East Atlanta Robber Shot and Killed By Armed Victim
Decatur Metro | January 15, 2009 | 9:30 amIn light of all of our recent conversations about the safety and security aspects of owning/carrying a gun after the death of the Standard’s John Henderson, this new report about a potential victim killing his assailant across from the Graveyard Tavern in East Atlanta is frighteningly timely.
Madness. Utter madness.
What else is there to say about this?
ummm…I would say that this is great news. A legally armed homeowner protecting his life, liberty and happiness with a firearm, and in the process saving more people from this predator.
Which part did you think was madness? Utter madness?
Could you please expand your comment?
i say its madness just as a sign of the times…scary really, doesnt seem like crime was this bad a year ago at this time…
Awesome. Seriously, that made my day.
Made my day too. Isn’t that a Dirty Harry line?
Great news?
Great news is “Couple leaves bar, drive home, walk dog, have sex, go to work next day.”
Great news is not “Couple leaves bar, kills would-be robber.”
I’m glad he was able to defend himself and the person with him. Assuming the initial reports are true, I commend him for doing what he needed to do to get out of a harrowing situation uninjured.
But this is not great news. It’s sad and frightening news.
To everyone who thinks this is “awesome” and that “it made [your] day”:
How is the loss of human life awesome? Could you expound on this a little more. I’m confused.
This is real life, not some hollywood vengeance flick! It’s so exciting to read about, but the would-be victim has to deal with the fact that he killed someone for the rest of his life. It may have been justified, but it is no badge of honor, and I’m sure it doesn’t feel good. A mother lost her son. A son or daughter may have lost their father. How is this awesome?
Please refrain from self-righteous responses…for the love of God!
You know what’s even more awesome? It’s jbgotcha’s self-righteous response, which concludes with a request for no self-righteous responses. That’s awesome right there!
jbgotcha – it is awesome because I think it is awesome. It is also awesome because it demonstrates the very real possibility that criminals could come across deadly consequences for their actions.
One less hooligan off the streets, out of overcrowded jails, and a broken criminal justice system. Less than $50 and about 3 weeks is all it takes for you to legally carry a concealed weapon. I have one in my car and on my hip when I am in Decatur. We don’t want this city becoming a wild west town, but criminals will be less likely to start something if they know their mark may be armed. Death is a good deterrent.
Keep in mind the would-be victim did the right thing: defended themselves and their loved ones from potential harm. You should not be a victim if you can avoid it. One can only hope this was the perp who shot John Henderson.
“A mother lost her son. A son or daughter may have lost their father.”
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Good! I am sure he was an exemplary father figure! I am sure he read to his kids and mowed his moms lawn. I am sure he was an upstanding member of the community, just “down on his luck” cause he probably went to a government school that just kept processing him through the system when he probably couldn’t even read.
Yeah….that’s it.
Oh, and I bet the guy who did it is calling up all his buddies saying “Did you see what happened last night? That was ME!!!”
I remind everyone to show respect for the opinions of other posters.
If you want to laugh at others’ opinions because you feel like you have personally figured out all the correct answers to the morality questions surrounding life and death, you’ll have to find another place to do it.
All opinions are welcomed here. However, a lack of respect for others is not.
E:
I can see how my post was self-righteous. I can take that criticism.
I think criminals know that there can be deadly consequences for their actions. They may not be professional risk-assessors, however.
Even “bad guys” have someone in their lives that love them. I’m not saying this person was an upstanding citizen or anything like that. I just don’t think you are respecting the gravity of this situation. Maybe you think it’s “edgy” to be the guy/girl who thinks someone getting killed is awesome. I don’t know. I just wanted some insight into your callous attitude.
I stand by my statements. Disagree if you want. I hope others look at this with seriousness as well.
jbgotcha,
Bygones. I understand what you are saying, but I cannot help but be pleased at the outcome of this particular incident. The good guy prevailed over the bad guy. And I don’t underestimate the gravity of the situation – an armed man with bad intentions approached a couple sitting in their car in a relatively civilized part of town. That’s serious stuff. We don’t want any of that. Some really bad stuff could have happened. Fortunately it turned out as it did, given the range of alternative outcomes.
I agree with E.
