Victims making hardest choice (Split-second decision to shoot back changes, ends lives)

At Sigma Imports in Little Rock, Chris Gaudet was negotiating the new guy’s salary one day last month, ignoring the security video he usually watches from his desk.

His office door slowly swung open, nudged by a salesman trying to warn his boss that two gunmen were trying to rob the place.

Gaudet saw someone with a red cloth over his face and a gun in his grip yelling for everyone to hit the lobby floor.

Gaudet grabbed his Colt.357-caliber pistol from the desk drawer. "It was so quick," he said. "It was all reaction."

This is what you carry the gun for, Gaudet thought, images racing through his mind.

His baby daughters’ faces: Rylee, Ashlyn. His dad, the ex-Marine, and his motto: Be first, fast, hard.

Gaudet didn’t see the second gunman, who fired from a crouch, sending a bullet streaking inches away from Gaudet’s torso.

Gaudet shot back, missing the shooter but killing the first gunman, Charles Patillo, 17. The second gunman ran but was later captured and charged with manslaughter.

The Aug. 28 shooting was the latest of several in Little Rock in recent months in which wouldbe victims have fought back. Six such cases in the past six months is more than usual, police say, although most experts do not see a larger trend.

Faced with danger, people don’t have much time to weigh their options and consider the consequences.

State law upholds the right to use deadly force to save a life or prevent a violent felony, arson or burglary. But actions tak- en on instinct and in seconds will be scrutinized by police and prosecutors, who decide whether the act was self-defense or a crime itself.

The distinction is sometimes unclear. Even when a victim’s actions seem in line with the law, he still can be plagued by uncertainty. Taking another life can change his own.

Gaudet said police assured him he had done nothing wrong, but he still worries other people will think of him as a killer.

"I was very nervous about what happened," Gaudet said. "I had made all the decisions. Now everyone gets to second-guess me."

Officials generally consider victims of armed robbery to be legitimately afraid for their lives. But if an act of defense is deemed out of proportion to the threat, the defender can be charged with a felony.

On July 9, two teens were browsing in Lee’s Fashion World on Base Line Road in southwest Little Rock when owner Carl Berry accused them of shoplifting, according to court documents.

So Berry followed them, firing his.38-caliber pistol three or four times at their backs as they ran, bullets crossing the parking lot and busy Base Line Road on a Monday morning, police said.

No one was hurt, but Berry, 41, faces an aggravated assault charge. He fired "under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life," according to the prosecutor’s office.

"Human life, no matter if it’s a burglar’s, shoplifter’s or whatever, is considered more valuable than any property," Little Rock Police Lt. Alice Fulk said. "Deadly force is really the last option that should be used by anyone."

Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley said his office typically sees six to 10 cases of armed self-defense each year. Charges are seldom immediate because of the nuances involved in each one. To charge someone who claims self-defense, an investigation must explore not only who did what, but why.

About two weeks after the shooting at Lee’s, an employee at Popatop Inc. liquor store on South University Avenue in Little Rock thought two men stole a bottle of cognac. He followed them to the parking lot and demanded it back.

The men got in their car and slammed on the gas, almost hitting the employee as they drove off, he told police.

He drew his 9 mm handgun and fired four times at a passenger-side tire. No one was hurt, and he was not charged.

The employee told police he felt his life was in danger. The alleged shoplifters escaped despite their deflated tire, and no one disputed the employee’s account.

The perception of a threat must be supported by witnesses and forensic evidence to hold up in court, Jegley said.

"There are a lot of variables in the stew when you make the call to use deadly physical force or not," Jegley said. "What the person shooting believes and feels is a factor. You’ve got to take into consideration issues of credibility. Is this someone who’s been in business 15 or 20 years without being involved in any tomfoolery when some miscreant decides he’s going to do him out of something?

Little Rock police investigated 555 robberies from January through August 2002, compared with 351 in the same period in 2001, according to the agency’s monthly activity reports.

Robberies of businesses decreased slightly, with the increase coming in robberies of individuals. Many of those attacks are tied to drugs or other criminal activity, Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Terry Hastings said.

Since the national violent crime rate has fallen in the past decade, it’s "highly unlikely" that self-defense shootings are rising nationally, said Gary Kleck, professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University.

In addition, Kleck said, "The different states have these huge variations in terms of what situation a person has to be in before the use of deadly force is justifiable."

In Florida and many other eastern states, people are required to retreat from a conflict instead of defending themselves. There is no duty to retreat in many western states. In Arkansas, retreat is not required if retreating is as dangerous as standing one’s ground.

Kleck said he knows of no group that scientifically catalogs armed self-defense.

A group of more than 200 volunteers called Operation Self-Defense is trying to fill that void. The group, whose members are scattered all over the country, posts news accounts of armed self-defense on its Web site, www.keepandbeararms.com. "The more we look, the more stories we find," said David Miller, the group’s assistant director. "The more people hear about armed self-defense, the more people will consider defending themselves."

Gaudet said friends offered so much praise that it made him feel uncomfortable. One stranger sent him a $10 check and a note that said, "Lunch is on me."

