When helping others may be hazardous to your freedom

 

Friend of the blog Lawdog has written an emotive and (I think) very important article titled "Meditations On Duty".  Here are a few excerpts.

Every day we are bombarded with news articles about District Attorneys campaigning for “No bail requirements”, “Reduced sentencing”, “Alternate sentencing”, all of which appears — in some cases outrighted stated — to give felons and habitual criminals a leg up.

We are continually shown footage of riots in major cities and at universities where the rioters arsonists, and violent thugs are treated with kid gloves.

Just or otherwise, there is a very definite perception that District Attorneys would much rather throw the book at someone with no previous criminal history, while the felons and violent thugs get deals.

On the other paw, for a man to be even hinted at any variety of sexual offence, whether it be harassment or outright rape, is to be guilty until proven innocent.

And to certain parts of the howling Internet mobs you can never be innocent — and they will make it a crusade to destroy your life.

. . .

I find myself in a position that I’ve never been in before. All of my life I have known that if people needed to be helped, I should help them — I’ve literally been a Boy Scout. All of my adult life I have known that if there is gun-fire, I will run to that sound and protect people.

I … don’t know anymore.

It’s already started. If Rita isn’t with me, I will not stop to help a female stranger, or children. I will call local law enforcement and have them sent there, but without Rita being present I will not offer aid on my own. That goes double if there are children involved.

And that mortifies me, but the risk of having my life destroyed with false allegations is not worth it.

For the first time in my life I do not know what I will do if gunfire erupts in a public place where I am.

If a spree shooter attacks a public place where I am, or am near — I will get family and friends to safety, but after that I literally do not know.

Do I run to the sound of gunfire and solve the problem? I’ve already been the victim of wrongful prosecution once, do I risk that again? Do I take a chance going up against a protected class, and earning the “mostly peaceful” wrath of the howling mob, and a legacy media that lives for stirring up rioters?

There's more at the link.  Go read the whole thing.  It's worth your time.

Remember, too, that Lawdog is a retired officer of the law.  He's spent a career fighting crime and criminals.  If he, in his position, is no longer certain that he can engage evildoers without being tarred with their brush by a politically correct or "woke" justice system, how much more so should we, private citizens, be worried about the same reality?  We can't claim prior and extensive experience in dealing with crime to justify our intervening to help its victims.  We don't have the "protection", in the eyes of the law, that Lawdog has.

Today, we have to accept that in very large parts of these United States the justice system has been warped and twisted along "woke" lines, so that it today protects the politically correct cause du jour and its adherents.  If one doesn't belong to that group, one is almost automatically at greater risk from the authorities, irrespective of the facts of the situation.  Over the past few years I've written a number of articles about this conundrum.  In case you missed any of them, I'll link them below.  I highly recommend that you take time to read them and think about them, because the situations they describe might confront you at any time in this crazy world we live in.

Self-defense under a justice system

that's no longer on your side

No, I wasn't being alarmist -

rather, I wasn't alarmist enough

Updating and revising our approach to self-defense:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

What happens if you can't trust

the police to do their job?

In particular, note the problems involved in trying to remain anonymous if you live in a "woke" judicial environment, and don't want to be connected to otherwise legitimate acts of self-defense.  The first article in the list above addresses that issue.  Also, I've said before that a revolver is no longer the optimum choice as a personal defense weapon, because it holds too few rounds to deal with a mob or gang situation.  That remains true:  but there's a countervailing argument that unlike a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver doesn't spit out cartridge cases all over the scene, which can later be analyzed.  There's something to be said for that if you're in a hostile, unreasonable, biased prosecutorial environment.  To make up for the limited number of rounds in a revolver, carry one chambered for the biggest, most powerful cartridge one can control in rapid, aimed fire.  Hitting harder is seldom a bad idea in defensive shooting.

Suffice it to say that in a prosecutorial environment that's as (or more) likely to punish the good guy as the bad, discretion is our watchword.  If, despite that, we choose to intervene, we'd better do so with our eyes wide open as to what trouble that may bring down on our heads.  We should have a good lawyer on speed dial, and refuse to say anything unless and until he/she is with us and has had an opportunity to brief us.  Furthermore, we should minimize the ease with which rogue prosecutors and shyster lawyers can go after us.  This does not include tampering with evidence (which is a crime in itself), but simply observing due caution and discretion is never a bad thing.  Our defense attorneys will thank us for that.

Finally, no matter why or how we've intervened, don't speak to police or anyone else after such an incident unless and until our lawyer(s) has/have interviewed us and briefed us about what may, or should not, be said.  It's too easy to talk ourselves into a jail cell!  Here's a law professor's view of that, and Massad Ayoob's limited corollary to that perspective.  Both are worth watching in full.

Food for thought.

Peter