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What would you do?
Defender
Member Posts: 1,772 ✭✭✭✭✭
Q. I've just been the victim of a carjacking. I'm lucky enough to have survived the event. I survived the event because I was able to shoot my armed assailant and the event is now over. What do I do now?
A. I wish I could simply say call the police and tell them what happened. Unfortunately it's never that simple.
1. 911 calls are always recorded. Taped confession? Get someone else to make the call.
2. Get reasonable medical aid to the person you shot if it can be done safely.
3. Call a criminal lawyer for advice.
4. Make NO statements of any kind to anybody but your lawyer. Witness recollections of statement are nearly always inaccurate.
5. Your lawyer will probably never let you answer any question by police.
6. Leaving the scene.
a. Leaving the scene or failure to report a shooting is NOT a crime.
b. Leave for sure if you feel you life is in danger.
c. You're not required to help the police in any way.
d. DON'T tamper with evidence or lie to the police..
e. Do safely grab your assailant's weapons if you can and turn them over to your lawyer. Failure to do this will almost guarantee the weapons will disappear before the police begin their investigation.
f. Remove your clothing, and place every article into a paper bag. Write the date and time and you initials on the bag after you seal it.
g. Unload and place your own weapon on a strong cardboard box and repeat the steps you took with your clothes. Don't clean the gun.
h. Do the same thing with any weapons you've recovered from you assailant.
7. You may simply have to stay because you're injured or a multitude of other reasons. If you have to stay at the scene:
a. Remain SLIENT only asking the police for a lawyer.
b. Expect the police to take your firearms, holsters ammunition, clothing as well as impounding your automobile.
c. Expect that your clothes will be destroyed by laboratory testing procedures. Expect damage to your automobile upholstery and carpeting.
d. Your gun will be test fired and marked with an electric pencil.
e. Don't expect to see anything taken from you by the police to be returned anytime soon.
f. Expect heavy-handed interrogation, subterfuge and outright lies from the police during their investigation. That's the game these days. Silence is golden.
8. The real advantages of leaving the scene.
a. No confiscation or destruction of your personal property.
b. No interrogation or phony allegations that you confessed to a crime.
c. Saving a bunch of your hard earned cash on a lawyer for a preliminary hearing and/or trial. .
d. Keeping your name out of the newspaper.
e. If the pals or family of someone you shot learns who you are they may try to harm you later. The police don't have to protect you.
f. You may well avoid a wrongful prosecution.
g. Save yourself from a mistaken jury verdict and a prison sentence.
I know that's not the way they do it in the movies, but this is real life and death.
The police would rather make a murder or manslaughter arrest any day rather than let someone go. They only get hero awards when they make arrests. Many big city politicians and the police chiefs they hire hate people that lawfully arm themselves. Far too many jurisdictions will arrest, prosecute and wrongly convict you whenever they can. Why should you help anyone destroy your life?
Defender
Private investigator licensed in AZ & CA that specializes in self defense cases.
A. I wish I could simply say call the police and tell them what happened. Unfortunately it's never that simple.
1. 911 calls are always recorded. Taped confession? Get someone else to make the call.
2. Get reasonable medical aid to the person you shot if it can be done safely.
3. Call a criminal lawyer for advice.
4. Make NO statements of any kind to anybody but your lawyer. Witness recollections of statement are nearly always inaccurate.
5. Your lawyer will probably never let you answer any question by police.
6. Leaving the scene.
a. Leaving the scene or failure to report a shooting is NOT a crime.
b. Leave for sure if you feel you life is in danger.
c. You're not required to help the police in any way.
d. DON'T tamper with evidence or lie to the police..
e. Do safely grab your assailant's weapons if you can and turn them over to your lawyer. Failure to do this will almost guarantee the weapons will disappear before the police begin their investigation.
f. Remove your clothing, and place every article into a paper bag. Write the date and time and you initials on the bag after you seal it.
g. Unload and place your own weapon on a strong cardboard box and repeat the steps you took with your clothes. Don't clean the gun.
h. Do the same thing with any weapons you've recovered from you assailant.
7. You may simply have to stay because you're injured or a multitude of other reasons. If you have to stay at the scene:
a. Remain SLIENT only asking the police for a lawyer.
b. Expect the police to take your firearms, holsters ammunition, clothing as well as impounding your automobile.
c. Expect that your clothes will be destroyed by laboratory testing procedures. Expect damage to your automobile upholstery and carpeting.
d. Your gun will be test fired and marked with an electric pencil.
e. Don't expect to see anything taken from you by the police to be returned anytime soon.
f. Expect heavy-handed interrogation, subterfuge and outright lies from the police during their investigation. That's the game these days. Silence is golden.