While never happy to hear about loss of life, I do applaud the homeowner and hope the incident doesn’t scar or sour them.
Count me in the group that believes that we ALL have choices to make in our lives and that includes criminal. The minute that person chose to infringe/threaten/etc. another person is the minute that my sympathy for them…regardless of the outcome…ceases. Call it callous if you like.
The AJC has more details about the shooting in East Atlanta last night.
http://tinyurl.com/7gwobe
Two things that caught my eye:
1. The robbery victim wasn’t happy. He was shaken and sickened by what happened.
2. He appears to have had some at least some training handling and shooting firearms.
There’s no suggestion it was a “great” thing for anyone involved. It’s great that he and his date are uninjured, but one gets the feeling that “Remember the time we went swing dancing and I had to shoot and kill a man” isn’t going to rank among his happiest memories.
Very serious indeed.
Fear breeds violence and violence breeds fear. Its a never ending cycle. I found a great writing by Krishnamurti that talks about fear. Enjoy.
—————————————————–
How can we find new ways of solving problems when we currently solve problems based on thought, which is always old?
How can we be free to look and learn when our minds from the moment we are born to the moment we die are shaped by a particular culture in the narrow pattern of the ‘me’?
For centuries we have been conditioned by nationality, caste, class, tradition, religion, language, education, literature, art, custom, convention, propaganda of all kinds, economic pressure, the food we eat, the climate we live in, our family, our friends, our experiences—every influence you can think of—and therefore our responses to every problem are conditioned.
Are you aware that you are conditioned?
This is the first thing to ask yourself, not how to be free of your conditioning. You may never be free of it, and if you say, “I must be free of it” you fall into another trap of another form of conditioning. So are you aware that you are conditioned? Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say “ This is an oak tree”, or “that is a banyan tree”, the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge, has so conditioned your mind that the word comes between you and actually seeing the tree? To come in contact with the tree you have to put your hand on it and the word will not help you to touch it.
How do you know you are conditioned? What tells you? What tells you you are hungry? —not as a theory but the actual fact of hunger? In the same way, how to you discover the actual fact that you are conditioned?
Isn’t it your reaction to a problem, a challenge?
You respond to every challenge as a result of your conditioning and your conditioning being inadequate will always react inadequately.
When you become aware of it, does this conditioning of race, religion, culture bring a sense of imprisonment?
Take only one form of conditioning, nationality, become seriously completely aware of it and see if you enjoy it or rebel against it, whether you want to break through all conditioning. If you are satisfied with your conditioning you will obviously do nothing about it, but if you are not satisfied when you become aware of it, you realise that you never do anything without it. Never. And therefore you are always living in the past with the dead.
You will be able to see for yourself how you are conditioned only when there is a conflict in the continuity of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. If everything is perfectly happy around you, your partner loves you, you love him or her, you have a nice house, nice children and plenty of money, then you are not aware of your conditioning at all. But when there is a disturbance—your partner looks at someone else or you lose your money or are threatened with war or any other pain or anxiety—then you know you are conditioned. When you struggle against any kind of disturbance or defend yourself against any outer or inner threat, then you know you are conditioned. And as most of us are disturbed most of the time, superficially or deeply, that very disturbance indicates that we are conditioned. So long as the animal is petted he acts nicely, but the moment he becomes antagonised the whole violence of his nature comes out.
We are disturbed about life, politics, the economic situation, the crime, the horror, the brutality, the sorrow in the world as well as in ourselves, and from that we realise how terribly narrowly conditioned we are.
And what shall we do?
Accept the disturbance and live with it as most of us do? Get used to it as one gets used to living with a backache? Put up with it?
There is a tendency in all of us to put up with things, to get used to them, to blame them on circumstances, “Ah if things were right I would be different”, we say, or, “Give me the opportunity and I will fulfil myself, or, “I am crushed by the injustice of it all!”, always blaming our disturbances on others or on our environment or the economic situation.
If one gets used to disturbance that means ones mind has become dull, just as typically one gets so used to beauty around one that one no longer notices it. One gets indifferent, hard and callous, and ones mind becomes duller and duller. If we do not get used to it we try to escape from it by taking some kind of drug, joining a political group, shouting, writing, going to a football match or to a church or finding some other form of amusement.