"It’s really shown me a lot about what’s going on out there," Gaudet said. "There’s a lot of angry people out there. There’s a lot of people that feel helpless."

Elsewhere in Little Rock in recent months, criminals found fighters where they expected victims.

One robber was killed and his partner wounded in March when they entered Sims Bar-B-Que on West 33rd Street at dinnertime, waving guns and demanding the bank bag. Owner Ronald Settlers pulled a.380-caliber gun from behind the counter and shot them.

In June, two men burst into the Shell Super Stop at Interstate 30 and Ninth Street. One emptied his gun at the clerk’s leg. After the gunman ran out of bullets, his partner fled and the clerk’s brother and a customer tackled the shooter and beat him in the face with his own weapon.

In August, a man with a.45-caliber gun threw open the door at Spot Liquor at Main Street and Roosevelt Road and demanded money.

"The stuff happens so quick you’re not really thinking about what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not allowed to do," said Brenda Gartin, who was working behind the counter with her fiance, Marvin Taylor. "You’re just trying to save your life."

Taylor grabbed a gun from behind the register and shot the robber in the face. The robber was charged. Taylor wasn’t.

The prosecutor’s office has not closed its files on the shootings at Spot Liquor, Sims, the Super Stop and Sigma Imports, although none of the business owners or employees in those cases has been charged.

In a life-or-death situation, people don’t think — they react, Dave Grossman said.

Grossman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, has developed a field of study called "killology" and directs an organization called the Killology Research Group in Jonesboro.

Under the stress of combat, some senses and physical functions sharpen while others shut down. The heartbeat doubles, even triples. People lose hearing, peripheral vision, depth perception and control over small movements. They couldn’t hit the right buttons if they wanted to dial 9-1-1. They can’t think, and yet they face "one of the most horrible decisions a human being will ever have to make," Grossman said.

Gaudet never really saw the teenager who shot at him, just heard his fire and saw the swirl of the robber’s braids moving for the door. Gaudet said he thought about firing again at the uninjured gunman as he pushed his wounded partner outside.

"It went through my mind, why not just pull the trigger? But I didn’t feel any threat. He was running," Gaudet said.

Experts say the only way to make the right decision in a lifeor-death situation is to know the law and have firearm training.

"Before you get a gun, you have got to acknowledge in your mind that [you are] capable of killing another human being," Grossman said. "If you’re not able to wrap your mind around that, the odds are your gun is not going to help and may even be harmful."

Twenty-four hours after the shooting, Gaudet sat behind the desk where he fired the shot. He said he felt like an inner tube was tightening around his chest. He checked his hands. Still shaking.

He remembered the gunmen’s nervousness, the jumpy way they moved, how the guns seemed to hop in their jerking hands, the way the one he later shot came in panting so hard the red cloth covering his face surged in and out.

"I’ve always been a guy to say hi and talk to people," Gaudet said. "I never thought I’d be a guy that would do what I did."

Four weeks later, Gaudet said he still suffers from anxiety, bronchitis and other health problems he never had before. He wished he hadn’t had to shoot the teenager, but said he would do the same thing again. The robbers came to his business threatening to kill him and his employees, and he couldn’t let that happen.

"I know I’m not a killer," he said. "I felt that when I pointed the gun at that kid — well, I didn’t know he was a kid, I thought he was a guy — I was doing what I could to protect myself and the people in my business, and I did it to the best of my ability."

No sane person wants to take another human's life.

Mega-bump. I couldn't agree more.

There is a tendency in the media to blur the distinction between a threat to property and a threat to one's life. For example, an unarmed shoplifter ripping off a store isn't threatening anyone's life, but an armed robber who points a gun at anyone, for whatever reason, even if he "only" wants money, is absolutely threatening life, and a deadly-force response is absolutely warranted. Now and then we hear the uninformed bleating "oh, I'd give him my wallet rather than shooting back, money isn't worth killing somebody over," comfortable in the erroneous assumption that the issue is money. It isn't. When the gun comes out it is ipso facto a direct threat to life, and I wish the media would write from this perspective - it might save somebody.

"Human life, no matter if it’s a burglar’s, shoplifter’s or whatever, is considered more valuable than any property,"

It would be nice if everyone felt the same towards the unborn life.

...Not to change the subject, but that phrase just jumped out at me.

Good read.

"If we, as individuals, do not take responsibility for combatting crime or terrorism, who will? Take back the night! Take back your right to live as free Americans."

One of my favorites came from the magazine of the NRA, The American Rifleman. As well as I can remember a man and his wife ran a convenience store and their 14 year old son was with them when two armed men came in and began to beat the man unmercifully, apparently the woman stood and watched until her 14 year old son came out of a back room and the men grabbed him. At that point mama had had enough and she reached under the counter and came out with a 38 in one hand and a 22 revolver in the other. Firing both guns at once she killed both of the armed men on the spot.
Just goes to show that a real old fashioned mother may let you get away with killing her husband but you best not touch her child.

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