Armed deliveryman shoots a violent robber in self defense

[Bold Lib]

Police say that the 40 year old deliveryman was making a delivery on the 1200 block of North 13th Street at about 10:30 PM, in Harrisburg, PA, when a pair of robbers punched him in the face and began beating him with a glass bottle, as part of a robbery attempt. The deliveryman is said to have grabbed his self defense gun and fired, striking one of the suspects and sending both fleeing. Police later apprehended a 16 year old male, who was suffering from a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the shoulder, and charged the juvenile with robbery and conspiracy, according to news reports. Police are continuing to seek the second suspect.
http://www.examiner.com/self-defense-in-national/armed-deliveryman-shoots-a-violent-robber-self-defense

I wonder if the deliveryman was legal to carry. In any case it is probably very fortunate that he had the gun with him.

[louis-t]

1. I always wonder about that but you rarely hear the answer.

It would be a shame if he were brought up on charges for successfully defending himself.

[Mike K]

8. An Eminent Example of Self Defense:

I'm reminded of Bernhard Goetz, a timid electronics technician who used the New York City subway system late in the evenings when traveling to and from hospitals where he serviced X-Ray equipment. He had been mugged twice, both times robbed of cash and expensive electronic testing gear, and once he was beaten.

When the City refused to issue him a carry permit Goetz went to New Hampshire for a weekend firearms training course and he purchased a .38, which he carried in defiance of New York's rigid anti-gun law. About eighteen months after his last mugging he was riding in an empty subway car at 1:30 AM when five young men, moving from car to car, sat down surrounding him in a manner familiar to him and began asking him for money. When he refused, their request changed to demands and threats of violence.

When three of the men stood up and approached him in a menacing manner Goetz also rose and drawing his revolver shot all three of them once each. When the train pulled into a station he shot one of the wounded muggers, who was lying face down, in the back on his way out the door and he disappeared into the New York City night.

Because all three of the young men, all of whom survived the shooting, had juvenile records for assault and robbery it became clear after a police investigation that they were shot by an armed citizen in self-defense. The event quickly became a media sensation during which the elusive "Subway Shooter" became a folk hero, not only in New York City but in every city across the Country where street crime is a problem.

After nine weeks Goetz decided (foolishly, in popular opinion) to turn himself in and rely on widespread public approval of his action to impede prosecution -- which probably would have worked were it not for his stupid mistake in shooting the wounded mugger a second and clearly unnecessary time. Ultimately he paid for that mistake with a year on Rikers Island, which was still a relatively mild punishment considering his brazen defiance of the strict gun law and an action which could have carried the full penalty for an attempted murder conviction.

Goetz explained the pivotal fourth shot as a compulsive response to the rage he felt as recollection of the two muggings he'd suffered in the past came to mind. His lawyers entered a plea of "Momentary Insanity." A psychiatrist affirmed the condition and the prosecution acknowledged public support of Goetz by not contesting the plea.

I was disappointed that Goetz fired that fourth shot because it would have been interesting to learn how the court would have dealt with the tremendous public support of Goetz's justifiable action in defending himself with an "illegal" weapon.

Goetz had been mugged twice. He'd reported both incidents. His occupation required him to ride the subways and to move about the City late at night. But his request for a gun license was rejected. In effect the City was saying it's too bad if you get mugged again, or killed, and it's too bad that our police services are unable to protect you. But you can't have a gun.

If not for that redundant fourth shot one can only wonder what impact the Goetz case might have had on New York City's infamous Sullivan (anti-gun) Law.

[GreenStormCloud]

16. Some corrections to your account.

Goetz had been mugged once.

Goetz got the gun from family in Florida.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz
While transporting electronic equipment in 1981, Goetz was attacked in the Canal Street subway station by three youths who tried to steal the equipment and his sheepskin jacket.<7> They smashed him into a plate-glass door and threw him to the ground, causing chest and knee injuries. Goetz assisted an off-duty officer in arresting one of them, but was angered when his attacker spent less time in the police station than he did, then was further angered when his attacker was charged only with criminal mischief, for ripping the jacket

In the early afternoon of Saturday, December 22, 1984, four young black men from The Bronx — Barry Allen, 19; Troy Canty, 19; James Ramseur, 18; and Darrell Cabey, 19 — boarded a downtown No. 2 express train apparently on a mission to steal money from video arcade machines in Manhattan.<10> When the train arrived at the 14th Street station in Manhattan, 15 to 20 other passengers remained with them in subway car 7657,<11><12> the seventh car of the ten-car train.<13><14>

Canty testified at the criminal trial that he was panhandling, although eyewitness testimony generally agreed that the four men were aggressive and threatening.

