In Self Defense – Episode 74: Back to Basics: The Womack Shooting Legal Lessons

Listen to the “In Self Defense” Podcast

In Self Defense – Episode 74: Back to Basics: The Womack Shooting Legal Lessons

TRANSCRIPT:

Shawn Vincent:

Hey everybody. It’s Shawn Vincent. Thanks for listening in. I am a litigation consultant. I study self-defense cases. I’ve had the joy of working on a number of self-defense cases on the behalf of the defenders. I’ve had the chance to work a couple of times with the esteemed Don West. Don West is national trial counsel for CCW Safe and a veteran criminal defense attorney with lots of experience in self-defense cases. And we’re joined often on this podcast by our friend Steve Moses. Steve Moses is a well-regarded firearms instructor. He’s a CCW Safe contributor. He’s got a great mind for tactics. He’s a student and a trainer, and we love having his insight.

Shawn Vincent:

If you listened to our last podcast, you know that we are talking about the Alan Womack shooting. And we looked in depth at this completely justified shooting, and Steve Moses gave us some insights on the tactical considerations, tactical lessons that we were able to learn from the evidence as we know it. But this week, we’re going to dive in primarily with Don West on the legal considerations of the Womack shooting. And one reason I like to talk about this case, the reason we’re revisiting it as one of our touchstone cases is because this is a case where, legally, the defender did everything right. All the boxes that we’re going to talk about that are part of a justifiable use of force case are checked in this particular case, and that said, there’s still interesting lessons to be learned.

Shawn Vincent:

So before we get into the conversation, let me go ahead and give you the details on this case. We don’t know who the defender was in this case because the prosecutor’s office didn’t release his name publicly until they completed a three-and-a-half week investigation into the shooting and declared him exonerated — legally declared the shooting completely justified, and they didn’t release the name of a innocent person, which is respectable.

Shawn Vincent:

We do know that the decedent was Alan Womack, and Womack was an accomplished athlete. He had played basketball in high school and in college. He didn’t seem to have any serious criminal history. He was a licensed conceaed carrier, but he went to a LA Fitness which had a basketball gym in the evening in a place a little north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And there he was playing against the defender in this case who perhaps had a propensity for traveling fouls. Womack called him out on these fouls. They got into a bit of an argument. I think that argument got a little bit more heated throughout the game. At some point, Womack yelled at him, threatened to shoot him in the head, at which point our defender decided he had had enough. So he packed up his stuff, got his gym bag, and decided to leave the premises.

Shawn Vincent:

Well, Womack had apparently headed up off, was waiting outside of the LA Fitness, and when the defender left, Womack began to follow him out into the parking lot, according to witnesses. He was shouting obscenities. He was making threats. He closed on the defender and then in the final moments, pulled out a handgun. He racked a round into the chamber, and our defender, who was also a licensed concealed carrier, had his Glock loaded and ready in his gym bag. He pulled it out, fired the first shot right into the chest of Womack. As Womack fell to the ground, he fired two wild shots that hit some cars nearby but didn’t hurt anybody.

Shawn Vincent:

By all accounts, completely justifiable the use of force, but stick around with us. Don West is going to walk us through point by point why it was justified, and we’ll learn a few good lessons. And then before the time’s up, we’ll hear a final word from Steve Moses on some additional tactical considerations.

Shawn Vincent:

All right. Here we go. Thanks for listening. Here’s my conversation about the Womack shooting with Don West and Steve Moses.

Shawn Vincent:

Don, what I’d like to do is we’ve looked at this from a tactical point of view with a lot of Steve’s input. I want to look at this from a legal point of view. We’ve broken out these foundational elements of self-defense that we find in one form or another in the laws of practically every jurisdiction in the United States, and the core of the self-defense statutes, and they’re all phrased a little bit differently, but it’s essentially that the defender needs to have a reasonable belief or a reasonable fear that they’re in imminent danger. And as you’ve told me before, imminent means right now, of an attack that is severe enough to cause great bodily harm or death. Does that sound about right?

Don West:

Yes, that’s exactly right.

