Some Situations Are Not as They Seem

Some Situations Are Not as They Seem - My Story
by Alan H.

I was out walking in our neighborhood a couple of days ago around dusk. I was almost through with my walk, when I noticed a couple of girls, probably around 5 or 6 years old, walking toward me about a block away. Now our neighborhood is a middle-class, blue-collar, very safe neighborhood, so nothing unusual about this.

A few seconds later, an earlier-model small sedan with faded paint stopped by the girls, and a man emerged and approached the girls. Still nothing particularly unusual, but I became more interested. The man was wearing dirty jeans, work boots, a dirty T-shirt and a black baseball cap. The man exchanged a few words with the girls, and then grabbed one of them by the arm. She tried to fall to the ground kicking and screaming, and her friend ran away.

The man dragged the screaming girl around to the driver side of the car and pushed her in, and then slid in behind her. Now I was on high alert. As the vehicle started towards me, I had by then approached within about 50 yards and drawn my Glock 26. I had a clear shot at the driver's head through the windshield. As I took aim, I remembered that the Texas Penal Code gives one the right to protect the lives of third parties. Specifically, Section 9.33 reads:

"A person is justified in using force or deadly force against another to protect a third person if:

(1) under the circumstances as the actor reasonably believes them to be, the actor would be justified under Section 9.31 or 9.32 in using force or deadly force to protect himself against the unlawful force or unlawful deadly force he reasonably believes to be threatening the third person he seeks to protect; and

(2) the actor reasonably believes that his intervention is immediately necessary to protect the third person.

The Texas CHL course is very good at educating students about the legal ramifications of concealed carry, and I had an excellent instructor. But our instructor also hit very hard on the point that we should all decide whether we would be willing to risk going to jail and depriving our families of a husband and father for many years over the death of an innocent bystander in the attempt to protect a third party.

All of this was going through my head. This all seemed to be happening in slow motion, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Rather than shooting, I lowered my gun and got the license number of the car as it went by me. I used my cell phone to call 911 and report the abduction. Chills went through my body as a few hours later, an officer called me to let me know that they had located the car and driver at his residence a few blocks away.

It turned out that the man was the girl's father and he stopped to pick her up on her way home because dinner was waiting. The girl had other ideas - she was determined to walk home with her next-door girl-friend.

Actually the only part of that story which is true, is that I was walking in our neighborhood a couple of days ago with my Glock 26. I contrived the story to make an important point. As responsible carry citizens, we have to be 100% certain that we know the situation before intervening in what appears to be a third-party assault.

Some situations are not as they seem. Under the Texas Penal Code, I would have been 100% in the right to fire, because of the "...the actor reasonably believes that his intervention is immediately necessary to protect the third person." clause. But infinitely more important, my life would be over knowing that I'd taken an innocent life.

(As an aside, much of the Texas Penal Code was written when Texas was still a Republic, and it gives citizens unbelievable powers, including the right to use deadly force against kids adorning our yards in toilet paper, if it occurs after dark.

However, I'd not like to test that in front of a jury, nor of course would any reasonable person ever do that. As my CHL instructor said, what the law says and what a jury of 12 peers would decide may not be the same.)

I'd be interested in hearing from you guys when you'd consider using deadly force to protect a third party, if ever.