Black Friday Robbery & a newbie...

[Gracegarden]

I'm in the 'waiting room' now, finally! But recently something happened that has set my head to spinning. While I now am able to take copious amounts of humor regarding my thoughts and actions,for two weeks I was nothing but serious, confused, and searching for information, wisdom and a peaceful night's rest.

My husband and I recently took (and passed) our chl class. About a week after that we went out to McBride's and decided to buy our guns. We had our range instructor meet us there to take advantage of his wisdom. My husband liked the suggested Glock (although he did purchase the one with the night sites) I was not sure about the weight and size, nor did I like the small feeling of the Baby Glock. I eventually decided on the XD sub-compact, it has an extended magazine which carries more, plus it makes the grip just perfect ... and I got the two-toned black and stainless...I'm really smiling here!

We contacted our range instructer again and spent another day at the range. We practiced so many things, over and over and over again But at least I felt a little more confident.

Black Friday we decided to go to Academy on Brodie Ln (Austin) to stock up on ammo. We don't like the crowds so we didn't make it there until about 8:30pm. We parked the car and walked up toward the door, I turned around to secretly smirk at the couple walking behind us. She was wearing a winter scarf and mittens ~~ in November, in Austin! (We are both from up north.)
Anyway...
I faced front again and so many thoughts went through my head... "why is the greeter backing away?" "Why are those other fools wearing hats and running into the store so fast?" "It IS NOT that COLD!" "Why is the greeter waving his arms up in the air?" "What is so interesting in the front corner?!" "Gun Safes must be the big gift this year!" "Why in the heck is my loving husband yelling at me and pushing me?!!!" "What did I do wrong?" "Quit yelling at me!!" "God, he's cranky tonight, I should've left him home!" "What a great deal on ammo, I bet it has all been sold." "Oooh, another great sale, that must be why all those people are running for the back of the store!"

It is fascinating how many thoughts we can have all in a matter of moments!
I finally snapped to.
My husband was pushing me away, screaming at me to run to the car! The greeter had his hands up, the "cold" kids were wearing ski masks, the customers were huddling in the back of the store, the gun safes at the front of the store hand been replaced with the money safe for ease of holiday shopping.
We heard the gunshot when we were almost back to the car.
The kids came running back out with a duffle bag and climbed into a car parked directly across from us, but one lane over. We saw the whole thing.

I immediately called 911, before they even made it back to their car. I talked my dh into following them. We were on the phone with APD the whole time we followed the car. Some other interesting and not so interesting things happened after that, including reports, phone calls, helping id the BGs...
Part 2 will be my thoughts on the evening as a 'waiting' CH carrier.

[atxgun]

And I thought I had cut it close. I was there just a couple hours before it happened.

[longtooth]

When giving a true story such as this please post the news article or other documentation.
It helps those who follow the thread to keep up w/ new developments & stops anyone wondering about authenticity. (I wish it were not so but we have had a few in the past spin a few yarns.)
Longtooth & Mod staff.

[Excaliber]

When giving a true story such as this please post the news article or other documentation.
It helps those who follow the thread to keep up w/ new developments & stops anyone wondering about authenticity. (I wish it were not so but we have had a few in the past spin a few yarns.)
Longtooth & Mod staff.

This article appears to match the circumstances described in the original post.

Here's an update.

[Purplehood]

I thought that she WAS the story.

[Skiprr]

This article appears to match the circumstances described in the original post.

Here's an update.

Wow. We now have four separate topics going about this incident. Gonna be tough to keep up with.

When I posted (back in the OP Forum) the second link that Excaliber provided above to KEYE TV, I didn't make note of two things that I think may be important.

Police are also looking for a second vehicle, an older model, dark colored Toyota Pathfinder. Police say two men in that car were helping as lookouts.

To me, this reinforces that it's generally a very bad idea to give chase to multiple armed felons, particularly if the only thing at stake is the loss of property. If the four ski-masked men in the Acura had dragged a hostage into the car with them, that obviously changes the playing field. But as it was, no shots were fired, no one was injured, and the VCAs held no one at gun point as they fled.