Shawn Vincent:

Right. So often in these cases, when we deal with the defender’s dilemma, we’ve got somebody who is imminent and obviously aggressive. So there’s some fear there. But we don’t know if they’re armed or if they’re not armed. We deal a lot with armed defenders shooting unarmed attackers. And we also often have a lot of controversy over how reasonable was the fear, and we have sometimes attackers firing blindly into their garages at what they think is an intruder in a fear that’s unsubstantiated. But I think we can look at this case. I want to tick through these three elements here.

Shawn Vincent:

So first of all, let’s talk about imminence. Imminence is tough because imminence is subjective in a way where I know a lot of the defenders we look at as tension rises, sometimes that fear will trigger early and they fire too soon. So tell me legally about imminence and how you see that playing out in this particular case.

Don West:

You’re right that imminence is pretty hard to specify. It’s I would say impossible to specify in terms of seconds or minutes on a clock because it’s dynamic within the scenario that is unfolding. Certainly imminence means sooner than a few minutes. It probably is within a few seconds, and it might be within a second or two or a fraction of a second. Basically imminence in the context of this means that the violence is about to happen. That it’s on its way, and that you’re lucky if you have enough time to respond to it.

Don West:

In this context, we have Womack having made a prior threat of violence. Then I suspect the defender was chewing on whether he really meant it or whether it was trash talk on a basketball court with a little extra spice. But then when he confronts him outside in the parking lot, he would have more reason to be vigilant about that. So then we get the two of them within close proximity. If Womack is clearly unarmed, the physical distance becomes really important. If somebody is 50 yards away and they don’t have a weapon, they can’t actually hurt you with their hands at that point. If somebody’s 50 yards away, as Steve talked about, they still can shoot and kill you with a gun. So the idea of imminence and jeopardy sort of all connect in there together.

Don West:

But the facts that we have is that Womack clearly had a gun, which meant he absolutely had lethal force in his hand. Using a gun is per se in every jurisdiction that I know of lethal force, and that he had the ability and opportunity to use it. All he had to do basically was pull the trigger once it was displayed. So I think from an imminence standpoint, there’s no question that the defender saw Womack with the gun in a clearly agitated state. Having racked the gun to ready it for fire, that’s clearly in my mind imminence.

Shawn Vincent:

Sure. And if we’re going to play around with details like we often will on this, if the defender has chosen to shoot a few moments earlier, let’s imagine a scenario where Womack is let’s say 15 yards behind him yelling at threats and obscenities but has his hands open, clearly there’s no gun there. If Womack shoots at this point, I mean, he’s early. The defender shoots at this point, Womack doesn’t have the imminent ability to do him harm.

Don West:

That’s an interesting analysis because imminence is an issue. He’s too far away without a weapon to immediately be able to affect whatever harm it is that he’s intended, and then you also have the question of whether the harm that he may very well have intended was going to rise to the level of the ability to cause great bodily harm or death. And then you start looking at how big and tough is Womack, how big and tough is the defender. Could they engage physically without the defender having a reasonable belief that Womack would and intended to cause him great bodily harm or death? Is he at that point bringing a gun to a fist fight?

Shawn Vincent:

Let’s talk about that reasonable belief. I mean, that’s interesting. So I want to talk about these three key elements. The reasonable belief or fear of imminent, severity to create bodily harm or death. So now we bring in this reasonable belief. We’ve talked about that a little bit in our prior conversations with Steve. But the guy had threatened him at the basketball court. He said, “I want to shoot you in the head.” There’s a lot of macho bluster might be associated with that. But now that he’s following him to the parking lot, the closer he gets, the more he yells, and the more distance that the defender tries to put between himself and this perceived attacker. Moment-by-moment, his fear that this guy really intends him harm is skyrocketing from my point of view. Do you read it that way as well?

Don West:

Agreed. Yes, I do. Yes, I agree.

Shawn Vincent:

And then to show how these three elements are so closer interlaced, we can’t really talk one without the other. Then we throw on the severity, and the defender’s got a little bit of a problem here working with severity until the pistol comes out. And then at that point, all these things are locked in. The reasonable belief is there. It’s been confirmed because the gun’s out. He’s announced his intention. I don’t know how far away he was at this point, but from the reading that we’ve done, it sounds like he was pretty close. Imminence isn’t the question anymore, and now severity’s not a question. All three of these boxes are checked for the defender.