Why is it that we escape from actual facts? We are afraid of death—I am just taking that as an example—and we invent all kinds of theories, hopes, beliefs to disguise the fact of death, but the fact is still there. To understand a fact we must look at it, not run away from it. Most of us are afraid of living as well as dying. We are afraid for our family, afraid of public opinion, of losing our job, of crime, our security, and hundreds of other things. The simple fact is that we are all afraid, not that we are afraid of this or that.
Now why can we not face that fact?
You can face a fact only in the present and if you never allow it to be present because you are always escaping from it, you will never face it, and because we have cultivated a whole network of escapes we are caught in the habit of escape.
Now if you are at all sensitive, at all serious, you will not only be aware of your conditioning but you will also be aware of the dangers it results in, the brutality and hatred and cycle of violence it leads to. Why, then, if you see the danger of your conditioning, don’t you act? Is it because you are lazy, laziness being lack of energy? Yet you will not lack energy if you see an immediate physical danger like a snake in your path, or a precipice, or a fire.
Why, then don’t you act when you see the danger of your conditioning? If you saw the enormous danger of nationalism to your own security, wouldn’t you act?
The answer is you don’t see. Through an intellectual process of analysis you may see that nationalism leads to self-destruction but there is no emotional content in that. Only when there is emotional content do you become vital.
If you see the danger of your conditioning merely as an intellectual concept, you will never do anything about it. In seeing a danger as a mere idea there is conflict between the idea and action and the conflict takes away your energy. It is only when you see the conditioning and danger of it immediately that you act. So ‘seeing is acting’.
Most of us walk through life inattentively, reacting unthinkingly according to the environment in which we’ve been brought up, and such reactions create only further bondage, further conditioning, furthering violence but the moment you give your total attention to your conditioning you will see you are free from the past completely, that it falls away from you naturally.
-J. Krishnamurti
@Rick: I would rather act out of fear leading to violence in order to defend myself and my loved ones, knowing that if I must die, I have died in the attempt to defend myself and others. Fear is a matter of self-preservation.
I do not believe any sort of peaceful world will ever be established where the fear and violence cycle will ever stop. Not in my life time, not in my niece’s, and not as long as humans exist. Ever. It will wax and wane, but it is eternal.
I do not like killing. I do not like weapons. But they are necessary evil. Killing in self-defense is justified and is the right thing to do.
This situation, period, is horrible, but this is the world as it exists. Most people, unless they are psychopaths, do not want to kill and live with the trauma for years. Ask any war veteran.
I will let others dream of utopia. Meanwhile, I’ll choose to deal with reality as I see fit.
Hooray for this man and his girlfriend for saving their own lives! For every 1 of these stories that you read there are 20 that begin with “Couple found dead outside Atlanta tavern”. This scumbag chose his lifestyle of violence and odds are that he had no plans of changing it on his own. The deceased would have repeated this violence as long as he could avoid death or arrest. This victims instinctive assessment of the situation, and training in proper defensive firearms technique, without a doubt saved two productive lives. You can bet that this incident will have zero effect on the other violent criminals that prey on the weak, elderly or presumed unarmed, however, there is one less animal walking the street to terrorize me, my family and the law abiding public. I pray this couple can fully recover from this tramatic incident and that their lives quickly return to some sort of normality. Knowing that they have perhaps saved other innocent lives may help expidite the process.
If this happened to thugs a significant percentage of the time that they try to rob/rape innocent people, the thugs would stop doing it and find an honest way to make a living.
Bravo to the victim here! I may just go get a permit myself.
Really, stephen? It’s just that simple. A+B=C, right? If we kill enough criminals, then criminals will quit committing violent crime? Is that what you are saying? I guess you’re right. The death penalty has worked wonders on reducing violent crime, so this should work too.
The world is not black and white, or filled with only good guys and bad guys. Working for the correctional system, I have come to understand that. I encounter criminals everyday and they come in all varieties. It’s just not that simple.
Apparently the brand spanking new Tin Lizzies on Memorial, formerly Six Feet Under, was robbed this morning. A friend heard it on the police scanner earlier today.
If you take the count of criminals divided by the count of all people (to get the % of criminals), and you kill one criminal (so you pull one out of the numerator and the denominator), the percentage goes down.