8. The real advantages of leaving the scene.
a. No confiscation or destruction of your personal property.
b. No interrogation or phony allegations that you confessed to a crime.
c. Saving a bunch of your hard earned cash on a lawyer for a preliminary hearing and/or trial. .
d. Keeping your name out of the newspaper.
e. If the pals or family of someone you shot learns who you are they may try to harm you later. The police don't have to protect you.
f. You may well avoid a wrongful prosecution.
g. Save yourself from a mistaken jury verdict and a prison sentence.
I know that's not the way they do it in the movies, but this is real life and death.
The police would rather make a murder or manslaughter arrest any day rather than let someone go. They only get hero awards when they make arrests. Many big city politicians and the police chiefs they hire hate people that lawfully arm themselves. Far too many jurisdictions will arrest, prosecute and wrongly convict you whenever they can. Why should you help anyone destroy your life?
Defender
Private investigator licensed in AZ & CA that specializes in self defense cases.
Comments
Good read Defender. Thanks for the advice. You say you are an investigator? Could this be construed as legal advice?
Legal advice is why God made lawyers! I help lawyers with self-defense cases and I wish I could say all is fair and just but it would be a big lie. No simple legal answers exist in our complicated world. Lies, hidden agendas, tampered with evidence are a reality in nearly every conflict. That's just the way it is.
I did fail to mention the fact is that 60% of all people shot in the USA survive. That includes rifles and shotguns. If your carjacker lives he can be counted upon to tell some tall tales to the police. Don't let the lies cause you to make ANY statements. Simply listen and STFU.
Remember Bernard Goetz? He was dubbed by the New York press as the, "Subway Vigilante". In 1984 Goetz shot four young men in a Manhattan subway car after the men threatened him and tried to rob him.
The shooting became a national sensation, as many subway riders, concerned about subway muggings, applauded Goetz's actions. But others criticized Goetz as a racist because the four young men were African-American.
Three years after the shooting, Goetz, a 39-year-old electronics specialist, was acquitted of attempted murder and assault, but was convicted of criminal possession of an unlicensed weapon and spent 250 days in jail.
Goetz said he started firing because he thought the four men were about to rob him. The youths claimed they were panhandling money to play video games when they asked him for $5, not trying to rob him.
One of the four men, Darrell Cabey, was paralyzed in the shooting filed $50 million against Goetz.
Goetz was only a phantom whose image was captured in a somewhat poor composite drawing. Goetz had a giant brain fart, went to the police and spilled his guts. He was arrested held in jail until someone posted his huge bail. Then he spent the next three years of his life defending himself from charges and was acquitted at a trial of the shooting related criminal counts. They convicted him of the technical weapons felony violation for having that gun that saved his life.
Goetz could have used his brains and still be that phantom folk-hero who got the best of some punks in a crime ridden subway. Instead he's the victim of a real violation of his Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Goetz was also bankrupted by a horrible example of a political prosecution.
Defender
Private investigator licensed in AZ & CA that specializes in self defense cases.
Trying to hide your involvement in a shooting might make you look guilty to a jury.
I notice none of the real licensed attorneys on here are chiming in to support Defender's suggestions.
Don't know what sort of *legal* training Defender has had, but I'd imagine some of what he said could land you in serious trouble if you're caught.
Trying to hide your involvement in a shooting might make you look guilty to a jury.
I notice none of the real licensed attorneys on here are chiming in to support Defender's suggestions.
Flight from any shooting is NEVER a crime unless the cops are right there making a stop. However, there is a jury instruction that may be given at a trial allowing flight to be used as evidence of guilt. That can never be used against a defendant if staying at the scene of violence would have been too dangerous. Hostile groups of people or people with with guns and knives are dangerous. GTFO if you can!
I've never suggested that someone "hide" their involvement in a shooting. That creates images of evidence and witness tampering. Failure to talk to someone is not "hiding" involvement. A jury can NEVER be told that a defendant "refused to cooperate with police" (by not answering questions), or that he asked for a lawyer.
I don't think you'll ever find a lawyer that will dispute anything I post. I promise some gun-rights hating prosecutors may not like what I post but that's okay with me.
As for my training etc? Tweleve years as a Chicago policemen and I've been doing criminal defense private investigation since 1981. I've worked hundreds of murder trials. I'm also the surviving subject of at least one American Handgunner, Ayoob Files story July/August issue of 1991
Let me also say that after a shooting it's possible to receive a good investigation from the cops if you choose to waive your 5th Amendment rights. Just don't count on it instead take the safe, silent route and follow any and all advice from your criminal defense lawyer. Many thousands of innocent people using justifiable self-defense have gone to prison and had their lives ruined. There is just too much at stake to take a chance.
In case anyone noticed the word "lawyer " appears eight times in the original post. CALL YOUR LAWYER!
Defender
Private investigator licensed in AZ & CA that specializes in self defense cases.
Defender
Private investigator licensed in AZ & CA that specializes in self defense cases.