Don West:

We know when Steve was talking about tactically what can you do, if in that scenario Womack is very aggressive and approaching and not obeying voice commands to stand back, but the defender doesn’t see a weapon, then he has to sort of figure out what’s going to happen next. What intent does Womack have and what degree of harm is he intending to inflect. That’s the opportunity, as Steve talked about, you buy as much time as possible until the weapon comes out, until Womack’s weapon comes out, and then you know that all of that is gone. Right there, he can shoot you up to a number of yards away. That he is an immediate threat of imminent deadly force, and your tactics have to change dramatically. You clearly have the right to use deadly force in response. Up until that point, you’re still kind of assessing, and the more distance you have to assess the intent of the aggressor up until the point where you believe that you need to display your firearm to raise that defensive force up a notch. And also, of course, to get ready, to be able to deploy your own use of deadly force if you need it. That’s where he talked about how dicey that was.

Don West:

Pennsylvania is a stand your ground state. This happened North of Philadelphia, King of Prussia area.

Shawn Vincent:

Right.

Don West:

So the defender clearly had no legal duty to retreat prior to the use of deadly force. If he was otherwise legally justified in using deadly force, stand your ground eliminates the duty to retreat. On the other hand, by moving around, by even creating a little bit of distance to figure out what Womack in fact intended gives him a great opportunity perhaps to avoid using deadly force but also in a much better position to effectively use the degree of force that he thinks is necessarily once he’s figured out what Womack intends. So as soon as the gun comes out, of course, it’s all over at that point.

Don West:

I think Steve would probably… I’d like to hear his thoughts, but I think Steve would probably agree that there would be a point in time where Womack, even without a weapon in Womack’s hand, that based upon how this thing unfolded, that the defender may very well have been justified in displaying, showing his firearm.

Steve Moses:

Absolutely. I completely concur. It’s scary when people understand how many people are walking around right now with the martial art skills to basically kill another person with their bare hands, and I know that sounds like some 1970s kung fu vintage stuff. But there are a lot of people that do mixed martial arts, people that do Brazilian jujitsu and other grappling related arts. There’s people that have very good striking skills that study either American boxing or Muay Thai boxing, and a person that’s literally smaller and physically weaker than you in many instances has the ability to kill you with their bare hands.

Steve Moses:

So this really creates a problem when people go, “Well…” They look like they were evenly matched. Well, that’s not necessarily the case.

Steve Moses:

Also, when those two guys are out there playing pick up basketball, in many instances… Of course, it’s been a long time since I’ve done that, but you could tell pretty quick when there were other people on that team that were physically stronger and quicker and just basically much more of a beast than you were in that in a straight on fight, you would be at a great disadvantage. And if that person’s intent was to seriously injure you or kill you, you were at risk.

Steve Moses:

So this really creates a problem for concealed carriers is how do I handle those situations because I hear so many times how things go bad because of the classic, “Well, he shot an unarmed man.” Well, you can do additional things, much of it’s just in terms of knowledge. Everything that we’ve discussed ways in. And if people understand that, then they can justify, in my opinion, bringing a handgun into play sooner in the game. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that they may not be charged, but I think that if a person was able to clearly articular why they feared for that person’s, what they knew about defensive combatives, how they know that another person could indeed harm them, they had asked that person to stay away, they’d ordered them to stay away, and that person continued to encroach upon them, then going to defensive display probably is not a bad idea. I mean, if it’s going to be that or probably a very good chance that I’m going to get injured or killed, that’s what I’m going to do.

Steve Moses:

By the same token, persons that want to kind of dive onto this a little bit deeper, there’s people that teach how to defend yourself against a person that launched an attack, a physical attack. Long enough to protect your head, not get knocked down, and bring a gun into play. There’s people that teach in that same situation how to actually bring that gun in and shoot it from a retention position. So that’s one of the things that I’ve known how to do that, and I still work on those skills and I still train, I teach it, I train from others is having that ability to know that I’ve got a little bit more margin for error here. Because if that person does appear two arms length away that if I do everything correct, even at my age with the surgeries and everything I’ve had, I got a real high possibility that I can survive that initial onslaught and get a gun into play.

