Here’s the situation:
You are sitting in your vehicle in the parking lot of your employer. The parking lot is about a block from the building entrance. It’s just after the main rush of people coming to work in the morning, so there aren’t that many people around. As you open your door, you hear shouting. Looking to your right, you see an SUV in a parking spot with a sedan stopped in front of it. There is a person in the driver’s seat of the sedan. At the back door of the SUV, there is a youngish male who is yelling and punching a youngish female. The female is on her back on the seat of the SUV and is screaming for him to stop, and is calling him by name. Between you and the SUV is another male, who is doing nothing to stop the altercation. You have no firearm. The closest thing you have to a weapon that is handy enough to get quickly is a D cell Maglight under the seat of your vehicle. You have a cell phone.
What do you do?
Here’s what I did:
I grabbed the flashlight out of the truck and walked so that I could see and be seen over the hood of the truck. I kept my vehicle between me and the other people. I shouted at the top of my lungs that I was calling the police, and did so immediately. A moment later, the male assaulting the female got off of her, and got into the passenger seat of the sedan, which sped off. I noted the license plate number of the sedan. I walked around my truck to go to see if the female needed any help. As I was approaching the SUV, the other male got into another vehicle and left. I did not get his plate number. At the same time, the female got into the SUV and left, and I was able to note her license plate. I got out my pocket notebook, wrote down both numbers before I forgot, and relayed the descriptions to the police dispatcher who called me about 5 minutes later.
Space between me and the assault was about 5 parking spaces. Total time for the incident, from my first noticing the shouting to all three of the other vehicles leaving was between 30 and 60 seconds.
Keeping a firearm in the car is not an option, and I had removed the fixed blade knife I normally keep in the console of the truck last night because I was going to Fort Knox to help in training. We are asked to not have weapons on us or in our vehicles when we go on post. My employer doesn’t allow carrying of weapons at work, so my EDC pistol is at home in the safe.
Thoughts:
- It was very quick for me to go down the list of available weapons – Gun? No. Knife? No. OK, big heavy flashlight.
- When I was talking both to the 911 operator and the police dispatcher, it was difficult for me to remember the name of the intersection closest to the parking lot. My employer has several in the same area, so they needed me to tell them which streets were closest. I drive through that intersection twice daily, but I drew a blank until I’d talked myself through it a couple of times with the help of the dispatcher.
- I did not make a conscious decision to keep the truck between the other people and myself. However, it is something that I have read about on forums and books and that I have discussed with other people. I wonder if I did it because that was how I had visualized a situation like this in the past?
- I do not know what my actions would have been had the assault not stopped shortly after I shouted. I’d like to think that I would have physically intervened, but the thought that was going through my mind was that there were three unknown people at the SUV and I was alone with only a contact weapon.
So, now I’m looking for feedback.
- Considering that there were at least two, possibly three, people involved in assaulting this woman, did I err in not rushing in to pull the guy off of her?
- Did I err when I announced both my presence and that I was calling the police?
- Can anyone think of anything I should have done that I didn’t do?
Thoughts and comments are very welcome on this one.
DaddyBear’s Den 
PISSED
/ February 28, 2014For me, Not having any knowledge of the situation that led to the fight I would have stayed back and called the cops. Maybe with a handgun approached cautiously. You never know now a days. It could have been a set up to lure someone in. They may have been armed with guns.
Also, there was the potential for three against you. Not good odds
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3boxesofbs
/ February 28, 2014Let’s see
You stopped an assault.
You didn’t get injured or attacked.
You kept your cool and provided information to the police.
Define how a better outcome would look, please?
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Jennifer
/ February 28, 2014I think you handled it just fine. Personally, I would not have announced my presence, but I’m working with a different set of variables (petite female), otherwise I hope I would have done the same.
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derfreiheit
/ February 28, 2014Good:
– you did SOMETHING instead of NOTHING. This places you in the 98th percentile. You listened to your lizard brain which said this is wrong and not your monkey brain which tries to be nice and not cause a bother. You very likely saved someone from being seriously harmed.
– you did not add injuries or bodies to the situation. Based on the facts this would have been a good-shoot but you are better off for not having done that
– you did an AMAZING job capturing written information. I need to get a pocket notebook too
– you took cover, armed, AND operated a cellphone under stress. Many struggle to do one thing at a time under stress.
Indifferent:
– you used cover which is good, but you need to sort out if that was just luck or a good habit
– is your maglite bright enough to blind someone in daylight? If practical replace the head with a modern 100+ lumen LED so you have mass and super bright light
– as another gunblogger points out, frequently, that everyone fled is a sign that there was plenty of blame to go around. “Oh s**t I got warrants”
Bad:
– the 4-cell maglite is probably the best option available but not a great one, and not one you train with. Practice blinding and hitting things with it.
– the complete lack of even a decent pocketknife is appalling. Are you really in such restricted environments that a decent folder in your car is verboten?
