Situational question - Legal to draw?

[pbwalker]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6087753.html

AUSTIN — A woman has been charged with child endangerment, a state jail felony, for beating her 4-year-old daughter before throwing her into the path of an oncoming vehicle, police said.

The driver of the brown Suburban braked and did not strike the child.

Aurelia Gallardo, 24, could face up to 20 years if convicted. Bail was set at $25,000.

Lt. Dana Brockington with the Austin Police Department told The Associated Press early Friday he did not know whether Gallardo had an attorney.

When the incident happened Tuesday, Gallardo and her three children were waiting for a city bus.

A witness at the bus stop told police he saw Gallardo lift her daughter by the arm so forcefully that he thought the girl's arm "was going to dislocate out of the socket." The witness told police that Gallardo then violently threw the girl into the street and pulled her by her hair before throwing her into a parked vehicle, according to an arrest affidavit.

The witness said Gallardo told her daughter, "You are dead to me" and "You are a slut."

"It's pretty outrageous when a parent loses composure to that degree," said police Sgt. Brian Loyd of the child abuse investigation unit in a story for Friday's online edition of the Austin American-Statesman. "We see some bad stuff on our unit, but this is new for us."

Once Gallardo boarded the bus, according to the affidavit, the bus driver said the woman was "yelling every four-letter word known" at the 4-year-old and was telling the girl that "CPS would take her away and that no one would want her."

Police stopped the city bus and took Gallardo into custody, Loyd said.

Loyd said the three children are in the custody of Child Protective Services.

I grew up in an abusive family (thank the good Lord for my Mother who did what she had to do to protect us and get us out of it). I could not sit by and watch this happen. Would a CHLer be justified in drawing their weapon to stop this beast from hurting this child?

[bdickens]

Legal? You should get a medal and a parade through downtown for plugging a sorry excuse like Gallardo!

[seamusTX]

Remember "when and to the degree necessary"?

Unless the woman is unusually muscled up or you are disabled, I think most people could take the child away from the woman.

Someone who is berserk (as this woman clearly was) and possibly intoxicated, may not obey your orders even when you are capable of backing up with deadly force. People in that condition have been known to charge police officers.

What are you going to do if the woman fails to comply? She is holding the kid that you're trying to save. The backdrop is a busy street.

Of course, if you do try to take the child to safety and the woman attacks you, it's a different situation; but you've still got a very hazardous environment for shooting.

- Jim

[j_dock2]

The emotionally satisfying answer is "sure, you can draw in that situation." Clearly this was a less-than-wonderful mother and I think anyone with more than a trace of empathy would be justifiably horrified and quite enraged. That means you're human and normal.

However, I'd wait for someone better versed in the law to chime in, as I am not only NOT a lawyer, I have a week yet 'till my CHL class.

I can already see this one as fraught with legal peril though. Worst case would likely be that the weapon holder gets portrayed as an attempted armed kidnapper... yes, we do live in that kind of a world.

[seamusTX]

Worst case would likely be that the weapon holder gets portrayed as an attempted armed kidnapper...

That's a good point. If there are witnesses, they are going to call 911, and they are going to report a "man with a gun."

If the woman is crafty, she could tell the police that you were trying to kidnap the child and she was trying to get the child away from you. (I'm speaking hypothetically here, but such things have happened).

At best, all your plans for that day would be canceled.

- Jim

[stroo]

Calling the police is a much better option.

[seamusTX]

Calling 911 is certainly appropriate.

However, this woman was (according to this news report) putting her daughter in immediate danger of her life and well-being. In that case, some kind of intervention is justified and (IMHO) morally required.

The question, is what is the best form of intervention?

- Jim

[Excaliber]

Calling 911 is certainly appropriate.

However, this woman was (according to this news report) putting her daughter in immediate danger of her life and well-being. In that case, some kind of intervention is justified and (IMHO) morally required.

The question, is what is the best form of intervention?