In the OP, no mention was made of this second Toyota that police have identified as a lookout vehicle. My guess is that our member and her husband were unaware of the two additional men in the Pathfinder.

The robbery sounds like it was the work of a group of very young men, at least one of whom is probably a disgruntled former employee. But had these been hardened criminals, pursuing the Acura (with at least three known guns inside) may very easily have resulted in armed accomplices also following in the Pathfinder, unbeknownst to our Forum member. Even if there was no direct confrontation that night, remember that vehicle identification can work both ways: the men in the Pathfinder (or even in the Acura, for that matter) could have obtained plate numbers and a description of the pursuers. A quick online trip to a site like PublicData.com has a fair chance of matching vehicle registration to a name and mailing address.

Unless a life is in jeopardy, a pursuit like this is not worth the risk. As a non-LEO civilian, you have no duty or moral responsibility (IMHO, but I'm repeating it) to put your life on the line to help Academy Sports & Outdoors recover a day's receipts.

Shoppers were in the store, but luckily no shots were fired and no one was hurt.

The OP noted, "We heard the gunshot when we were almost back to the car." Obviously, an individual's reaction to the described circumstances could change dramatically depending upon whether or not shots were actually fired. When I replied to Gracegarden in the original thread, I was going off the news stories I'd looked up, none of which indicated a firearm was discharged.

This may also be an observation regarding situational awareness from which we can all take a lesson. The current issue of Force Science News discusses studies on memory in officer-involved shootings. This is issue #112, 20 Dec; however, #102 is the most recent one posted to their Website, for some reason. A PDF of one of the studies mentioned is available here, from the British Psychological Society.

At the outset, the Guidelines present a list of "key points" about memory that are vital for participants in the legal system to understand. These include:

• Memories, unlike video or audio recordings, are not exact replications of events;
• Memories are shaped by the life experiences, training, biases, and attitudes that a person brings to the situation;
• Memories are fragmented and always incomplete;
• Memories are prone to error and are easily influenced by the environment in which they are recalled;
• The retention of highly specific details in long-term memory is unusual;
• Memories can be unwittingly modified by the type of questioning used to elicit them;
• Without trying to be deceptive, people can "remember" events that they have not actually experienced.

The observations about "memories are inexact and fragmented" seems pretty obvious. One of those, "You needed a funded study to come up that?" sort of things.

But something I can take away seems obvious after-the-fact, but I may not have fully intellectualized it before. Our own training, experience, and attitudes affect us in two ways. The first is what's called "psychological set." Essentially, this can be distilled down to, "You perceive what you expect to perceive." The sum of our past experiences frames the context of what we're going to experience next. Stated more correctly, "Context-sensitive mental processes follow a direction matching the assumed context."

A pertinent example here may be that someone who has been around a significant amount of gunfire in their lives may have a different sort of "context filter" applied to gunfire-like sounds than someone who has not. How many news stories about shootings have you read where the interviewee said, "I thought it was firecrackers going off"?

Another example would be comparing an experienced LEO like Excaliber to a man without that experience when talking to, say, the teenaged guy coming to pick up his daughter for a first date. My money would be on Excaliber's "context filter" to be much more highly refined and to pick up on a whole bunch of subtleties that wouldn't even register to the average Joe.

I'd never really thought about it before, but the "context filter" is applied twice: both in filtering perceptions about what's happening right now, and later when that event is recalled from memory...making a truly objective memory an impossibility.

Sorry to get all woo-woo on ya, but I learned something here and thought I'd ramble out loud about it.

[Excaliber]

Great post, Skiprr - especially the info on memory.

To further complicate the issue, during a life threatening encounter, the adrenaline dump and accelerated heart rate will induce perceptual distortions like tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, tachypsychia, and other non helpful effects.

This is one of the reasons why it is unwise to try to answer detailed interview questions immediately after a deadly force incident, and to make an appointment to give a full statement later or the next day with an attorney present. Giving perfectly truthful answers as you remember the events while your heart is still pounding and your legs are shaking may not square with the forensic evidence regarding things like distances, time frames, numbers of shots, etc. through no fault of your own, and could cast doubt on your credibility simply because of the psychophysiological effects of being in a life threatening situation.