The following took place between 4:30 and 4:35 PM.
I was returning from eating sushi with a friend and preparing to parallel park in front of my building in Houston’s Midtown when my day turned into an episode of 24. I heard a scream just as I hit reverse and looked to my left where I saw a very scary looking guy, maximum security prison type scary, grab my neighbor, punch him, and throw him to the sidewalk.
This is a very nice part of Houston but it’s surrounded by some of the not so nice parts. Still, we don’t see much violence. This area is full of sidewalk cafes and upscale shops. So this event was already a departure from the norm but it was about to get worse.
I slammed the Explorer into park, jumped out and screamed something in an attempt to break things up. The attacker kept going, I didn’t want to get into this fight but the attacker’s buddy was moving in now and it was obvious that I was going to have to.
My neighbor didn’t stand a chance and he was getting pushed down the sidewalk. I decided to sprint for the attacker’s back and try to spear him and put him down when my neighbor, arms and legs bloodied, came up in a perfect shooting stance with a .380. He was amped and screaming “Don’t fu*king do it..back away” and I was in the middle of it.
I didn’t know what started this fight and I don’t know my neighbor well enough to be comfortable with him going Jack Bauer in my presence so I had a whole lot of factors to weigh and decisions to make in those few seconds. All of this occurred in about 15-20 seconds so there wasn’t a lot of time to think. My neighbor didn’t seem like a threat so I decided to hold my ground and try to be a voice of reason or at least a witness. I told the attacker that he was going to get shot, that he should leave, that police were on their way but he wasn’t budging. The whole thing was way more intense than I can convey in this blog post.
Now it’s bad enough that my parking attempt has turned into a primetime crime drama but the fact that the attacker and his buddy aren’t running scared is quickly making the entire episode turn much worse. My neighbor is still in his shooting stance and telling the guy to leave but he remains about 10 feet away, he’s very agitated, and talking trash. He’s screaming “You won’t shoot me pu**y” and acting like he’s going to charge. Meanwhile I’m screaming at him, my neighbor is screaming at him, and his buddy has taken my advice and left. Overall this isn’t going well.
Eventually the attacker backs across the street. My neighbor lowers his gun but the conversation between the two is ongoing and extremely heated. I asked my neighbor if he was licensed (he is) and then told him not to shoot the attacker as he was leaving since that seemed like a possibility. I didn’t want his fear and anger to get him into trouble. It’s generally not a good idea to shoot bad guys in retreat. Unfortunately, our bad guy wasn’t in full retreat.
Just when it seemed like the guy was going to leave he decided to charge back across the street. I was fearing for my safety at that point so I tried to get out of the way but he headed straight for my neighbor. The gun came back up and my neighbor retreated as far as he could. His back was to the building and I think we were both terrified at that point. When you’re facing an unarmed attacker who will charge a man with a gun there’s good reason to be scared. More screaming again as my neighbor is telling him “I fear for my safety - I will shoot you.” I fully expected and braced for the shot but the attacker retreated at the last minute. Another foot and he would have been a dead man. Most people, me included, would probably have shot him during the second charge but my neighbor gave this guy every opportunity to walk away.
The attacker didn’t retreat far though. He crossed the three lane street and grabbed a large rock. I saw this and, given the events so far, expected him to charge back and come back with it rather than throw it. I told my neighbor, the gun came up again, but the rock hit a parked car where it inflicted quite a bit of damage.
Luckily that was the end of it. Well, not the end. The attacker ran off and police (quite a few police) rolled up a couple of minutes later. One of the police officers who lives in our building was first on scene (off-duty) and he coordinated the search for the attackers. The police gave my neighbor surprisingly little trouble but there were also plenty of witnesses praising him for his restraint. Almost to a man the officers we talked to said that in the same situation they would have used deadly force. It would have been justified at almost any point but the second charge by the attacker made it a no-brainer.
I didn’t find out was provoked the attack until later. My neighbor had seen the attacker and his buddy mugging another man, yelled out his window for them to stop, and called 911. While he was on the phone to the dispatcher they moved out of view and he walked out to the sidewalk to see if he could determine their direction of travel for the police. Unfortunately, they hadn’t moved far and they immediately attacked him instead.
Two weeks after obtaining his Texas Concealed Carry License and I’d say he did quite well. He has only has minor cuts and bruises, nobody is dead, the initial victim was able to run away, and I didn’t have to get in there and scrap with these thugs in what would have been one hella ugly brawl. Whoever trained him did one hell of a job. I know this story won’t change any minds but sometimes the system works in favor of the good guys. I got to witness that firsthand this afternoon.
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April 23rd, 2007 at 8:03 am
Nice to hear a happy ending.
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Thanks for sharing this story. Most defensive uses of a firearm that do not result in a dead bad guy go unnoticed.
The Chron linked to this post, hopefully that will bring some folks here who are on the fence about the issue of CHL in Texas.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:07 am
Since nobody was killed by an evil gun, this will get zero notice by the MSM. Thanks for spreading this story.
I’m not sure that I would have been able to exercise his level of restraint. Truly admirable.
April 24th, 2007 at 6:10 am
You probably like that better than my notice of another gun story.
If Virginia was New York state. Seems police arrested a student at Rochester Institute of Technology after he purchased two assault rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Gotta love how those gun laws don’t work.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704180340
April 24th, 2007 at 9:22 am
God bless, guide, & protect the police officers, but they can not be everywhere all the time.
A buddy of mine had some brat plinking a bb gun into his garage. He called the police and told them the exact nature of the situation and asked just for ONE cruiser to come by to scare the brat.
What happens? An hour or so later a whole pack of squad cars come by thinking they had a real shooting on their hands. Real timely.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
You neighbor showed a lot of restraint. I have a Florida and Utah conceal carry license, and I cannot say for certain if I could show that much restraint.
Unfortunately I live in Illinois, where were both licenses are invalid. :(
Well I hope your enjoying the sunsets and sunrises in the sandbox (they are actually quite nice). I’ll be there again for my second tour in time.
I’ll see you there and you can cover me with the SAW. :)
April 24th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Gary,
The guy who was busted bought the guns legaly according to the story.
He was arrested because he brought them on campus…which is the same gun law violated by Cho.
So if Cho was to do the same thing on a New York State campus…..same outcome.
Gun bought legaly….brought onto campus illegaly. The difference is the guy who was caught owned firearms that could not be concealed.
Gun laws sorta work. Sorta don’t. When they don’t…… 32 people die.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Your neighbor should have shot the attacker! It would have been one less a#@hole the world has to deal with.