Shot in the Dark

A Smart, Patient, Cool-Headed Good Guy With A Gun

North Carolina man kept his head during a gas station robbery.

Literally:

 A concealed carrier at a gas station during a robbery, waited his turn to make a move. While inside the store, two armed robbers came in and put a gun inches away from the armed citizen’s face.
He complied and gave the robbers his belongings. Well, everything except his gun.

And had they left at that point, they both might be alive today.

But they just had to keep going.

As the suspects, identified as 16-year-old Qwanterrius Stafford and 17-year-old Brenna Harris, turned to rob the store clerk, the customer pulled out his concealed weapon and shot the suspects, according to investigators.
Stafford later died at the hospital from his injuries. Harris took off after the incident, injured, but was later caught by police after he sought treatment at a hospital.

It being Charlotte, I suppose there’s a decent chance some reporter will write a scathing report about the shooter, since Mr. Stafford was just about to get his life all turned around…

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Mitch Berg

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11 responses to “A Smart, Patient, Cool-Headed Good Guy With A Gun”

  1. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    I know that none of you carry or even own any weapons, but I have a question for someone you might know who does. Removing two reprobates from society is not something I am concerned about, but I wondered, based only on what I read above (I didn’t follow the links), wouldn’t the guy be liable for prosecution had this occurred in the metro area, especially Mpls or StP?

    I mean, the two guys turned around to rob the cashier, so a DA might think that the guy was not in danger anymore and had no need – right – to fire. I mean, one thing I learned from carry class – well, people I know who have, I would never carry – is that in MN you carry to save yourself and yours only. No saving the world heroics. Or is this different?

  2. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Excellent question, jdm. I wonder the same.

    Minnesota self-defense law theoretically recognizes “defense of others,” but the courts have done a poor job of articulating the test and their conflicting explanations muddy the water (and since Court of Appeals judges are all themselves Liberals, I also wonder whether that’s intentional).

    I can defend another if the other could have defended himself. But there are too many things that can go wrong when trying to prove the case on behalf of someone else. Maybe the clerk is the robbers’ cousin (clerk is an inside accomplice to a staged robbery) so the clerk knows they wouldn’t shoot and therefore has no fear of harm. Maybe the clerk could safely step into a locked room (retreat). If the clerk testified against the shooter . . . .

    I agree with the trainers: no heroics. Minnesota is not a Stand Your Ground state, it’s a Run Away and Hide state. And that’s exactly how Liberals want it.

  3. Loren Avatar
    Loren

    jdm, I think you raise a valid concern, that any permit holder needs to consider. On one hand you could argue that the pointing of the gun at the clerk checks the box of defending others from gross bodily harm, on the other the permit holder is not an LEO, and even LEO’s have no obligation to protect anyone from gross bodily harm.

  4. John Kraephammer Avatar
    John Kraephammer

    Well there’s a lot of discretion there that prosecutors hold.

    We are to understand Mike Freeman say as conventionally anti-gun, but he has not been pedantic ./ vindictive in trying to prosecute fairly righteous cc self defense cases. He seems to have wielded his discretionary judgment prudently.

    And ya figure the incentives would move you to be just that way as a prosecutor even if you are anti-gun / anti-cc. As a practical matter truly righteous self defense cases are going to be defended with a private practice criminal attorney and they will go to a jury rather than be plead out. Prosecutor stands a great chance of losing these, so there’s no reason to prosecute just to ax grind

  5. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    Prosecutor discretion is the key, and a very thin thread to hang your future on. That said, there have been high profile cases in the Twin Cities in recent years where the good guy wasn’t prosecuted. In one, the good guy chased a bad guy that had just mugged a woman and stolen her purse. When the bad guy shot at him, the good guy put him down. In another, a few thugs were terrorizing the Uptown area for a couple of weeks, pistol-whipping pedestrians and stealing their valuables. Then they tried to do the same to an older guy putting groceries in his car; the older guy was a retired Marine, who wounded both attackers. Mysteriously, the random assaults in Uptown ceased. Then there was the case where a youth, fresh off of a couple of car thefts (one of which netted him a gun) and muggings as he tried to raise tuition money, accosted a guy in St. Paul during a fireworks show. The permit holder killed him.

