L.O.G. 174 Good Samaritan or Vigilante

Well, good morning, Greg, and morning. Hello everyone out there listening. We've got a good episode. We're going to talk about a few things. We're talking about, are you a good Samaritan or are you a vigilante? And what does that mean? Because we've seen a number of cases pop up now where people, civilians, are interjecting themselves into different situations because they think what they're doing is right. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. That's what we're going to jump into.

But before I mention the story, I do have to tell everyone, if you're listening to this, it is Greg's 60th birthday this week. So, shout out to Greg. We will, please send in birthday messages so I can forward them to him. So, congratulations, Greg. That's a milestone, I guess. It is, just based on the size of my heart and my physical condition alone. So, I always laugh at Don Yeager. Don Yeager always said, "You'll never make it to 60." Well, you [ __ ], I'm almost there. A couple hours, yeah. So, congratulations on that. I think you've got a lot, I think you've got a lot left in you there, buddy. So, you're leaner and meaner now than you were at 55, I would say. That's absolutely true. So, I think you've got a ways to go. So, I just wanted to start off with that, buddy. Happy birthday to you. And so, now to kind of get to what we're discussing today.

Okay, can I just say something? Yes. The only thing is, Brian, I can still lay it down. So, when we're out on the road training, the only thing bad is you keep throwing me your room key. You know what I'm saying? It would be okay once in a while if somebody in the audience would throw me a room key.

So, everyone listen, most people listening have been listening long enough to know Greg that that's not what's happening at all. That's you pounding on the door outside of my room at night, asking for a towel or crying or, "Can you hold me?"

So, today we'll start with a case. It's actually from a few years ago. I'll put the link in the episode details, but we were talking about it recently and it came out of Ohio. And it's kind of when a police officer in the middle of a traffic stop—I'll just read it. So, what happened, this was in Parma, Ohio. Shout out to all of our Ohio listeners; we actually have quite a few.

So, a police officer was to pull over a suspect. He was driving erratically, ran a red light, and then he was pulling into this parking lot of a shopping mall, shopping center type thing. And it's a weird stop because the guy went to stop, but then the police officer is at this 90-degree angle on the passenger door. So, it's a little bit odd. He gets out to go talk to the guy, and as he's getting out, this Jeep is pulling up. And this Jeep tries to block in on the front end of this suspect vehicle. So, then the guy in the suspect vehicle finally notices this Jeep creeping up and stopping right in front of him. And then, he freaks out, hits the gas, gets out of there, is trying to evade. Now, the police officer is already at the window at this point, so he's doing the wrong thing and not pushing off. He's trying to grab the guy and doing what we've seen before, we've talked about that in another podcast episode.

But then, this "good Samaritan" (Brian makes air quotes) who decided to block in and intervene in the middle of a traffic stop by a police officer decides that he's fearing for his life and starts shooting at the suspect vehicle. Now, he didn't hit the person driving, he didn't hit the police officer, thankfully. The scene goes on. Eventually, the suspect crashes his vehicle. The police officer had to pursue him, detained him, took him into custody. It was a good stop, the guy was involved, had weapons, domestic violence with weapons and stuff, a bunch of felony arrests. So, it's all good.

But then, the reason we're talking about this is this person who decided to insert themselves in this situation. And I would say the opposite end of that spectrum is that recent one in Indiana where there was an active shooter in a mall. A young guy gets his rifle and then kills the active shooter in the process.

So, some of the reasons I want to talk about this is one: understanding what rights you do have and that you don't have. Two: there's going to be an increase in this. Gun laws over the last 10, 15 years have become less restrictive. There's more people carrying concealed. The COVID pandemic was a big one; when it happened, there was a massive increase in gun sales, also with an interesting cross-subsection of people who had never owned guns before and were adults and lived their whole life without guns. They're finding out a lot of those people started buying guns during the pandemic out of fear, which, if you're making decisions out of fear, we're probably not making good decisions. But the idea is, and even gun laws, like I said, have become less restrictive even out here in California based on the New York Supreme Court ruling out of New York. The Attorney General in California went, "Okay," to all, because the way California does concealed carry is by county, which, of course, is ridiculous, but whatever. So, you have to have, it went from in many of the counties you had to show cause, you had to show a reason to get a concealed carry permit. The State Attorney General said, "No, that's unconstitutional. You shall issue that permit, right? Barring as long as obviously you meet the criteria, background check, all that stuff. You still have to have the requirements there, but instead of you having to show cause, no, you should just be able to get one if you're a law-abiding citizen."

So, that stuff's all changing. It's getting easier, more people are carrying, more people are scared. This stuff is going to happen. We've seen it a lot. And I just want to throw out one quick data point at the beginning, Greg, because if you're looking for data on crime, go to the FBI. That's what they do, that's what they've done the best on anyone is they detail everything. They don't say, "Hey, this is what we think you should do." It's just, "Here are the numbers, here is how crime is changing, this is what's actually happening." So, they identified what they called more than 430 active shooter incidents in about the last 20 years, since 2000. And out of that time, out of those 430 incidents, there were only 10 cases where civilians stepped in and killed the person or stopped the attack. So, that's just over two percent of the time that's happened.

