Was this self-defense?

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When it comes to the use of lethal force, the justification of each individual act of lethal force, every stab, every shot, every blow, will be judged. For example, a guy comes at you with a knife, you pull out a gun and shoot him in the chest, he turns and starts running away, you keep shooting him in the back as he's running away. Even though the first shots you fired are fully justified, the last shots in the back are not, and you can go to prison for those last shots, even if the prosecutor and jury say the first shots were fully justified.

Also, when it comes to judging the justification of ones actions during a claimed act of self-defense, I put a lot of emphasis on the state of mind of the person claiming self-defense at the moment of the event, not MY state of mind, or the way I feel after the fact, perhaps watching the event unfold on video. In this case, I ask myself- What could be going on in the mind of the store owner during this event?

Now if I were asked- "Does a store owner have the right to defend their business?", my answer would be "yes".

If I were asked "Do you feel bad for the thief?", my answer would be "hell no".

If I were asked "Is crime out of control and should something be done about it?", my answer would be "yes".

But I'm not being asked those questions. I'm being asked "Was this self-defense?".

Here's my answer, my breakdown of what I saw, and my opinion-

Two guys walk in with ski masks on. Right there the store owner has a reason to be concerned for his safety. But not justification for LETHAL FORCE. Not yet.

One guy jumps over the counter. At that moment the store owner has good reason to fear for his safety, as he doesn't know the intent of that person. At THAT moment, the moment when the guy jumps over the counter, I could see justification in the store owner attacking the thief with lethal force. At THAT MOMENT I could give the store owner the benefit of the doubt that he was in fear for his safety, and that said fear was reasonable.

But now here's where it gets complicated-

When the store owner GRABS onto the thief, and attempts to physically RESTRAIN him, while continuing to stab him, to me that is NOT self-defense. To me, that looks like a pissed-off store owner who wants to punish a thief.

When I think of using lethal force for self-defense, I think of the following-

1. Use that amount of force necessary to allow me to get away.

2. Use that amount of force necessary to make the bad guy leave me alone.

3. Use that amount of force necessary to stop an ongoing assault on my person.

But what I would NEVER want to do is grab onto the bad guy, and hold him close to me, so that I could keep stabbing him. That's not what I call "self-defense".

Although I would be willing to give the store owner a pass for initially attacking and stabbing the thief, I would not give him a pass for restraining the thief and continuing to stab him. Like I said at the beginning, the justification of every individual stab needs to be judged on it's own, which is exactly what the criminal justice system will do.

When the store owner attempted to physically restrain the thief, while continuing to stab him, in my opinion, he went from "store owner defending himself" to "store owner imposing punishment on a thief", and that's not self-defense in my book.
 
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David Mary said:
Actually, I am ambivalent now when I think about the fact that the clerk was pretty much backed into a corner.
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If they had attacked him at all then OK. I didn't see that happen. I didn't see either of them paying much attention to the clerk at all. I don't hear them threaten his life, I don't hear them threaten violence. I don't see or hear any distress from the clerk at any point, he seems annoyed and impatient but not threatened.
 
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One thing that stood out to me was how ineffective the stabbing was. That was a mental stop not physical, the short guy could have easily gone on to kill everyone in the store if his implied gun was in fact a factor and if he had the mental strength to do so. The clerk stopped stabbing him when he started complaining about "dying". The bottom line is they came and put the clerk in a bad situation, not the other way around. It is also very easy to nit pick his actions while watching the replay video, but very hard to understand what was going on in his mind in the extremely short window of time he had to evaluate the situation without becoming a corpse. The clerk was extremely restrained up until the point he was given no choice.
 
Carboniferous said:
If they had attacked him at all then OK. I didn't see that happen. I didn't see either of them paying much attention to the clerk at all. I don't hear them threaten his life, I don't hear them threaten violence. I don't see or hear any distress from the clerk at any point, he seems annoyed and impatient but not threatened.
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Did you see the guy at the very least implying that he had a concealed gun?
 
AlongTheRazorsEdge said:
One thing that stood out to me was how ineffective the stabbing was. That was a mental stop not physical, the short guy could have easily gone on to kill everyone in the store if his implied gun was in fact a factor and if he had the mental strength to do so. The clerk stopped stabbing him when he started complaining about "dying". The bottom line is they came and put the clerk in a bad situation, not the other way around. It is also very easy to nit pick his actions while watching the replay video, but very hard to understand what was going on in his mind in the extremely short window of time he had to evaluate the situation without becoming a corpse. The clerk was extremely restrained up until the point he was given no choice.
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He did an AMA on reddit afterwards. He himself says he did not feel threatened.

Edit: Overlapping messages, sorry, getting messy. I see the guy hold his hand in his pocket as if he has something briefly at one point. I'm not sure that changes my evaluation. The question isn't just whether a person COULD reasonably fear for their life in that situation, but whether he actually did. It doesn't seem like he did to me, but I don't know how much legal protection that hand in the pocket gesture affords him (especially given his unprompted statements on reddit afterwards).
 
AlongTheRazorsEdge said:
Did you see the guy at the very least implying that he had a concealed gun?
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In my opinion, implying that one might have a gun, or the possibility that one might have a gun, would not justify continuing to stab a person while at the same time attempting to restrain them.

It's hard to claim that a person is an ongoing threat when, instead of attempting to escape, you grab onto the other guy and physically restrain him.