Prior to the criminal trial the media reported that Cabey had been shot on the fourth shot and then again on the fifth shot, with Goetz saying, "You don't look too bad, here's another." or "You seem all right, here's another."<16> This sequence of shots was discredited at the criminal trial when it was revealed that Cabey was shot once in the left side

Eight other independent witnesses testified that all shots came in "rapid succession";<14> one of these said the firing lasted "about a second".<13> None of the eight heard a pause before the final shot, and none saw Goetz standing in front of Cabey.<13>

The terrified passengers ran to the other end and out of the car, leaving behind the two women who had been closest to the shooting, fallen or knocked down by the exodus, and immobilized by fear. Goetz talked to them to make sure they were not injured, then was approached by the conductor of the train. Goetz stated "They tried to rob me."<13>

On December 26, an anonymous hotline caller told New York City police that Goetz matched the gunman's description, owned a gun, and had been mugged previously.<25><26> In a December 29 telephone call to a neighbor, Goetz learned that police had come by his apartment looking for him, and had left notes asking to be contacted as soon as possible.<15>

He was acquitted of the attempted murder and first-degree assault charges and convicted of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree – carrying a loaded, unlicensed weapon in a public place

Goetz was wise to surrender. The police were beginning to close in on him.

[frebrd]

2. Good for him! The linked article says "a Chinese food deliveryman".........

If the man himself was Chinese, the stupid kids probably thought (mistakenly) that he would be a pushover. Live and learn.

:)

[SteveM]

4. Not wanting to stumble into any "good stereotypes," don't screw with ...

any Asian shop-owner. There are just too many of those crappy B & W videos with the sudden flashes coming from an Asian citizen's .38 to escape the half-way literate thug.

Another argument for a well-rounded education.

[jazzhound]

5. Recall the film footage of Korean store owners on their

rooftops with "assault weapons" during the Rodney King riots. Their stores were the ones that weren't looted and burned.

[Bold Lib]

7. I remember watching that on TV.

[cowman]

13. I well remember that

when during the riots in NLV because of the Rodney King verdict, we were put on standby and when they started to burn their neighborhoods we assisted the NLV Fire Dept and where shot at, Our Engine recieved 2 bullet holes and I remember the next day ole Al Sharpton said that no one fired at the Fire Engines and he sure looked like an asshole when the news stations showed the 2 bullet holes in our Engine and and also show a video of a rioter shooting at Fire and Police, we were actually issued bullet resitant vests which got me quite worried.

[Callisto32]

9. Which raises the question...

why aren't those cameras upgraded. We have pornography in resolutions greater than visible by the human eye, but they can't get decent camera tech into the (private) surveillance, role.

[Euromutt]

10. Probably a matter of storage

The cameras themselves might have perfectly decent resolution, but storing it is going to guzzle memory. And since surveillance footage typically consists of large amounts of nothing of interest happening, nobody's willing to shell out for the amount of memory you'd need to keep the footage at a good resolution.

[DissedByBush]

14. Costs are going down

But replacement will be slow.

Modern surveillance systems excel at conserving space since they can easily be motion activated.

Even if they record 24/7 modern codecs use little storage for the hours of non-movement you'd normally find in such a tape. A guy walking through a store takes very little data since it records only the changes caused by his path, not constant recording of the entire frame, every frame.

Modern codecs compress far more than old ones while retaining superior quality, but they require computing power not available back then. These days you need no more computing power than is found in a smart phone to record and compress one high-definition video stream.

That plus storage is cheap these days. A one terabyte drive costs much less than the 540 megabyte drive I bought 15 years ago.

[Callisto32]

15. I should have been clearer.

It was a comment on my view of the general priorities of people.

Kinda like this: When I was in college I worked at a gas station for a while. This was the same time when gas was doing its dance up to four dollars. Every day, lots of guys would come in and bitch about the price of gas. Almost invariably, they were driving a full-size pickup truck with no dirt on it, no load in the bed, and one person in the cab. The options were there, but their priority was to have the weird local "status symbol" of a giant pickup. Rather than do the practical thing they preferred something else.

I guess I just wish people were more practical.

[ManiacJoe]

11. Quality costs money.

Most folks do not want to spend the bucks on "just in case" tools.

[SteveM]

3. According to Pennsylvania Law...

http://crime.about.com/od/gunlawsbystate/a/gunlaws_pa_2.htm


"Any person carrying a handgun in any vehicle or concealed on or about his person’ is required to have a license to carry or a Sportsman’s Firearm Permit (good only for hunting, fishing, trapping and dog training)."

Then there is always the possibility that an employer will require an employee go about unarmed, unless the worker is contract labor.

[Bold Lib]

6. Thanks for the info.

[proteus_lives]

12. Good for him. I hope he recovers.

[cleanhippie]

17. But, those were CHILDREN he was shootong at!!!!!!!

What about the CHHIIILLLDDDRRREEEEENNN??????

[X_Digger]

18. You forgot the obligatory lovejoy.. ;-)