Is there anything worse than an argument premised on nothing more than the “it’s not all black and white” cliche? No one could really believe that Stephen meant that increased levels of self-defense would stop ALL crime. Surely he means that if criminals perceived that attempting a crime carried with it a very substantial risk of death or grevious injuury, they’d have a huge disincentive to commit crimes. That hardly seems controversial, though you could of course argue that a gun-toting populace carries with it other risks that may not be desirable.
The death penalty comparison is a complete red herring. There’s a huge difference between the risk of being shot on the scene and the multi-year legal drama that unfolds every time the state tries to put a criminal to death.
I don’t wish to be argumentative but rather raise a few points.
I am not sure about the evidence that increasing gun carries decreases violent crime. That is not to say that it doesn’t exist, I just haven’t seen it. If we concede that this has a deterrent effect, we can probably safely assume that this does not deter everyone. The complication then is what effect does an increased probability that the person you are robbing is armed have on your behavior as the robber. I would not be surprised if the result was to increase your arousal, aggressiveness, and likelihood of using your weapon. It seems possible that even when this has a deterrent effect, that the aggregated effect of increasing the prevalence of firearms might have significant negative consequences. In particular, while I am most happy in situations where I do not get robbed, I am also happier getting robbed and not being shot, then getting robbed and shot.
I think we would be better served by greater emphasis on community policing approaches but that’s another story…
jb…perhaps you, being in the correctional system, have become a bit to close to your “clients”. Maybe you have heard their side of the story so often that you have forgotten that many of the most violent criminals that you encounter would gladly slit your throat if given the right circumstances and if the benefit of doing so would ensure them of escape or a chance of freedom. Certainly killing all violent criminals is, unforunately, an impossibilty and violent crime will continue regardless of the consequences. The type of criminal that will put a gun in a victims face, and is ready to pull the trigger, understands only one thing and that is immediate gratification; be that money, drugs, whatever. He does not fear the death sentence and for the most part fully expects his life to end violently or in a prison cell. His hope for a productive life, while being an active criminal, has long ago been abondoned. You are correct jb, the solution is not simple and the reality is that there is not a solution. But if one punk on the threshold of becoming a true violent criminal reads about this incident he may hopefully decide that the risk does not warrant the reward and change his ways.
I just wish that, regardless of what you think of the situation, that people would stop referring to this guy as a “homeowner.” The guy was sitting in his car. He may own a home, but it really has nothing to do with this situation.
Dem, you are right about the death penalty being a red herring. I was being a bit incendiary. I do disagree, however, with the assertion that more criminals killed by “would-be victims” is a deterrent to crime. I’m with Glockenspieler on this one. We need to look at the factors that motivate criminal behavior. Of course, every society has “mad dogs” that will commit crime simply to inflict damage on others, but they are most definitely not the majority. Arming the populace will not be enough to solve issues of crime, and may affect criminal behavior in a negative way.
Community policing is an interesting concept. I’m assuming it entails more than a neighborhood watch. I think it would be difficult to come to a consensus on what that means, given the wide range of thinking displayed on this blog. That shouldn’t stop people from organizing, though.
Eric:
I am not of the illusion that the people I engage in my work have the capacity to victimize me, but I got away from thinking that every situation is so concrete. Althought they have done awful things to someone, I do not strip them of their humanity. That’s all.
jb…and you are to be commended for that. I’m certain that your job is a very difficult one with the full spectrum of emotions being felt each day. I wish you only the best.
i think i’ll organize myself up some guns and permits.
“i’m mad as hell and i’m not gonna take it anymore” – movie quote or warning to robbers?
I am not a root causes kind of guy. What motivates criminal behavior is that some people are just bad. Bernie Madoff stole $50 billion when he’d have been rich even if he had never stolen a penny — what explains that except a complete lack of scruples? So anything other than deterrence and punishment strikes me as a waste of time.
I have always been very anti-gun despite (or because of) having grown up in a family of hunters but I have been thinking very seriously of getting one because of all the ruthless violence and break-ins everywhere lately, even with a security system on! It’s nuts. It can be hard to sleep at night. I just can’t seem to figure out what you have to do to get a license. The article detailing the event is chilling because how many times have I had a guy walk up to my car window (actually just this weekend with my kid in the backseat).
