Tactical Professor: "Don’t go outside and don’t chase criminals"

    In early February I saw several news stories concerning a Tennessee woman who had investigated a noise in her backyard in the early morning hours. She came across a man in her backyard who refused to leave when told and wound up firing a warning shot which struck the trespasser (who was probably there to commit a crime) in the ankle. The article reports that "[p]olice said the homeowner was charged with aggravated assault after the shooting because the man did not pose an imminent threat when he was shot".

    In his article, "Don’t go outside and don’t chase criminals," the Tactical Professor reminds readers that "going outside your home to confront thieves and other criminals is a bad idea." He suggests instead that you stay inside and let them come to you.  He cites a couple of incidents illustrating the folly of doing so: one involved an armed homeowner that confronted a criminal that was trying door handles on vehicles in front of his house; unfortunately, the criminal was armed and shot and killed the homeowner. The other involved a man whose truck had been stolen and, as chance would have it, subsequently spotted it while driving around in another vehicle. The car owner confronted the thief who drove off in the truck with the result that the owner gave pursuit, firing several warning shots at the thief but striking a couple of houses. The car owner was arrested for engaging in what was essentially a drive-by shooting under Washington law.

    The Tactical Professor also recently published his "Duel at the Dumbster [sic] (Part VII)" article. That article pertains to a 2018 killing in Abilene, Texas, that resulted from when a homeowner and his adult son (the Millers) got into an argument with a neighbor (Howard) over the disposal of a mattress in a dumpster. The elder Miller got into a monkey-dance with Howard with the result that after Howard threatened to kill the elder Miller and raised a baseball bat, the elder Miller shot Howard, and the younger Miller also fired some shots from a shotgun he had. Both Millers were charged with murder. As the Tactical Professor reports in his most recent article (the Part VII), the elder Miller was convicted and the younger Miller was found not guilty and will go free except, as the Tactical Professor points out, for his debts to his lawyer. 

    There are two general lessons to be learned from the foregoing. First, you can't legally use deadly force just because someone is committing or has committed a crime, except in instances of actual, legitimate self-defense or defense of another. That means that it is not enough, for example, that they are trespassing or trying to steal a car or other property or beat you up last week. And, second, confronting a criminal carries the risk that you could be injured or killed. The takeaway is that you want to put yourself in the most advantageous position legally and tactically if you forced to have to shoot a criminal, which, as the Tactical Professor notes, is making the criminal come to you.

    And in that regard, I do want to make a clarification about an earlier post of mine. About a month ago, I published a post on what I called my "Bump-in-the-Night Belt". The majority of the comments I received about the article, both in emails and posted in the comment section to the article, were positive and passed on good ideas. Nevertheless, I was left with the impression that at least a couple people were misinterpreting the purpose of the setup as one specifically for confronting criminals. That is not the case at all.  It was to give me the equipment to allow me to get out of trouble should I encounter a violent and aggressive criminal or a vicious animal when investigating a noise or disturbance of an unknown nature. 

    While some may argue that a person shouldn't even be investigating such noises, I would note that I've had plenty of mysterious crashes, clatters, or bumps caused by raccoons, cats, or even powerful gusts of wind such that I'm not going to automatically call the police if I hear such a sound. But neither am I going to ignore such sounds because I don't want something destroyed by animals or blown all over my yard or, worse, over the fence. (Ironically, the one time that I did ignore the sounds, thinking it was just the wind causing something to knock about, it actually was a thief stealing an item from the patio of the ground floor apartment where I lived at the time).