Now, if I were to guess, I would say that's likely going to possibly increase now, but that's kind of a little bit of speculation just based on the way gun laws have changed, gun ownership has changed, and this feeling—because it's very real in some places, maybe it just feels that way. And the other, criminals are getting away with stuff. There's less police, there's a lot of anti-police rhetoric, the ambush killing of police officers being murdered now at a higher rate than we've seen in decades, I think, Greg, or it might be even higher than it's ever been. So, there's definitely this increase. There's lack of prosecution in a lot of these cities, so people are going, "I'm going to protect myself," which is good. We're always about, you are the protector, you're the one responsible for your own life. However, the second, third-order effects of this sometimes this stuff happens where people then take that as a license to insert themselves in situations that they do not belong in. So, that's my quick preamble, Greg. I'll throw it to you. Where do we want to start with this discussion?

Okay. So, a month ago on this day, in Houston, a good Samaritan was driving when they saw a police officer in a foot pursuit. And the good Samaritan pulled over, let the cop jump in the car, catch up on the suspect, get out, and make the arrest.

I like that.

I like that. So, I think that there's an objective and a subjective standard that we have to look at. Good Samaritan laws are legal and they're protected by law. Vigilantism and vigilantes aren't, and there are laws specifically against them. So, where's that fine line? Well, if you take a look at the incident that you were talking about, I would love to depose somebody and say, "Now you in the Jeep, the officer clearly knew your background and experience and that you were armed and that you weren't acting in cahoots with the person that you were pulling over." Right? Can you imagine that? Imagine, look, think back. I'm doing the officer a dishonor and the good Samaritan as well. It was Aurora or Arvada a year ago, Colorado, I think. A "copper" (police officer) was shot by the bad guy. A good Samaritan stepped in, shot the bad guy, then a "copper" (police officer) saw the good Samaritan and killed him. These are—when that incident occurred, that was probably a year after we made the prediction that some unmarked, no-uniform civilian was going to pull out their gun to solve a problem and somebody's going to see him and go, "Oh, there's the shooter," and kill him. We made those predictions, Brian, and now the chickens are coming to roost, or whatever they call that.

Now, here's the point: COVID still screws with Americans in America. I know the rest of the world, but I'm talking about what I can see every day. We had very good experiences in Mexico during COVID. They really took care of the situation. I would say Colombia is second to none in the foreign ports that we hit that really take care of you. There are some places in America that do a great job, some airlines and some that weren't. But, Brian, because we're tribal and because COVID made us lock ourselves away from other humans, not good. We started seeing news reports and believing that it was the apocalypse, that zombies are walking among us, that there are no consequences for our actions. Am I lying?

That's what it is. That's what it would seem like, yeah.

You know. So, yesterday there's an article about a "copper" (police officer) that's on the way to a burglary in progress. He's on the wrong street. He sees the person pulling out of the driveway of the address, but it's on the wrong street, and he does his best. And people are, "Oh, no!" Are they? "Yay! It's great!" Okay. Do you remember the female Dallas cop walking into the wrong apartment and shooting? She thinks he's an interesting guy. Listen, Brian, that Kai Geiger case would never happen today. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? I don't think that the people are so different because they were tainted by what COVID did, and the defund movement is a perfect example of that. The defund was because of anxiety and stress.

Yeah, because of a simply racist response. That's what social isolation does to anyone. It literally increases anxiety levels, which increases your aggression, which increases your level of anger and hate and death and fear, and you will literally almost self-radicalize. You know what I'm saying? It's easy to say, "Okay, well if one person starts doing that, that's not a big deal." But when it happens at scale, it raises—even if it just raises the level of anxiety by that, just the general level of anxiety by 10%, Greg, even just 10%? Okay, over 350 million population, it's massive. That's an order of magnitude, it's massive, massive, and we don't even realize that it's happening because, "Well, COVID's over. It's done." It's like, it's not.

No, but so, write these two words down, not for you, for the people that are listening while they're driving. Pull over. Write these two words down: causation and correlation. What Brian and I are not doing is we're not making light of any of the horrible plights that have faced our nation and our law enforcement and our legal system, and January 6th, and our homeless population, and the black population. We're not saying that. What we're trying to say is don't mess up and think that causation and correlation are the same thing. You can't apply fact, logic, news stories, and data points to one and not to the other. You have to weigh which one is which one, what caused something? Is it the proximate cause of, or was it a leading factor that led to it, like heart disease? Do you get what I'm trying to say? You can't do that.

And so, when we're taking a look at this caper, I'll give you an example. When a "copper" (police officer) is off-duty, they've got, they're enjoined, they almost have, especially if the agency permits or forces them, mandates that they carry their weapon off-duty and that they carry their badge. There are some agencies that don't care, Brian, and there are 18,000 "cop" (police) agencies, so you have to look into your own. But, for example, the agency I worked with, you were mandated to have your badge and your gun. You had to have your radio with you at all times, even if you were off-duty, because if there was an emergency, they had to be able to call you up. Okay. So, that "copper" (police officer), just because he's in plain clothes, is still under color of law. If he sees a crime in progress, a misdemeanor, I would say weigh it very heavily, but certainly a felony, they need to get involved. But you, as a private citizen, have no such legal standard, Brian. As a matter of fact, one of our good friends, Pat Walsh, says, "Listen, be the best witness." And we say that in every class that we go to. "I'd rather you be a very good witness and be alive than insinuate yourself into this situation and be dead, or cause the officer now to have divided attention."