Steve Moses:

So having that option, I really think it’s just… I don’t want to say I’m cocky. I just believe that I have some skills and tactics in place that gives me a little bit more margin for error, and I really would encourage a concealed carriers to look at that same thing because we really don’t have a say. If that person wants to attack us or if they want to attack us and they don’t give all of the advanced warnings that Womack did, just having that ability to survive and be able to get to something else or maybe get myself into a position where I can put this person in a position where they can’t harm me until somebody else comes up and pulls the guy off, I think that’s a great skill and a great thing to know.

Shawn Vincent:

Yeah. That’s a really interesting point. I mean, what I hear you saying is the more training you have, the more abilities you have, the more options you have, the more time you have to make decisions. And Don, while Steve was talking about that whole thing about being the kind of concealed carrier who could actually take a punch and still know that you can defend yourself with your firearm, I couldn’t help but to think about our time on Zimmerman. And not that he was highly-trained or anything, but I think in the end, when that jury heard strong evidence that convinced them that George Zimmerman was on his back with his attacker on top of him taking a serious beating for upwards of 90 seconds before he got ahold of his pistol and fired a single shot, that changed a lot of people’s mind about what the facts are of that case. And the fact that he had actually… He didn’t shoot him five feet away because he’s afraid of him. He shot him actually after he was already clearly the victim of physical violence.

Don West:

Yeah, and in that case, we had photographic evidence and medical testimony that Zimmerman was injured in the face. It looked like his nose was broken. He was bleeding in the face clearly as a result of being struck in the face. He also had several knots on the back of his head, a couple of cuts on the back of his head that was consistent with his statement that his head was being smashed into the sidewalk after he had been knocked to the ground, and we know from witnesses in close proximity and we even know from the recorded 911 call that captured a lot of this stuff going on that those injuries would have to have been sustained prior the shot being fired and could not have been self inflicted as wild theorists proposed at some point.

Don West:

So in that instance, he was beaten pretty badly for, like you said, a minute or so and was in an extremely vulnerable position on his back. All of that was corroborated by eye witnesses as well as physical evidence that showed grass stains and glass clippings on Zimmerman’s back. His jacket was wet. There was a witness that saw him in that position. So as much as people wanted not to believe what George Zimmerman said actually happened, all of the physical forensic evidence corroborated that. Yeah, the jury I think was left with really only one plausible scenario as to how that happened.

Don West:

Can we spin back to the Womack case?

Shawn Vincent:

We’re going back there for sure. Yeah.

Don West:

Because I wanted to put another scenario in here. You talk about the defenders dilemma, and Steve has talked about how anyone who’s skilled can pose a physical threat with superior skills and strength. We certainly know from the Zimmerman case and others that if someone gets a tactical advantage, a physical advantage. In that case, it was that Zimmerman was knocked down to the ground, and Trayvon Martin was able to dominate him physically by literally straddling him and was in a superior position to hit him at that point. That was corroborated in the case because of grass stains on Trayvon Martin’s knees.

Shawn Vincent:

And an eye witness.

Don West:

Yes, yeah. But to the parking lot situation with Womack, imagine this scenario as how difficult it would be to sort out not just at the moment it was unfolding but then how difficult it would be to sort out after the fact for those who were trying to piece it together, set the whole thing up that Womack and the defender are involved in this basketball game. There’s threats that Womack is out in the parking lot. That when the defender comes out, he’s there to confront him. The threats, the talking starts but that Womack doesn’t have a gun in his hand. Let’s put the gun in a holster on his waistband or in his pocket, but let’s not put it in his hand so the defender doesn’t see a gun, doesn’t see a weapon of any sort.

Shawn Vincent:

So it’s concealed.

Don West:

Womack continues to approach him, closing the distance, not at the point where they’re within an arm’s length of each other, but the defender begins to get more and more concerned that he will be physically attacked. Womack’s not backing away, but it hasn’t escalated to the point of just trash talk and threats, and, “I ought to kick your ass the way you treated me in there.” The defender gets concerned enough as this thing plays out that he feels justified in displaying the weapon. That he pulls the gun. How he holds it would depend on probably his training. But let’s say he pulls the gun and it’s clearly now visible to Womack.