I guess in response to “mommy” I find violent crime and the killing of individuals to be mad. This incident is not good news for anyone. I don’t think this was vigilante justice, but it shouldn’t inspire people to applaud the death of another human being, which the robber was. I’m not trying to downplay the crime or the terrible situation, or excuse robbery. But it’s a complicated situation, not a “great”one. Be better than the criminal and show some humanity.
Just got the annual crime summary in my email box from Juanchella – crime of all kinds is up 21% in Decatur in 2008 over 2007.
However, there was actually less violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and assault) but more theft and car break ins.
Talk about polarized! It’s vengeance vs humanitarianism or sumpin’. The thoughty issues are whether carrying concealed results in enough well-justified self-defense cases like this one to be worth the suicides and homicides that go along with pervasive gun ownership; and whether knowing that a potential victim is likely to be carrying is more likely to lower or raise the level of violence of robbers. There’s statistics on both, but they don’t quantify the anger of people who read about crime from newspapers or TV.
WPMOM, you only need a license if you want to carry it concealed. You can go buy a pistol or shotgun or assault rifle right now, so long as the background check goes through. You can keep it in your car so long as it’s in the glove box or in open view. But you can’t stick it somewhere else, like under your seat, unless you have a concealed carry permit. I think I have the rules described correctly but they’re easy to find.
You beat me to it Decaturguy.
“But it’s a complicated situation, not a “great”one. ”
Really?
Can you please explain what is so “complicated” about this?
What’s uncomplicated about shooting somebody?
“Be better than the criminal and show some humanity.”
Are you suggesting this guy should not have used a gun in self-defense as a show of humanity?
Dem – that was really targeted to the posters who seemed to be excited about someone shooting another person. I wasn’t trying to chastise or give advice to the shooter.
Shoot….
Dead….
Not complicated.
Everything that leads to that example of terrible physics, of a bullet tearing through a human being, is far more complex than what we can manage to discuss here.
Don’t pretend this was a simple thing for anyone involved. We’re lucky we get to sully someone’s blog with inane chatter about this.
Don’t pretend it’s a simple as shoot, dead and nothing else. Just don’t.
[edited: no personal attacks] Humans are capable of atrocities that animals are not. There are alot of angry, remorseless and wretched humans living amongst us. They will kill you and sleep soundly the same evening. Improve your odds and make wise choices – like our man at the Graveyard. He should walk tall and be proud he was ready and able to protect his companion.
i’m glad that the potential victim was able to defend himself but i don’t celebrate the fact that someone is dead, even if he deserved it.
i think it was a horrible situation but the man being robbed acted correctly.
i’d have done the same thing in that situation but i hope that i never GET in that situation.
[editor: comment has been edited]
How does one go about getting a carry permit, and where’s the best place to buy a gun? (prefer to support local business if possible). Any recommendations on what is the best kind to get for personal/home/family safety?
Do we all need guns now? Is that the deal?
I think people are misunderstanding things here. I don’t think anyone thinks if they love everyone they’ll be protected, as if compassion for fellow humans would stop bullets. I’ve read every post here and I’ve yet to find anything close to that concept. I’m commenting on the armchair bloodlust, the callousness that some of the posts embody.
And yeah, whoever you are, I’m pretty complex. I don’t deny it. Keep posting and showing everyone how you’re not.
Info on getting concealed carry in DeKalb:
http://www.georgiapacking.org/gfl2.php?id=43&submit=Go
Info on personal defense guns (this guy has all kinds of info on guns):
http://www.chuckhawks.com/guns_home_defense.htm
Where to buy a gun? Usually best deals are available via local gun stores. You could pretty much outfit an army with what they have in stock at Candler Rd Pawn Shop, a couple miles south of the city on Candler Rd, on the left side. Tucker Gun on L’ville hwy isn’t too far away.
Instruction is a great idea, and strongly consider quality/reliability.
Those that mock the thoughts/ideas of others do not have a friend at this site. There were some interesting pieces of this discussion, but then someone who couldn’t help themselves would appear, mocking and insulting those with concerns just as valid as their own. That sort of bullying is not welcome here.
This thread has exhausted me AND its usefulness. Therefore, it is being closed to further comment.