Well, that's the thing. So, that's obviously with intervening in the middle of a police situation is that's, I would say, generally stupid. But, let's talk about in these cases, what rights you do have versus what you don't have, what you can do versus what you can't do.

So, the news article about the guy driving the Jeep blocking the units up, he said, "Well, I felt like I was in fear for my life." Well, hang on. Of course. Yeah. But you created it.

Yeah, well, that's right.

What I'm saying. Right. So, if I'm sitting in my house and I'm in bed and someone breaks in to steal my TV, yeah, I don't know that they're just there to steal my TV. I don't even know why they're there. I do know that they don't belong there. They certainly weren't invited. I don't want them in my house. That's a very, very, very different standard than once I insert myself into a situation, because once you make the choice to involve yourself in something, you are now liable for what happens after that. You are now a contributing factor to everything that happens in that situation.

So, thankfully, like the case we're talking about, that police officer wasn't hurt. But if this guy did it and then the suspect goes, "I don't know what the hell this is," and tries to get the hell out of there, and then runs over the police officer and kills them, guess who caused that to happen? What was the proximate cause of that happening? Had it not been for that person involving yourself in that situation, maybe that likely would have gone differently. That would have happened differently. But I think that's absolutely the case.

So, you've got ability, you've got jeopardy, you've got preclusion, you've got opportunity. All of these things generally apply in every state of the union and most places in the world. What that means is that if you or another person are in risk of serious bodily injury or death, you have the absolute right to defend yourself or a third party. And what I mean by a third party is a person that would have the right to defend themselves, but can't, for whatever reason the situation is created. But you can't go Wild West looking for a gunfight. And that's what that has been my fear for a long time, because what happens is, an inanimate object can create within you a false sense of security and pride and make you step into the situation. So, sandlot kids play better with a uniform. Kids play better with the team name. Martial artists fight harder in a gi than they do if they show up with a pair of sweatpants. Okay, because the way that your brain is still facilitating incoming novel information is through the lens of survival. Do you hear what I'm trying to say?

So, now you buy a gun, and a gun is a big phallus with bullets that really goes to the electrochemical corticals of your brain and says, "Holy [ __ ], this is a gun!" Your voice changes, it deepens an octave. You get what I'm trying to say? But with it comes this amazing sense of responsibility. You get what I'm trying to say? That goes along with it. And then, all of a sudden, you get done with a concealed carry class and you think, "I can carry a concealed weapon." Well, the question is, do you really need to? And again, it's your absolute right. But then, the idea is, now something happens. And where a month ago, before you bought the gun and before you took the lessons, before everything else, you would probably go home or get on your phone. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Now you go, "Now I have the means to stop this. I can intervene." But nobody knows who the hell you are, Brian. Nobody knows who you are. Now you're this wild card, this radical that walks in and I see you reach for a gun, just like a suspect reaches for a gun. I can hear the music. And Brian, we don't do well under those choices. The normal human being that's untrained and untested will not do well in this type of decision.

No, you're not going to, absolutely not. You're suddenly not going to become Jason Bourne and be able to do anything. But you know that you also don't necessarily have the right to intervene in something like that. You do not have the right to do that. You can't go out there and insert yourself in situations without the legal authority or right to do that. A police officer can't insert themselves into a situation unless it meets a certain criteria. So, this idea of you're going to go out there and put yourself in harm's way in order to do something, well, you're part of the problem. And everyone goes, "Well, someone comes in my house, they're going to die." Okay, well, I hope you can legally justify that.

Yeah, well, that's a big damn choice, too.

Yeah. Well, yeah, and I feel like the value of life is slowly eroding in the United States, which used to separate us from so many other places we've been to, of course, and then people listening have been to, where the value of life is pretty low in a lot of other places in the world. It's very high here in the United States, and I appreciate that. That's one of the reasons why I live here as well. The idea is, is we put a lot of that. So, you go back to the guy breaking into your house, they're stealing your TV. If they're running out the door with it and you start chasing them, well, that changes things a little bit. Same thing, even, you can't just start shooting this person because they're running down the street with your television set. I mean, no different than a police officer can't shoot at a fleeing felon in certain situations, or most situations, unless there's some direct threat to someone's life at that point, or safety of the public. But the idea is, it's the same, it's the same thing.

So, my problem with a lot of this is, yes, this is a constitutional right, and I'm completely all for law-abiding people having the right to defend themselves, absolutely. But this, just because, even if you have "Stand Your Ground" laws where you don't have to back down, that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. That doesn't mean you get to take someone's life because you don't like what they said or did. It has to meet a certain criteria. And that's the thing, just because you felt like you wanted to do something or you were offended or whatever, you don't have the right to do that. This idea that I can go and insert myself here, or kill someone or take their life, you're just like, that's, I don't want that either. No, I don't want criminals getting away with stuff. No, I don't want lawlessness in the streets. But I also don't want the vigilante [ __ ].

