Anyone Seen or Heard This Story?

[MathGeek]

Originally Posted by Finfeatherfur

Noticed several things in this video and several LEO website forums are filling with critiques. For clarification, he was on the phone for 7 minutes with 911 before being pulled from SUV and assualted, thus DA will have a hard time getting grand jury to indict driver. Motorcycle riders committed several crimes before incident where he ran over bikes and rider. And, I feel certain he will have to move and relocate to protect him and his family from additional violence due to "thug" mentality of this group.

I'd have more confidence in a positive legal outcome in Louisiana than I would in New York.

None of them have made the national news, but I've had opportunity to review some cases where parents used a vehicle to help get their children out of a threatening situation. I've known cases where the parent driving the vehicle gets charged with a felony even though they managed to completely avoid any physical confrontation and no one was injured.

A lot depends on the details of a state's self-defense laws, the political biases of the prosecutor, and what the prosecutor can find witnesses at the scene to say. With lots of witnesses, indictments are easy to get, because one has a better chance of finding a witness portraying the actions in an unfavorable light to the driver.

No one disagrees that an automobile is a potentially deadly weapon, so the self-defense laws of the state are important. In many states, justification for the use of a deadly weapon does not preclude charging or indicting the user. Police and investigators with certain biases often find it easy enough not to look for exculpatory evidence, and put the full burden of collecting evidence for an affirmative defense on the defendant.

In states with defense laws and prosecutor attitudes that frown on use of firearms in personal defense (or defense of one's children), use of other powerful tools (knives, automobiles, other improvisations) are likely to be frowned on as well. If there is a chance of seating a jury who might be complicit with the mindset that calling 911 and waiting for authorities is always the best answer, proactive defensive measures seem to demonstrate a distrust in the abilities of the government to solve the problem. If any politically incorrect motive can possible be assigned to proactive defensive measures, the pressure to prosecute will be even greater.