Don West:

So Womack at that point reasonably believes, I think, that he’s just now been threatened with a gun. So what’s his response? Does he throw up his hands and say, “No, man. I don’t want this,” and walks away? Or does he respond in the same way that the defender did. He draws his gun and feels that he has the right to shoot what otherwise was the defender. So now Womack shoots the defender who’s there holding a gun. You could pick who dies or who doesn’t die but somebody dies, and now the police, witnesses try to sort it out. The prosecutor has to make a decision in that case.

Don West:

Those are the kind of nightmare situations for absolutely everybody.

Shawn Vincent:

Let me springboard off of that Don because when we talk about reasonable fear, imminence, and severity as these core foundational elements for self defense, we have these other preamble elements that have a bearing on that case. I think you’ll agree with me. One is in most places you need to be in a place where you’re legally allowed to be when you make a self defense claim. You need to not be breaking the law. You need to not be the first aggressor and in some places, there is a legal duty to retreat. But as you mentioned, in this particular case in Pennsylvania, there’s not a legal duty to retreat. But I want to read to you what the prosecutor said at this press conference when he decided not to press charges.

Shawn Vincent:

He says, “At no point in the encounter did the evidence reveal that the shooter provoked the decedent or raised the level of force. If he had, the self defense claim would be invalidated. In fact, the shooter did just the opposite trying several times to deescalate the situation. For these reasons, I conclude that this was a justifiable shooting, and therefore no criminal charges are warranted against the shooter.”

Shawn Vincent:

In your scenario there, I think things become ambiguous but I think Womack destroyed his potential claim if he were to have fired at the defender who drew first in your hypothetical situation there because I think he demonstrated himself to be the first aggressor. He had issued the threat. He pursued him into the parking lot, and at that point, he’s got a mark against him. Clearly, in this case, the way it did unfold, the prosecutor articulated that that was a point in the defender’s category.

Don West:

I think the threat inside the gym becomes really, really important there because you aren’t the initial aggressor just because you are angry or just because you argue with somebody. When it escalates to the point of a threat and the threat is a serious one and to be taken seriously, then you’ve taken an argument and now put it in the context of committing a crime. Certainly the initial aggressor who commits the crime of making a threat becomes legally the first initial aggressor and had a clear disadvantage when it comes to claiming self defense.

Shawn Vincent:

Sure. I think we both agree, all of us can agree that the defender here was legally allowed to be where he was. He wasn’t breaking the law there. I know from reports that they were both licensed, were legally carrying their weapons. But I want to get to this last thought of duty to retreat because something really caught my attention in this prosecutor’s notes here. And I don’t think he’s necessarily legally correct, but when he says, “If the shooter had provoked decedent or raised the level of force, his claim would have been invalidated.”

Shawn Vincent:

Is that true? I’m not sure it is. He’s giving him credit for de-escalating and leaving. But also when we talk about stand your ground, as opposed to duty to retreat, I think even in a stand your ground state when you do make the effort to retreat even though it’s not legally required of you, clearly that makes an impact on the prosecutor.

Don West:

The comment that at no point did the evidence reveal that the shooter provoked the descendant. The provocation here, the prosecutor I’m going to assume, meant what he said in a legal context, and provocation is a way to lose your right to self-defense. If you provoke the incident and in many jurisdictions, provocation basically means that you are baiting the person. That you are trying to get them to throw the first punch or to become the legal aggressor so that you then believe you have the right to defend yourself against it. So basically you’re setting the person up to give you the chance to use some kind of force.

Don West:

I’m going to assume for the moment the prosecutor meant that the shooter or the defender in this case did nothing to set that up, nothing to create the circumstance whereby he would be legally or justified in his own mind even to use the deadly force.

Shawn Vincent:

Sure. He wasn’t like, “Hey, hey. Why don’t you come out to my car. We’ll talk about this.” That’d be a different scenario.

Don West:

Yeah. “I dare you, man. I could kick your butt all day long. I dare you.” I’m dating myself. Steve will appreciate this reference. Do you remember Robert Conrad?

Steve Moses:

Yes.

Don West:

Back in the days of Duracell batteries, he would put one on his shoulder and dare someone to knock it off.

Steve Moses:

Yes.