But I say, let's compare it to a case that was perfectly legal, but I want you to understand, you remember? You ever watch one of those TV shows, a crime show, and they've got like a thing that looks like a glow stick and they put it in your motel room, and you see all the fluid of everybody that stayed there before? Okay, because we don't have the expensive hotel rooms. So, let's think that on its face your actions are legal, but let's think that there's a light that we could shine on it that shows these lines instead of the horrible fluid stains. It shows these lines on the ground that aren't immediately apparent when we first see the issue. Okay, this is what I'm explaining to you.

So, we have a nine-year-old in Houston, Arlene Alvarez. She's doing nothing but sitting in her dad's car, Armando's a pickup truck actually. A few feet away, yards away, is an ATM. And two people are in the ATM and they're getting robbed. They pulled up, they put their card in, they're getting their money, and a guy walks up on the side of the vehicle, says, "Give up the cheese," and at gunpoint takes their money and runs off. Now, the man chose to run in the direction of Alvarez's pickup truck. Had nothing to do with Armando or his daughter, Arlene. But what happens is now the guy that just got robbed with his wife in the ATM comes out shooting. Now, the guy had a gun. It was an armed robbery, which is a felony. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Even if it was an aggravated robbery with a fake gun, the guy believed it. So, he's trying to stop the robbery in progress, and legally so. But he starts firing a couple of rounds at the suspect who disappears behind the pickup truck. And Armando Alvarez says the following, Brian, I actually wrote down the quote, if I can get it here: "I heard the bullets and my first instinct was to speed up, so I guess when I sped up, the guy thought that I was with the guy and he shot at me four or five times," killing Armando's daughter, Arlene, that was in the pickup truck.

Now, the guy had the right, Brian, the guy had the right to defend himself against an armed robbery. The guy didn't have the right to indiscriminately shoot. How many times, you and I, take our audience out of this, how many times have we discussed a caper that came up while we're driving in a rental car where somebody shot at a fleeing vehicle and it ended up not being the vehicle? How many times? That happens all the time. And even "coppers" (police officers) do it, Brian. Even those "coppers" (police officers) in wherever it was, Florida, or whatever, you remember they were at the concert venue or a sporting event and the vehicle squealed by and there was a drive-by and they go, "Hey, there those guys go!" And it wasn't a guy. Teenagers or a family, Brian. This happens all the time. So, look, if I can be bamboozled, then anybody can. You see what I'm trying to say?

So, you're thinking, now listen, somebody right now is going to play the smart-assery card and they're going to say, "So, you're saying the kid in the mall shouldn't have shot?" Ten times. Three people are dead: two that the gunman killed and the gunman. Okay. And we have two unaccounted rounds. I'm not saying one way or the other. Maybe if I was there, I would have done the same thing. Maybe I would have tried to tackle somebody. But what I'm saying is there's a hell of a lot more that you don't see until you take that glow stick and look around at the situation. So, if it's rapidly unfolding, are you going to make the best choice? If you make a spontaneous choice like the mall and you stop that person from shooting, or Love Field yesterday with the female walking in and taking a shot, maybe you're saving everybody else. But, Brian, I say that cheese is a little thin. I say that that meat in the deli is a little thin, and if I can see through it, maybe that's not the right choice. You get where I'm going?

Well, because people boil this stuff down to these really oversimplified ways of looking at things. "What was the one people used to always say? I [  ] couldn't stand, 'I'd rather be, what is it, judged by 12 and carried by six?'" Shut the [  ] up! That's some [  ] bush league JV [  ]. That means you can't think your way out of a [ __ ] situation, all right? That's exactly, and that's all I think we're saying. I think that we're saying that calm heads will prevail. I think that an active shooter in a school or a mall is substantially different than seeing a person pulling out a gun and starting to fight, pulling up on a traffic stop and insinuating. And that's part of the problem. We know, and a lot of our listeners know, each one of these cases is unique in and of itself and you have to take it on the merits of the case of what happened. The problem is we generalize and oversimplify. It'll go, "Well, look what's happening. I mean, we've got to get—I'm not going to let that happen to me." It's like, okay, man, you're talking about some very obscure thing that's like getting struck by lightning twice in the same location. Like, make it simple, this Uvalde crap.

Okay. First of all, shout out to our dear friend, Brian Willis. Love him to death. We know there's bad stuff that happened with the alert report, right? So, anything that's on a rocky foundation should be tossed out, and you shouldn't have a gosh damn everybody calling in and talking about it because it's ridiculous. It's wrong that the moon is not made of cheese. So, if we start there, we're going to come to a forlorn conclusion. Why am I talking about that? Because here now we look at Uvalde and everybody is getting teachers and principals and students and gosh damn mother of a student. And then we're talking about the fire chief down the road and that damn barber. We're going down through everybody. But the suspect—

Yeah, this morning.

