While minding my very own business Saturday afternoon en route to lunch inside a Boston mall, an oncoming older man in grubby, disheveled clothing suddenly veers left, extends both arms and shoves me.
His hands forced my left upper torso amid many nearby mall-goers. My immediate reaction, after an insignificant stumble, was to turn, face and more closely look at whom literally had just crossed me. No more than two yards off to my left, he was looking at me intently as if he wanted to go. Many witnesses to the unprovoked assault were among us and observed his handiwork.
Fully and scraggily bearded, this man was amiss and not right. While sizing him up, I knew had he done same to the wrong MF, that right MF would have made quick work of him.
Another oncoming individual was dressed in a dark blue uniform and black combat boots. His right hand staggered a radio between his mouth and right ear. As the gap between us closed, I asked if he saw what just happened and his north-south nod ‘yes’ followed additional transmissions. His eyes were peeled toward where the older man was walking and he was saying: ‘call the police’.
For at least a couple minutes, I waited around and watched where were both the security officer and the suspect. The suspect was long gone, well beyond view while the security officer wandered around a little and began walking away — without approaching me as I was readily available to him. He then turned around and was walking toward me while I happened to be walking toward him. Knowing his aptitude was in question and a steak quesadilla awaited, I said to the mall cop: ‘If you were slightly serious, you’d collect witnesses’, then I continued toward lunch.
On to a favorite chow joint, where I noticed waiting behind me in line was a sharply dressed young man.
‘Are you with mall security?’ I asked the gentleman wearing a black suit and tie. He replied yes, telling me with an uppity store in the mall’s higher end. I then told him what a mall security guard did not do after witnessing an unprovoked attack.
After leaving the store with his lunch and sitting at a nearby table, he gracefully welcomed my joining him. That availed me an opportunity to embark on one of my favorite, most pleasurable pastimes: telling someone what to do.
a-HEM.
A 19-year-old college student, he was astounded by the mall cop’s failure to mark names and numbers of witnesses and victims. The engineering student was open to suggestions as I told him if he likes the work as a security officer, keep in mind a law enforcement career up the road, noting investigations, intelligence and law school are options.
Among our discussion was what to do under such circumstances, specifically what self-defense law permits — though neither he nor I are lawyers but on periodic occasions I am asked if I am an attorney. We agreed what happened was a bit more than bothersome.
I brought up a recent high-profile case where an early-20s Indiana man reportedly shot and killed an in-action mass murderer at a mall south of Indianapolis. Three weeks ago, the shooter opened fire in Greenwood immediately after staging for an hour in a restroom near the food court. Shortly after opening fire with a rifle, the murderer of three who also injured two was killed when an armed shopper told his girlfriend to lay low then accessed his weapon and eliminated the public threat by fatally eliminating him.
A Northeast Indiana county sheriff once told me when he and his deputies are permitted to use lethal force. Three letters he says while driving to departmental training in a neighboring county of the Hoosier state while I rode shotgun.
The shoot/don’t drill required trainees to stand in an assigned spot then watch a scenario develop on a life-size screen leading to deciding when to draw and fire the training-issued laser weapons. One deputy’s scenario suddenly ended because the projector abruptly stopped projecting, exclusive credit due directly to the flash from the camera of a disruptive photojournalist.
But unsuspecting deputies who only fired were consequently stung by a rubber pellet ’shot’ by the sheriff who reminded each deputy enduring confusion and minor pain of the importance of taking cover rather than standing immobile after firing their service weapons.
AOJ indicates that if a threat has the Ability and Opportunity to Jeopardize one’s life, that deputy may justifiably use lethal force, the sheriff told me.
To apply that standard to this past Saturday, I was not equipped with a firearm when shoved and the perpetrator’s opportunity to cause me additional trouble diminished when distance between us widened. However, he did demonstrate ability, which also dropped after initial contact when space between us grew. No serious threat was present.
That, I believe, is Massachusetts’ self-defense law: do what you can to avoid retaliating but if the threat continues, defend accordingly.
One final conversation with the aspiring engineer was discussing the importance of keeping our eyes open and our heads up while in public.