Using lethal force against someone you are actively restraining is generally called "attempted murder".
 
killgar said:
When the store owner GRABS onto the thief, and attempts to physically RESTRAIN him, while
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killgar said:
In my opinion, implying that one might have a gun, or the possibility that one might have a gun, would not justify continuing to stab a person while at the same time attempting to restrain them.

It's hard to claim that a person is an ongoing threat when, instead of attempting to escape, you grab onto the other guy and physically restrain him.

Using lethal force against someone you are actively restraining is generally called "attempted murder".
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Not restraining him leaves the attacker with the opportunity to draw the weapon he chose to at a minimum imply he had in his possession. The stabbing was obviously not an immediate stop, or even remotely close. If the short guy was armed as he implied when he thought he had the upper hand, than he certainly was a threat and could have let off a shot at any second, even as he was retreating. I wouldn't advise anyone to give an attacker a chance to draw their weapon, that is suicide.

I feel bad that this victim may be victimized a second time by unhuman expectations..expectations that are the polar opposite of what is hardwired into the subconcious mind in the form of natural instinct. The worst part of it all is he didn't ask for any of this.
 
AlongTheRazorsEdge said:
Not restraining him leaves the attacker with the opportunity to draw the weapon he chose to at a minimum imply he had in his possession. The stabbing was obviously not an immediate stop, or even remotely close. If the short guy was armed as he implied when he thought he had the upper hand, than he certainly was a threat and could have let off a shot at any second, even as he was retreating. I wouldn't advise anyone to give an attacker a chance to draw their weapon, that is suicide.
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I guess we'll have to disagree. We clearly have different opinions about using lethal force against someone while you are restraining them.

In any event, if the store owner isn't charged it won't bother me a bit. If he is charged, I could understand why, but I wouldn't be hoping for a conviction.

If I'm going to choose between siding with the store owner or the criminal, I'm going to side with the store owner. But if I'm asked if I believe something was self-defense, I'm always going to give my honest opinion.
 
My understanding of the law in Canada is that all forms of violence are by default "Acts that Constitute an Offence" and that the only thing that court administrators are permitted to judge them by is circumstances spelled out by statue which render the "Act that constitutes the offence" to in fact not be an offense. And that includes whether a "reasonable person" would consider the act reasonable under the circumstances. "We'll rob each other for convenience", "We'll kill as a first reaction to any incomsummate threat". Acting on either mentality goes to jail in this country.
 
David Mary said:
My understanding of the law in Canada is that all forms of violence are by default "Acts that Constitute an Offence" and that the only thing that court administrators are permitted to judge them by is circumstances spelled out by statue which render the "Act that constitutes the offence" to in fact not be an offense. And that includes whether a "reasonable person" would consider the act reasonable under the circumstances. "We'll rob each other for convenience", "We'll kill as a first reaction to any incomsummate threat". Acting on either mentality goes to jail in this country.
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I feel sorry for all the people who get hurt there, who have to jump through all those mental linguistics......


My State makes it much simpler for us.
 
I found it.

"The actor may intentionally use only such force or threat thereof as the actor reasonably believes is necessary to prevent or terminate the interference. The actor may not intentionally use force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm unless the actor reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself."

So.... same.
 
For all those one think it was murdered imagine the clerk had a gun and mag dumped the thief. Would it have been ok then? How many times have cops mag dumped un-armed people and get cleared? When they came into the store it was to commit a crime. When the criminal jumped over the counter the clerk didn’t know if he was there to steal or kill. Plus being a two prong attack, I believe he was justified in his actions.
 
AlongTheRazorsEdge said:
….

Where are these inhumane and unhuman expectations coming from? How many truly innocent people have to die due to artificial handicaps imposed by armchair warriors?
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It is so easy to play a saint in retrospect. When these situations happen you have to be prepared to defend yourself and already committed to the use of lethal force. You have to know that if someone shows up in your living room uninvited in the middle of the night, or jumps the sales counter in your store, that you are going to use lethal force. Failing to do that will likely result in your death. You don’t have the luxury of calmly watching event unfold in a detached video, nor the ability to decide to simply cripple our wound vs kill. Especially here, with two opponents, where you need to quickly end the threat from one in order to pay attention to the other.

Clearly, some of you need to spend a little alone time behind the counter at one of these stores. Terror is a real and ever present part of the job.

n2s
 
David Mary said:
Doesn't this just mean reading words in your head?
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Yes....... Understanding the words, grammar, context, meaning, use, knowing what laws (in This case) mean, what is acceptable, Etc. Etc.
Most laws are made difficult to understand, but other countries seem even more so?


It's way simpler where I live.
Like a previous poster said........ Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

If I had to consult a convoluted law book of acceptance First, nobody would be alive at the trials, and All the bad guys would go free.

(The rest of my comment below Isn't directed at you, David).

From what I saw, and read of the article......
*It was 3 against one. One guy was off camera as a lookout.
*store clerk ask them what they were doing, why the masks?
It wasn't winter in the artic.
*he asked them to leave.
They didn't.
*Theft openly occurred.
*One aggressively jumped into his non public space. (Act of immediate violence)
*clerk defended himself.
*stopped when threat level de escalated
*called 911 for police and medical attention.


some people here don't seem to understand the difference between a burglary, and a robbery...... There is a HUGE difference.
 
GmpaJim said:
Both sides made huge, HUGE, tactical mistakes.
Rule no. 1…Stay off the “X”, if you’re on it, get off it.
Do not kill or be killed over merchandise, or money. kill or be killed trying to escape a presumed life threat, not protecting a gameboy.
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I don't think it had anything to do with property.

If it was about protecting property, how come the clerk didn't stab the other guy???

Serious question.
 
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