Exactly. Somebody said something about the suspect, and the mom says—the mom of the suspect said, "You don't have the right to judge my son!" Lady, yeah, [ __ ] dude, he's the only one at the incident that we do have the right to judge. As a matter of fact, his actions were so clear and he demonstrated intent in so many ways that you and others could have stopped. So, if we're talking about somebody, let's go back to vilifying the bad guy. Now, this mall shooting kid, look, that's pretty good. He caught on early and he clipped the guy. But, Brian, you said that that happens in about two percent of the cases. My biggest fear is—

Yeah, okay.

The other night in a while, it's going to be that. Yes, it's going to be that Arvada or that Aurora, where somebody is shot down in the prime of their life because they were trying to defend another. How do you know that? Do you know how many times you get in the trick bag where you have an unmarked vehicle or an undercover officer or a security guard that's chasing somebody away from their location, and now that person is subjected to gunfire because somebody doesn't understand exactly who they are? That's my point. My business, when you don't have a tremendous amount of information, you draw unreasonable conclusions.

I've been shot at by the Army, like, at a man. I've shot it before, but I had good reason outpost because they got hit by an IED and then, "Oh, no," they started opening up fire. And then now we're taking contact because we have the outline of someone in a position because they're sandbags in the freaking government center and it's a known location of U.S. forces, and it still happens. So, we're not talking, Brian—this is definitely not negligence. My story on Iraq in the ground, and we're going from Hob across the bridge to whatever that other place is, and that Marine's loading the 240 and barks off three rounds that gave me some chin music. I mean, Brian, I could read the primer dent. And the guy, the Marine, yells to me, "Hey, my bad!" I loved it. I loved it. It was amazing. I knew I was there. But that was indeed talking about that. But what I'm saying is that in those situations, I mean, you're, it's inserting yourself. You can now become, you're now liable. I said, you're responsible. Let's go ahead.

I like that word better.

Yeah, responsible. Legally liable. I love the responsibility. You're certainly responsible. Responsibility, because culpability, those type of words. Now we're getting into the thesaurus part that I like. Look, Brian, if I walk by and a transit cop is rolling around on the ground and somebody's trying to take their gun out of their holster, I'm going to—tie goes to the runner—I'm going to jump in and I'm going to help. Okay, because that's a situation where nanoseconds count, and I don't want that visible sign of authority to be beat up or beat down. If I saw somebody dragging somebody down on the ground and it looked like they were going to pillory that person or hurt them or do something, Brian, I'm the kind of guy that would probably step in. Okay, but it's so clearly defined what it might look like. I'm not going to drive down the road and go, "Hey, it doesn't look like that guy's stopping right away for that cop, so I'm going to pull and make it easier."

What do we talk about with road rage? We don't know the totality of the circumstances. And don't get me on that lawyer. What I'm saying, let's be objective. Let's not be subjective. Let's be objective. We don't know the exact thing. So, the person who's chasing, who might be different, it might be the bad guy chasing a potential victim or a good guy chasing a bad guy. We don't know that all the way. So, it's not as clear-cut. And I think that preclusion speaks loudly here. Even for "coppers" (police officers), you're supposed to try to de-escalate, right? Precluding, as you say, definitely step back from the situation, let your clear head take a look. Don't use lethal force. Is there another alternative? Can I close the door? Can I wrap him in cellophane? You know what I'm saying? So, preclusion means, let's preclude the seriousness of the response, meaning, "I'm not going to use lethal force. I'm going to try to tie the guy up with a BolaWrap or something else." I say that if the cops are held to that standard, why wouldn't you be? Why wouldn't you and I be?

And the idea that just because I can bear arms, I can bear arms only if it's to defend myself or another. And the standard is serious bodily injury or death. So, serious bodily injury means a protracted loss of limb. You lose a leg, you're going to lose your arm and not be able to defend for yourself in this world, for your family. Brian, I think that's important. And when we go back to the ATM robbery, that guy was doing everything right and he still made a fatal mistake. And now they're charging him with a form of aggravated assault. And you know what? At that same ATM during the same time frame, just a couple of months before, a 40-year-old woman was shot to death for under a hundred dollars. I mean, you've got to think about, Brian, you said you're insinuating yourself, involving yourself in a situation. Are you by your mere actions creating a situation where you are liable, where you are in peril, and then you defend yourself? Well, you don't have that right.

You don't have the right to just insert yourself into the situation and then demand that you're seen as the victim in this situation.

I know. And we conflate some of the stories and the issues, like the mall shooting in Indiana is very obvious. There's a guy in a mall with a gun, killing, shooting. It's not—this is a very, very simple—that's a simple case, Greg. That's so simple.

But let's say the decision was simple, but the case isn't.

We don't know if it was a domestic. We don't know if the person had killed people outside, or there was an attempted kidnapping that's gone wrong. But still, Brian, it doesn't have to be the simplest thing. We don't understand exactly the relationship between the people, but in that specific incident was so laser-focused that a decision was made quickly and it was the right decision. But that's not a panacea that doesn't apply to everything. You see what I'm saying?

