[MattInFla]

Wow. Pretty scary.

That's the nightmare scenario for most of us, I suspect - some idiotic kid with a toy gun, trying to be a gangsta to impress his friends.

Matt

[paramedic70002]

It would have been a good shoot, although you may have gotten some grief from the state's attorney. Never mind wrongful death lawsuit, crucified in the press, death threats, etc. Pretty much ruin your life, at the worst extreme. This is why it's important to have the right mindset to emotionally survive such an incident. And count yourself lucky that sanity broke through to that kid. You can't fix stupid. Just keep telling yourself that it would have been a good shoot, and if the gun had been real (it might be next time) you still get to live a little longer than you might otherwise have.

[AirForceShooter]

it's a nightmare for you or a LEO.
But.. if you had shot I think you would have been perfectly justified.
You are not responsible for the stupidity of others.

AFS

[P95Carry]

I just hope in fact this was the one and only salutary lesson these punks needed - no one wants to shoot at anyone with a toy gun but ''perceived threat'' is everything and it could easily have all ended very badly.

[WJP9]

Good use of verbal commands vs just firing away...hairy situation. Glad it worked out in the end. I like the description of showing the cop your carry gun....I could feel the tension...that must have been weird.

[rstickle]

My take is that those are 4 lucky kids! I think if the one had been shot and killed the other 3 could have been charged.

And I'm sure it would have ruined my underwear for the rest of the day!

[Freedz]

Excellent handling of the situation. Hopefully most people will be able to keep a cool head in a situation like that. Glad to hear nobody was hurt.

[Fragman]

Now, these cops seemed like, well obviously were great guys and just the sort of cop we would like to run into CCW.

That said, a little part of me wonders if the guy who wanted, practically insisted, to see your carry weapon made a mental note of the serial number and ran it?

On that issue, sometimes I think, I have nothing to hide, so why not? But things like that (if that happened) are the thin end of the wedge with regards to erosion of rights.

I don't really think he did run it, but you never know....

[tele_mark]

The parents should be screwed to the wall.

[calireserve]

Wow, You handled that nicely. That is such a tough decision to make. One of the toughest decisions I have had to make was a shoot no shoot involving a man with a gun call. We arrived on scene saw 3 subjects, one ran, two had what appeared to be guns in their hands. My partner and I had guns out already and were aiming and giving commands. One guy dropped the gun and one guy froze and began to turn towards up but ended up dropping his gun. The guns turned out to be airsoft guns with no red tape or markings. The subjects were 16 years old and playing around an apartment building. If that kid had turned a couple of more inches my partner and I would have had no choice but to shoot him. (we probably gave him more time than we should have in hindsight) . Bottom line is the PARENTS should be held responsable for their kids. Parents NEED to know AIRSOFT GUNS ARE SERIOUS TOYS THAT CAN GET KIDS KILLED. Good job MZMTG I know what you went through. I was pissed off after my encounter. At least I was able to give the parents and kids an earfull after my encounter!!!!

[QKShooter]

Approached by an aggressive unknown with an already brandished firearm ???...the young idiot is quite fortunate that he is still alive.

I hope that he accomplishes something worthwhile and positive with that new lease on life that was kindy granted to him.

[crookcatchr]

Man that is scary. Expecially as I will be going to PCB at the end of the month with my wife and both of my younger brothers.

Glad all ended well.

[ssssthesnake]

that is why my teen age sons are not alowed to play with air soft
when will folks learnGUNS ARE NOT TOYS ANY KIND OF GUN .

[ELCruisr]

My father survived 5 amphib assaults in the pacific in WWII. He had a hard line attitude about weapon safety. For some strange reason as I was growing up I was not allowed to even point my capgun at anyone. I mean I did, once, but I remembered the aftermath for ever. The lesson was nothing that even looks like a gun gets pointed at anything you didn't want dead, period, ever. Even toys were considered loaded in his book. When I started with a pellet rifle I had to consider it as dangerous as a .600 Nitro Express or else. These are incredibly good life lessons to pass on in my opinion. I taught my son the same lesson. I even enforced muzzle discipline with spearguns while diving with him. A reason I DIDN'T dive with many other people.

I'm beginning to think that maybe some parents need to be spanked even more than their kids!

Eric