Don West:

That’s kind of a mild form of provocation where you’re trying to egg on somebody to attack you.

Steve Moses:

And actually people will dare you to shoot them. That is if someone is encroaching upon you and they don’t believe that you are willing to actually use that gun, they will actually say, “Go ahead and shoot me.” And I believe that actually even took place in that Alexander Weiss case if I’m not mistaken.

Shawn Vincent:

Yeah, exactly. It sure did. The guy didn’t believe Weiss had it in him and paid for it in his own death.

Shawn Vincent:

So what I hear you saying, Don, is that it’s not a… The defender here didn’t intentionally lure Womack out there with the intention of shooting him, and there is no evidence that he did that. And whether or not the defender maybe said something mean or engaged in conversation with him in the gym, that’s not what we’re talking about there. We’re talking about any evidence that he actually intended to lure him out to the car for the purposes of shooting him didn’t exist.

Don West:

Yeah, and I’m going to assume the prosecutor made that comment to exclude that as a possibility, but I think it also meant in the more common sense that the defender was not an aggressor, didn’t start it. Even if it hadn’t risen to the level of provocation, the way he described that it unfolded is Womack made the threat inside. Womack waited for him. Womack approached him. Womack was the first to display a weapon. Womack racked the gun to make it clear that he was capable and ready to use it and that at no point during any of that did the shooter become the aggressor or provocateur and that he was always defending himself as this thing escalated. And he did nothing along the way to escalate it himself. He as always a defender from the beginning and until the end, until he believed that he had no choice but to use deadly force in response to a deadly force threat. And that the prosecutor ultimately agreed.

Don West:

We know, as we mentioned, under Pennsylvania law, he was never legally obligated to retreat in the face of the threat prior to using deadly force. We have no reason to think that he really could have any way based upon Womack getting the gun out and getting it ready to fire when they were just a few feet apart anyway.

Don West:

So I doubt if that consideration ever entered into the prosecutor’s decision whether the shooter acted reasonably because he concluded he did under all of those circumstances, including Pennsylvania stand your ground law.

Shawn Vincent:

Yeah. So this is one of those cases that… You know what, Don, I think, and you told me recently that in the end, most of the cases you get called about at CCW Safe where there was a homicide, someone was killed, aren’t charged, aren’t prosecuted because the defenders did pretty much everything right. Am I mistaken in that?

Don West:

Well, we have a terrific membership at CCW Safe. They seem to be, for the most part, reasonable gun owners that pride themselves in knowing what they’re doing and that means they’re getting additional training beyond, as Steve pointed out, what it takes just to get the permit. We’ve had very positive comments about these discussions. People have thought about some of these scenarios and reflected on how they might act if they were ever in a similar situation. And we’ve had a couple that in fact have been, and they’ve responded legally and appropriately and many times being able to successfully avoid the confrontation all together. Of course, we’ve also had cases… We have a big membership. We have a number of cases where lethal force was used and where after a thorough investigation, law enforcement made no arrest and prosecutors charged no crime. I think because like the prosecutor in the Womack case, after looking at it, and it could take weeks or months. Don’t think it’s over the next day. Even if you haven’t been arrested.

Shawn Vincent:

I’m sure. This one took about three-and-a-half weeks.

Don West:

Yeah, and this was about as straightforward as it gets, and I think there were also some witnesses to corroborate all of the important facts that could’ve changed the assessment. But we’ve had cases, they’ve taken weeks or sometimes months where there was a formal decision not to file charges. I can also tell you that in my experience as a criminal defense lawyer having been involved in representing a number of individuals in deadly self-defense situations that the decision not to charge is sometimes not an announced or formal decision. The statute of limitations for murder cases in most places is forever. That there is no statute of limitations, and as a result, the prosecutors don’t have to, in many cases, formally announce that they’re not going to file charges. They simply don’t file them and the case gets older and older and older. One assumes as time passes the chances of getting charged lessen, and I think that’s true.

Don West:

But there’s always the circumstance or the possibility that additional evidence could be determined, additional scientific techniques develop that would allow evidence to be analyzed that wasn’t, or as sometimes can happen, people come and go in these offices. Prosecutors are elected and rejected and all of a sudden the file lands on somebody else’s desk who takes a new look at it.