Exactly. And that's my point with all of these. So, even with what you're—each case has to be looked at alone. So, if you're looking at all these going, "Oh, well, I can just do this or that," I've seen people and heard people talk about this stuff where I'm like, "You do not have an understanding of the law and you're going to get yourself or someone else in a lot of trouble." And that's the thing, the point should always be, how do we defuse the situation? How do we not—if I can go into the village and get done what I need to be done without killing a single person, I win, man. That's a big W. I mean, if people are dying, that means that that should mean things went wrong in any of the situations we're talking about right now here in the United States. So, the idea is, we conflate them and we misunderstand them. So, my warning would be to look at each case on the individual actions of what happened, and you have to measure that with what are you really trying to do here?

Once you put yourself in, once you make that decision, you are now responsible for the next event that happens. You are, or a contributing factor, at a minimum, a major limiting factor to the outcome of that situation. If you go back to the one from Ohio and he did that, this guy now runs, and what if he had run over a kid crossing the street trying to get away? What if he had done all of these other things that could have potentially happened? All of these spirals, there's not—him coming to a stop and giving up peacefully is a very, very, very small likelihood that's going to happen. So, all of the other potential things that could happen are bad. They're bad, they're going to end poorly. Now, hopefully they just end poorly for the suspect, but they typically end poorly for the officer and the general public. That's when these things occur. So, it's always in these heightened situations. So, if you are involving yourself in those, you're a contributing factor to that. Look at what you did. That is what you contributed to that outcome and, therefore, you should be responsible, you should be partly responsible for that, I think, legally. Because if you are—how many of these things are like, "Oh, we're not going to prosecute that." You see that stuff where someone shoots a person in their house and then the sheriff is on there, "We will not prosecute someone for doing that." It's like, okay, I understand that. I don't think that, but maybe in that case that's the appropriate thing. But in some of these others, you're getting to where this didn't have to end this way. That person made the decision to end it that way.

Talk [  ] because there is a record of you talking [  ]. And for every incident that you're going to go to bat for, there's going to be another one somewhere down the road that you're not. And so, therefore, you don't want to be put in the trick bag where somebody calls you on your record of, "Well, what about this case?" So, here's the thing: if you're a police officer and you choose to pursue a vehicle, and that vehicle was involved in high misdemeanor or felony activity, you also assume all of the risk associated with that. So, if that fleeing felon goes through a red light and tags a citizen or hits a bus full of kids or does something—so, you're saying, you have to walk around with a pillow on your ass all day on tenterhooks? No, but you have to judge the situation. Can I drive this vehicle at this speed? Is it during the time of day or the location in my town where there's a lot of civilian traffic? And maybe I have another way of catching it. Maybe I have a helicopter that's up or a UAV that's available. Or, Brian, I can get a good look at the driver and I can say, "Sooner or later, I'm going to catch you," or recover the vehicle and use the fingerprint analysis.

I'm just saying that you've got to think of that. And when you pull a gun in a nanosecond and start using lethal force, none of that due diligence is there. You're doing no due process. So, in a rare, very rare incident that almost will never occur to anybody that's listening to us, I think that that escalation of force is justified. But in all others, I would ask for calm heads to prevail, even inside of your house, Brian. Inside of your house, you were as likely to kill your daughter climbing through the window. You know, if you're using that as an excuse versus—

I'm like, that's my thing because, you know, the wife and I, Mikaela, and I, we've talked about that stuff. Like, what would you do? I was like, "I would give everyone an out. I'm going to give you the option. Get the [ __ ] out right now and this ends peacefully." I'm always going to, because now, if you choose not to do that, I can then say, "Well, I gave this person the option. I tried to de-escalate the situation. They chose not to. So, I had no other choice at that point."

I loved that, and what you did is epitomized preclusion. But I want everybody to understand, this is Brian Marren, my dearest friend in the entire world. That same situation wouldn't happen with me or Shelley. With me, I would sleep through it. What I'm trying to say, because I can't hear a gosh damn thing. So, they'd fleece the house, I'd wake up with just my knickers. And Shelley, the thing is they'd say, "Yeah, we knew the robber came in, but we never saw him."

Yeah.

You know, going, "Yep." I mean, seriously. But Shelley would go, "I didn't hear anything. Someone walked into your house and then we never saw her from the game again."

Exactly. "I never, I never saw them. I don't know what you're talking about. I'd like to see my attorney. Attorney, please."

But listen, that's the caper I told you many times that I had to deal with people that would say, "Tonight's the night. Maybe this is the night that we'll get into it." That's—listen, those people are unsafe at any speed. Do not surround yourself with them. I consistently see these people showing self-defense moves where they're stabbing and hacking people and cutting them. I hope to God that it's not a Jehovah's Witness that's coming up to ask for a ride. Right? That's the decision point. It's not what you do with that information, Brian. It's, do you have enough information with where a human—look, the standard for cops is objectively reasonable. And that means that you don't have to think about it. Another cop would have to look at your actions and say, "Yes, I'm a reasonable officer and I would have done the same thing given that same situation." Do you know if we applied that to citizens? As one neighbor? You get what I'm trying to say? I could go right down the street and go "Duck, Duck, Goose" and figure out who was the right one and who was the wrong one. You just don't know, Brian.