– If you had your gun would you have shot or would you have done what you did simply substituting the maglite for the firearm in case it turned around ? Would you have gone for the light first or the gun first? If both were available would you have used both?
Follow up – Set up this scenario at the pistol club and run it again. Clear the door, get to cover, while dialing WITH A FAKE CELLPHONE, then engage with a hittin stick, then draw and engage with a firearm. Great scenario for force escalation, multitasking, and use of cover.
Follow up – How would you rate the LMPD response? How long did it take for them to arrive? Any followup information from them? How long were you on your own before you had help?
Follow up – Does your work have some private security? How was their response? Your employer is in my precinct and frequently shows up on the police blotter for smash and grabs. Your security team sucks from what I see.
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daddybear71
/ February 28, 2014The Maglight was the best thing available. I had some training on using it or a baton as either a blunt weapon or as a compliance tool in a former vocation, but that was ages ago. It was better than bare hands and harsh language. I doubt that my maglight would blind someone in daylight, although it probably wouldn’t be pleasant in the dark. I need to look at replacing the head.
Like I said, I normally keep a fixed blade in the console, but removed it when I went to Fort Knox last night. My employer has no problem with pocket knives and multitools in the office, so long as the employee in question works in a place where such things are allowed by regulation. I, unfortunately, work on an airport, so no on-body-carry of a knife.
If I had had a gun, I don’t know for sure what I would have done. If all other things would have gone the same way, I would not have shot. Had he not stopped assaulting her after I shouted and I had a pistol, I probably would have gotten closer, but not closer than a car length and tried to verbally impress upon him the necessity of halting his assault. Had he not stopped at that point, I probably would not have shot due to his being on top of the lady, assuming that he was still on top of her. The gun would have, however, given me more options re: the other two people. Under no circumstances was I going to turn my back on two strangers and climb in there to use the gun to convince him to stop. If he had advanced on me after he got off of her, which was something I was worried about at the time, it would definitely have given me more options.
For reference, the distances involved were about 3/4 the depth of Bay 1 at the pistol range.
I haven’t trained with trying to dial a phone and use a gun at the same time, but in this circumstance, I was using a headset and voice command. I’ll have to practice that. Same goes with holding a baton, flashlight, or knife.
The LMPD response was for me to spend less than a minute on the phone with the 911 operator. He said that since everyone involved had left the scene, he would get with dispatch. I got a follow-up call from a police dispatcher about five minutes after it was over, and he said he would use the license plate information and description to try to get officers in the area to find the two cars. I haven’t heard back from them.
I reached out to my companies security department as soon as I got to the office so that they could expect the call from LMPD. I’ve had good dealings with them in the past. The reaction of the person I spoke to was surprise, and they promised to follow-up with the police department and try to figure out which employee who was either being assaulted or doing the assaulting or both.
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Drang
/ February 28, 2014Does your phone have a camera, can you use the camera while in a call, and how fast does it “reset” to let you take more pictures of miscreants and their vehicles?
I thought camera phones were toys until I heard about a local kid who got a picture of the guy — including car and plates — who tried to offer him some Free Candy!!!
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daddybear71
/ February 28, 2014It’s an iPhone, so yes I could have. I was thinking of it more as a phone than a computer that happens to have a phone in it. Something else to consider if something like this ever happens.
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derfreiheit
/ February 28, 2014Perhaps speakerphone and video? You can talk to 911 and just point. Is the video of sufficient quality to make out a license plate?
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oldnfo
/ March 1, 2014You effectively stopped the assault, and you walked away. Nicely done, and the only recommendation would be what Drang said. It takes a little manipulation, but you can call/photo at the same time.
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Bob
/ March 1, 2014Hey DB,
You DID something…As George Patton said..”A good plan NOW violently executed works better than a perfect plan next week.” You did the right thing. Many people are afraid to get involved for legal or moral issues. You had the presence to quickly come up with a plan and act upon it. A 4 Dcell mag lite will put a hurting on people.
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Shane W
/ March 1, 2014Given the circumstances I don’t think you could have done much better. You certainly did more than most nowadays. Good on ya!
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Jake
/ March 2, 2014I would have called the cops, but in that situation I probably would not have made my presence known. Certainly not when outnumbered that badly and armed with no more than a flashlight and a phone, and maybe not even if I had a sidearm. My main concern here is that you faced three, and possibly even four potential attackers if they had decided to “strenously object” to your calling the cops.
IOW, if this had been some kind of domestic altercation, it’s not uncommon for the victim to turn on her rescuer as visciously – or more so – than her attacker and his friends.
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Evyl Robot Michael
/ March 3, 2014“The female is on her back on the seat of the SUV and is screaming for him to stop, and is calling him by name.”
I’m with Jake. I’m of the mind that you don’t get in the middle of someone else’s domestic. I would have called the police and maintained discretion and distance until their arrival. That being said, you diffused the situation, observed and transferred data to the authorities, and extracted yourself without further cost. As the results speak for themselves, good job!
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