- Jim

If you tried to intervene alone, here's the way it would most likely go down:

You'd start by calling police and initiating a verbal intervention which would most likely redirect the mother's invective, abuse, and physical attacks toward you. You would have to then be prepared to physically tussle with and subdue her, during which process she would do her best to bite, scratch, spit, and otherwise try to damage you any way she could while screaming that you were attacking her and pleading for help from passersby. To protect yourself, you would have to take her to the ground and keep her there in a restraining hold until police arrived while trying to explain you're the good guy to a growing angry crowd of bystanders who would be inclined to believe her over you as the little girl screamed "Stop hurting my mommy!" and kicked, scratched, and bit you.

That's the likely best case scenario. If the bystanders got sufficiently agitated, they'd move in to "rescue" the mom. It'd be ugly, and it would probably not end happily for you.

To make it survivable, you'd need to enlist the help of other bystanders to help restrain the mom and explain what is actually happening to late arriving spectators until the police arrived.

[seamusTX]

I wouldn't call that the best-case scenario. The best-case scenario is that you tell her to stop, and she does.

Pretty much anything else can happen, including her screaming Rape or pulling a knife on you.

I can't see standing there and watching someone throw a child under a bus, although that did not actually happen in this case. Sometimes you have to take chances or else find it difficult to sleep at night.

- Jim

[HighVelocity]

Ever see the footage of LT hitting Joe Thiesman so hard that it ended Joe's football career? You would have seen a reinactment of it had I been at that bus stop.

[j_dock2]

This is a really good thought exercise for everyone.

If engagement was desired, probably an unarmed intervention would be the best "first contact."

If one were particularly twisted, you could have really caught her off guard with something like "oh man. Are you really gonna kill your little girl? Can I watch? This is going to be great!"

Of course the intent is NOT to get the little girl killed, the idea is to throw the mother off balance mentally - and if you're lucky, you kick-start some kind of maternal instinct by being an outside threat weirdo. This could have its own problems, I realize.

Just thinking outside the box, as the kids like to say.

[seamusTX]

You could be right, but everything I've read about this kind of situation says that you should use short commands like Stop, Freeze, Drop It, Hands Up, and that sort of thing

People lose the ability to process complex language when they're under stress (even if it is self-imposed stress). I've actually been there a couple of times, and had to ask someone to rephrase what they said in simple words and short sentences.

- Jim

[j_dock2]

You're almost certainly right, I was just trying out a substantially unorthodox approach. Gets my brain cell workin' real good!

[bryang]

This is a very interesting situation. I don't think I would draw my weapon on her, for reasons already stated, but I could not just stand by and watch her abuse that little 4 year old girl to the extent that she was. I think I would start by call the police and then with the voice commands trying to distract her. I would at the same time try and enlist some of the others to get involved and help to restrain her and get the child to safety until the police arrived.

-geo

[Excaliber]

You could be right, but everything I've read about this kind of situation says that you should use short commands like Stop, Freeze, Drop It, Hands Up, and that sort of thing

People lose the ability to process complex language when they're under stress (even if it is self-imposed stress). I've actually been there a couple of times, and had to ask someone to rephrase what they said in simple words and short sentences.

- Jim

In general, that's true and in a situation like the one described, it would be worthwhile to try something like "Stop hurting her" as the initial verbal intervention. This technique works with bandits, burglars, and thieves, but isn't nearly as successful with highly agitated people. They generally don't calm down, and will quickly refocus their rage on anyone who annoys them. They don't respond to rational suggestion, and their rage usually continues until they are physically spent and they calm down on their own, more out of exhaustion than rationality. The reason is that they are frequently under the influence of either mind altering substances or serious mental illness, and do not see the world as a sober and sane person does.

The type of reaction I described in my earlier post is far more likely than submission and compliance, and it is what I would expect and be prepared to deal with if I attempted a direct intervention in a situation like this. If she just did as I said and deescalated on her own, I'd know for sure it was my lucky day and I'd head straight to the nearest stop and rob for a fistful of lottery tickets.