Shawn Vincent:

So in this case, the guy is a gift to the defender here that the prosecutor made the effort to announce publicly that he would not be filing charges. That he made a case that he was justified.

Shawn Vincent:

Well, and I guess-

Don West:

He must’ve been satisfied there was no gap in the evidence. There was no further investigation that was likely to change anything. So you’re right. He did the defender a service, and probably the system a service as well. There’s now some finality to it.

Shawn Vincent:

So I brought that all up because we target high-profile cases that have lessons for concealed carrieres to learn. They’re often cases that go tragically wrong and result with a defender serving some jail time for a mistake or two that they made during the interaction. But it’s actually hard to find cases in the news where the defender did everything right because they don’t generally make headlines, and I think they’re actually a lot more common than we might know. So for any listener out there who thinks that it’s always this doom and gloom and that no matter how responsible and thoughtful a concealed carrier or home defender you are, that you’re destined to face a horrible prosecution for it, it’s not the truth. We often see justice unfold. This case is an example of it. But then just to underscore one of your points too, Don, is that even in the most cut-and-dried cases, if the police are going to do their job, there’s still going to be a potentially multi-week or multi-month investigation. And they’re not always wrapped up as tightly as the Womack shooting.

Don West:

We started this discussion sometime ago talking about how at this moment in our history resources are strained. That police and first responders are attending to other emergencies. That sometimes the resources are directed for other purposes. We have sick people in the country that need attention. We have social unrest that needs attention. And huge amounts of resources to investigate and that some of the things that might normally be done, routinely done quickly …

Shawn Vincent:

Take longer.

Don West:

… may not be done for weeks or months as a result of it. Sure. Sure. You just have to get in line sometimes and no matter how legal the self-defense act ultimately turned out to be, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to be a quick decision.

Shawn Vincent:

Steve, I’m curious. This is a case where, legally, we can show that the defender checked all the boxes to justify his actions and avoid prosecution. Tactically, are there any lessons from the Womack shooting that you think our members could benefit from?

Steve Moses:

Well, first of all, I’d like to completely agree with you that he basically checked all those boxes properly. And basically every decision that he made just based upon what I have read and heard from you and Don is I think he made multiple sound judgments. Tactically as I think about this, I was just pondering the fact that Womack walked up on him, pulled a gun, and then racked it. And the fact that this probably gave the defender an advantage in terms of giving him time to respond. The thing that kind of bothered me about that a little bit was that he didn’t have that gun on his person, and he had to reach into that backpack. Well, everything just kind of lined up and it worked out for him. For others, that may not be the case. They may not have the opportunity of having that additional time to access a handgun because the assailant came up and had a handgun and was moving in on them.

Steve Moses:

To that end, my recommendation would be to move. That is move laterally as quickly as you can until you can get your hand on the gun. And if you have no gun, just keep moving. One that is a typically it surprises the attacker, and secondly, you become a much harder target to hit. So that can buy you a little bit of time to get your hand on that gun assuming that you’re still in the same precarious position. You can then plant your feet and engage. That’s actually a defensive tactic that we teach in some of our classes.

Shawn Vincent:

So only criticism for this guy or the primary criticism for this guy is that he wasn’t as a concealed carrier as ready as-

Steve Moses:

He wasn’t prepared.

Shawn Vincent:

… he could’ve been and should’ve been.

Steve Moses:

That’s right.

Shawn Vincent:

And he’s lucky that he managed to scratch his way out of this one.

Steve Moses:

Yes. He wasn’t ready. He had to actually make himself ready for that position, and I’m pretty much sure that probably ate up anywhere between one to three seconds before he was able to… If that’s true that he didn’t already have his… He may have already had his hand on the gun for all know. If he had his hand on the gun, well then basically everything I said is like… Other than I don’t think that’s the safest way to do it. But he was in a position to where he could’ve engaged, and that’s very possibly what happened. But if he did not, I would definitely want to have myself in a position where I’m ready to fight for my life at just a moment’s notice.

Shawn Vincent:

All right, guys. That’s the podcast for today. Thanks again for listening through to the end. We’ve got a bunch more interesting conversations in the pipeline that we will be bringing to you soon. But until then, be smart, stay safe, take care.