Florida jogger won't be charged for shooting teen

[sdcharger]

Florida statutes protect the shooter from any civil liability as well.

Sure but only in state court.  The family will bring a civil rights suit in federal court.

[Oil Lady]

Shooting someone in the back unacceptable. If their back is to you that means YOU have a chance to get out of harms way and they are probably retreating. A civil case will probably follow and a group of his peers might not be so sympathetic.

He had been punched in the face by the mugger and so he reported that his vision was blurred due to the punch. So when he drew his gun he was likely shooting at an unclear target. He let off a total of 8 rounds, but only 4 it their mark. The other four must have gone stray. Meanwhile the 16-year-old who was with the mugger reported that he fled as soon as the gun came out, but that he observed the red laser dot was on the mugger's chest, not his back.

I could see that maybe the mugger was shot by the first bullet or two and then turned his back to receive the last two or three in the backside. But if the guy's vision was impaired, he might not have known that the mugger's back was turned.

Meanwhile, the kid was probably not more than 5 feet away as he got shot because the guy drew his gun after getting punched by the kid. So unless he staggered a good distance away after the punch, he was likely in reasonable close range. I mention the distance only to say he likely wasn't being irresponsible by "shooting blind" with impaired vision.   

And the family IS suing.

[CR Williams]

Shooting someone in the back unacceptable. If their back is to you that means YOU have a chance to get out of harms way and they are probably retreating. A civil case will probably follow and a group of his peers might not be so sympathetic.

It happens all the time, it is unavoidable, and it is defensible. Check the Force Science Institute study of just that kind of shooting situation.

[MacReady]

Research, I believe by the Force Science Institute, has shown that when holding a firearm at the ready, the process of deciding to shoot and then doing so takes longer than the process of deciding to stop and actually stopping.

When shooting in self-defense you are shooting to "stop" the threat.  But per the supreme court this is done with the reasonable expectation that the person shot will be seriously injured or killed.  In a recent use of force training seminar we examined a video in which the bad guy went down in a hail of gunfire.  The last shot was fired by one of the officers just after the subject had hit the ground.  Bad guy had probably already been hit ten times by multiple officers and was likely already dead.  Obviously he wasnt a threat at that point but the supreme court ruled no fault on the officers part bc the shots were in rapid succession and there's no such thing as too dead.

Again, If you can justify the first you can justify several more in short succession.

[inbox485]

I've been through a couple different schools that teach shooting and both of them taught controlled pair center of mass then track to head. Head shot if the threat continues. I doubt that would help if vision was blurred due to injury.

Another thing I was taught at both places was that there is absolutely nothing wrong in and of itself in shooting a person in the back. If you have any reason to believe the threat still exists (the person is going to shoot while running, the person is running for cover to shoot back, etc.), you pop the guy while you can.

Finally as others have pointed out, if you start ripping into the trigger (a sign of poor training perhaps, but who am I to judge), there is no reason to believe the shooter realized the final shoots were going into the assailant's back.

As for being sued, that is a constant. The stories I've read that ended in being sued are nothing short of incredible. Frankly I'd love to see lawyers personally liable for bringing frivolous suits to court since by and large they do it knowing that the respondent will settle for a few thousand rather than defend themselves in court even if there is absolutely 100% chance of winning. In a lot of cases, it is an insurance covered incident. Probably not in this case though.

[Noah]

Morally, you have to consider that the attacker had time to plan the attack, he was in a prepared state of mind for what he was about to do, and used surprise and violence to his advantage.

The defender did not have time to plan, was not in a defensive state of mind carefully considering the legal rules of engagements and proportional force, and was quickly put into a panicked life-or-death situation with no time to evaluate every action through each split second of the engagement.

I can't see how anyone could blame the defender for accidentally putting a few rounds in the attackers back.  The criminal clearly had no intention of showing the would-be victim any mercy and had no right to expect any from the person he attacked.