And look, we're talking about snap decisions, that's one thing. I can see you being a good Samaritan. Vigilante justice is where you, in the back of your head, had the whole time, "Boy, I hope something like this happens because I'm going to be the one that I'm going to be the arbiter of the law." And you don't have that choice, that's not your right.

No, and this is—that's, I mean, you look, an extreme case of the, I guess not extreme case, but a good one to compare to is the, I can't remember when it happened, it was the guy, the dad who killed the sort of boyfriend of his daughter. But he wasn't a boyfriend, he was her pimp and he was sex-trafficking her and making her do all this stuff and he got her addicted to drugs and then he went and killed him. And then people were like, "Yeah, okay, all good." It's like, "Well, look, I'm not sad that he's dead. I'm not sad that this person is dead. Obviously, they're a horrible human being, but you do not have the [  ] right to do that. We have due process in this country. So, you as a citizen, if you take that away from someone, you're eroding all of our rights. You're saying [  ] you today."

Well, that's what I'm saying.

You're saying [  ] you to our whole system of how it's supposed to work. So, you know what? I'm not—no, I'm not interested in that type of way. Does it suck the way—is there? I mean, you can the way the criminal courts and the justice system works. Trust me, it's been debated for a few thousand years, I think. So, we're doing the best that we can right now. But the idea is, you don't have the right to go out and do that to someone, and that's what pisses me off. It's like, yeah, it's great, the guy was a piece of [  ], but you don't have the right to be judge, jury, and executioner. Sorry, that's being a vigilante.

Yeah, you. Now, listen again, and it's a fine line because there's a cop standard. A cop doesn't have that right. So, why should you? But you don't have that right because every citizen in America, that's an American citizen, is judged with the auspices of the Constitution, and you have the absolute right to be a free citizen, free in your home, free in your papers, free in your facts. Do you know what I'm saying? Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. So, you can't impede me. Now, if I go out and I choose off the menu and start playing human whack-a-mole, then guess what? I've given up those rights. So, lady, your son in Uvalde changed the DNA of that town forever, and he too, if he could have been taken alive, had the absolute right to stand in front of a jury of his peers and make his case. But, Brian, he chose not to. And he chose not to with the barrel of a gun, with the muzzle of that weapon system. Do you get what I'm trying to say? So, those are the clearly defined ones that anybody can speculate on because it's simple. But I would tell you that there's a whole bunch that occur every day in our society that are a lot closer to call, and that's why we have to have those referees and those umpires. And guess what? Even they make the wrong call sometimes. I mean, if you're a sports fanatic, yeah. So, we're not in a perfect system, and our system of justice in America is better than any other country on the face of the planet. And you [  ] out there that will malign it and [  ] on it and say that it's not true.

Without even really understanding it. I, exactly. I think that's a big problem. Part of why we're having this discussion is knowing what your rights are and what they aren't, what you can do, what you cannot do, what you're allowed to do, what you should never do. I mean, that's the point. All of this stuff gets oversimplified and thrown together. "See, look, it's me versus them. They're going to be coming for me. They're going to get—" You know, it's like, "Oh, dude, what are you talking about?" First of all, what do you have that anyone else wants? Second of all, where are you seriously defending that better? Like, Colorado? Do you have, is it some high-risk profession? Do you carry cash for a living? Okay. But that's what I'm saying. It's this, but when you start thinking that way, that leads to these decisions. "Oh, here it is. This is what my buddies have been talking about. Time for me to get in there." And it's like, no, you're so far gone, you're so far down this Mobius loop of [ __ ] idiocy that you're going to make a bad decision, and you're missing what you are. Somebody in your life needs to step in and say, "This is wrong." You are going to think it was like, what am I really trying to do here? What's really—what's the totality of the circumstances? What happens if this guy steals this six-pack of beer from the liquor store? Are we talking, "This is a felony murder I'm witnessing," or "This is shoplifting"?

But that's how simple it is, though. If it's a property crime, allow it to be a property crime. Be a good witness. If it's a car theft, it's a car. You have insurance for a reason. Now, let's change that and say your kid is seatbelted in the back of that car. Do you know what I'm trying to say? The person is trying to—yeah, it's a different set of circumstances. We can always ramp up, but then guess what? The precarious nature of the crime is ramped up as well. You don't want to shoot at the guy driving the car with your daughter belted in the backseat. What I'm trying to say, you don't want an aggravated police pursuit where cool heads don't prevail.

I hear this all the time. We continue to think that every single police officer is trained to an extremely high standard, and it's not the case. It's just like a 7-Eleven clerk or a librarian you encounter, it may not be the one that's trained to that really high standard. At the ranch, Brian, at the ranch we had to go through what we called "the boot camp": your emergency first aid, and your CPR, and your Heimlich maneuver, and then horse injuries, and then having the different shots for the different people that may have a bee allergy, or the different horse that may have a specific allergy, and all these different things. And we took weeks, for the months that we were open, to train the people. And we demanded that they had a high level of training. And guess what? Still they would make mistakes. So, if you're thinking that you're just going to be able to be thrust into a situation and you're going to make the right choice, Brian, this is right back to training again. And people go, "Oh my God, here we go with the training!" Yes, if you're untrained in a situation, then you are going to be lucky if you get out of it with all your limbs and your head attached. Because some of the most, look, Brian, you're in the United States Marine Corps, okay? The most highly trained infantry force on the face of the planet, specifically trained to interdict in shitty situations. Have you had fellow Marines die in combat? Do you see what I'm trying to say?