    No prosecutions in any of these cases, but it should be noted that that the good guy in the last case is now in quite a bit of hot water for recently shooting at an elderly bus driver who the permit holder says tried to run him down. Highway-cam video doesn’t really support that story.

  6. John Kraephammer Avatar
    John Kraephammer

    ^ See that purse one…. Freeman was emphatic in publicly clearing that man even though there was that element of him confronting the thief which you could argue is a little provocative re what the law would bless. Thing is its a loser at trial.

  7. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    Right, JK. And, IIRC, that purse case is the only one of the three where the shooter’s name was mentioned in the news. It was the first of these types of incidents that I can remember, and I think the prosecutors are more circumspect about protecting identities if someone isn’t being charged with a crime. In the last example, the news didn’t report the name of the guy who shot the kid in St. Paul; we didn’t get his name until he took a shot at the bus driver and someone with access to the info made the connection.

  8. John Kraephammer Avatar
    John Kraephammer

    Reporting of the dead purse guy absolutely did lament that he was turning his life around…. even though in this purse snatch he beat a little immigrant cleaning lady.

    As we progress into modernity here it is actually my sense that you don’t hear of brutal, feral street crime as much as we used to. I would say that being a thug predator is a very dicey aspect in the age of cc…. and I would guess robbery doesn’t pay very well in today’s economics.

  9. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    John, you correctly note we don’t hear of brutal, feral street crime as much as we used to. I question whether that’s because brutal, feral street crime doesn’t exist, or because word of it is being kept from us.

    But that’s silly, right? Who’d want to cover up news like that? Depends on who’s committing the crimes.

    Hypothetically, if a 19-year-old Black male shoots a little old White lady during a robbery and escapes, the Black community doesn’t want it mentioned. Makes them look bad. The cops don’t want it mentioned, makes them look bad. The Mayor and Council don’t want it mentioned, makes the city look bad and since they run the city, makes them look bad. Congresswoman Betty McCollum doesn’t want it mentioned because she’s a Democrat and so are the people running the city; makes her party look bad. Newspaper editors don’t mention it for fear they’ll be accused of racism, makes them look bad. Liberal commentators on Slate or Minn Post don’t mention it because it gives the lie to The Narrative, which makes them look bad.

    People who live outstate, or in wealthy, peaceful suburbs, who only occasionally venture downtown to well-protected destinations like sporting events, never hear of the little old lady. Out of sight, out of mind.

  10. Loren Avatar
    Loren

    Interestingly, I just read in The Highland Villager about a group of 5 youths committing a strong arm robbery on a 70 year old resident of Merriam Park, threatening to burn his house down if he reported it. But a neighbor had already noticed it and called it in. 3 young women were apprehended. All were 16 or younger. Strange that the first I heard about it was the neighborhood bi-weekly newspaper’s report of police reports.

  11. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    Some news is getting through. In the last week there have been two accounts of violent, random break-ins near by suburban ‘hood. One guy broke into the home of a woman and her young son during the day. The son was able to run next door and have a neighbor call 911, then he went back to defend his mom with a box-cutter, which was taken from him by the felon (two prior sentences for burglary and assault) and used against his mom. In another the criminal yanked the window a/c unit out and tried to come through the window. Once in the house, the tenant fought the guy off with a kitchen knife (after the criminal threatened to kill him and his wife for calling 911). Oh, and there was that piece of (work) who was just arrested in St. Paul after targeting several homes of illegal immigrants because he knew they’d probably have cash on hand and weren’t likely to call the police. He assaulted anyone who was in the home, and wasn’t concerned about stealth.

    The first two incidents appear, so far, to be completely random. The homes weren’t people were selling drugs or involved in crime, the residents were unknown to the attackers, and are in “safe” neighborhoods. I’m thinking some newspaper editor is going to be having a “Come to Bloomberg” meeting really soon.

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