So, think about that for a minute. Even the most highly trained SWAT teams lose a person once in a while. Even the Deltas lose a person once in a while. So, what chance do you have to just willy-nilly run in with the gun that you bought at Bill Goodman's Gun & Knife Show and the four hours of training you took in Grand Junction for your concealed weapons permit? That's all I'm saying. I'm saying take a step off the bubble for a second, look around, smell the coffee, and make your better decision, unless it's inevitable. If it's inevitable and it's your safety that's compromised, then I would throw—

Well, and that's what it boils down to, is what, if there's some inevitable thing about to happen or you are in fear for your life or someone else's. But you can't just say that. That's just not a thing. You actually have to be in that position if you think it's really going to happen.

You have to have artifacts and evidence in support of a reasonable conclusion. You don't—

Before, during, and after the event.

Exactly. Step in front of a guy with a gun and go, "Oh my God, I'm in fear for my life," and then kill them. Like, there's a caper right now about the female that was shot in the chest, and sadly, I looked through a thousand articles a day, I don't remember if she lived or died. But I know that she had a rest—just a statement after she was shot. And the "copper" (police officer) that was in the house was legally in the house, and the situation was rapidly unfolding. And the female had dogs, and the "copper" (police officer) panicked and went to shoot the dogs, thinking his life was at risk from the dogs. And somehow, when he was firing, the woman got shot in the chest. Well, I don't know about you, Brian, but you love your dog, right? Your dog named Bailey. And when you saw somebody that was going into that dog, you'd likely step in front, and if you stepped in front, you'd catch that round in the chest. Some cases, when you look back on them, are so simple that you don't have to have the barometric pressure and the wind speed, the right access to the earth, you figure it out. You look at it and you go, "I see how this thing ramped up." That's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid that when cool heads don't prevail, that people that insinuate themselves into a situation are going to needlessly overcomplicate it, and the wrong person may—

I think it's, understanding and knowing what your own intent is in these situations is important. What is your intent? Well, to stop that person or to alleviate the situation? Because those are two different things. What is your intent? Are you really trying to, "Hey, I want to stop this situation from happening," or "I want to stop that person for what they did"? I'm talking about from the perspective of not a police officer, just a citizen. What is your intent? If you don't know it, then maybe you shouldn't even get involved or say something. Why even say that stuff about social media? What is your intent with this post? What is your intent with this comment you're about to leave? What are you trying to do? And most people can't even define that. So, if you can't define what your intent is, then maybe you shouldn't be making that decision or doing that action. I don't know. Exactly.

So, that's kind of, we hit pretty much everything I wanted to cover, unless there's something else that I missed out or you wanted to wrap up with, Greg.

Now, you don't have the absolute right to do anything when you go out in public. It's a big different story when you're in your home, which is a castle, and it's called "the Castle Doctrine" for a reason. There are a bunch of laws out there, and you know what? If you want to read up on the law, it's the same thing with when the Supreme Court makes a decision and people are like, "Well, they decided—they didn't decide this. They decide constitutionality." Take a step back and take a look at the big picture before you throw your hat in the ring. You'll save a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of stupidity. And all we're saying is, listen, Brian, we try to bring up topics that people don't fully understand, so they can grasp an angle on it or study a little deeper, and then they can feel competent and confident in their choices. We're not trying to poke anybody in the eye. We're trying to say that the answers are out there. All the answers to the tests are out there.

They are. And I would say that if you're spending a lot of time practicing how to shoot, how to operate a weapon, how to do this in all these different circumstances, I would hope that you're spending an equal amount of time going over when you're supposed to employ those tactics, when you're supposed to make a decision to shoot, when you're supposed to do this, because I don't see as much of that as I do as the, "Perhaps let's go, let's go do some—" No, it's not—I'm just trying to get devil's advocate and I'm going to go roll around and jump around and do some crazy [ __ ] on the range. It's like, "Yeah, well, when are you supposed to shoot someone? When is that? How do you articulate that to yourself right now?" I mean, I think that's just as important, if not more important.

I'm in absolute agreement. I'm just trying to throw that in because there's one of our listeners that's still on the fence. You know what? I'll tell you what, education is the key.

Well, I always say, if they made it this far in the episode, then they're good fans and listeners. Or a stalker.

Yeah.

Well, I still classify those as good. (Laughter) And get those numbers up. I'm okay with that. So, all right, that's all. Yeah, that's all I have. I appreciate everyone for tuning in. Again, reach out to us at thehumanbehaviorpodcast@gmail.com with any questions or things you want us to cover. We do love it when you guys do that, and guys and girls and people, whatever you call yourself, when you do that, because it allows us to have a better understanding of what interests you or what things you need clarification on or how we would approach a certain subject. So, we love doing those. So, please keep reaching out. Those of you who have, thank you very much. We'll get to some of those topics very shortly. Other than that, don't forget that training changes behavior.