On Sunday, August 21, at a little after 8 p.m., at a Texaco gas station in Atlanta, a gunfight erupted. Most of it was caught on video. It makes for some extremely dramatic footage, that highlights some important self-defense lessons.
The video was posted online on 22 August. Two days later, a couple who claimed to have been involved in the gunfight posted a follow-up video. [NSFW] If you compare the images from the video with the follow-up, the hairstyles are the same. The man has a distinctive, two tone hair style. The couple also appears to have an AK pistol clone. From 11alive.com:
In the [original] video, a black Dodge Charger is seen parked near the front door of the gas station. As car’s owner walks out from inside the store, he is approached by an unknown suspect. The two exchange words as the suspect follows the car owner around the back of the car.
The exchange escalates until the suspect flashes a gun from his waistband. At that point, the car’s owner walks over to his front door and pulls out an AK pistol.
The car’s owner aims the gun at the man and appears to threaten the suspect, who had fallen to the ground. As the suspect gets up, he runs around the front of the car and opens fire on the other man.
At least four bullets strike the car’s windshield, and at least one hit the woman, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the car.
In a third equally NSFW video (above), the Charger driver regrets being as slow to use deadly force as he was. He realizes that this resulted in his girl being wounded, and that he could easily have died. He claims that the man he shot at is dead. I have not been able to confirm that claim. The shooter seems to believe it.
This incident highlights the fact that a person who threatened you with a gun cannot be assumed to be retreating. Just because they are moving away does not mean they have stopped being a deadly threat. They may be attempting to gain time or a better tactical position. It took a fraction of a second to shoot at the Charger driver, and wound the woman. Either one could have been killed.
If a jury is sees this video, they can understand the problems a defensive shooter faces. Now that you have seen it, you can testify that you know how quickly someone who appears to be retreating can use deadly force. Such knowledge might be enough to introduce the video into a trial, as evidence of your mindset.
[h/t Beardedrambler]
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Link to Gun Watch
Something comes to mind about off-body carry. Also, who was the third persons who ran to the car, then ran away again? Must have been something important to run INTO a gunfight to retrieve it!
interesting.
Shows the idiocy of any claim that shooting someone in the side or back is unquestionably an attempted murder because the threat no longer existed.
sum crahhzy sheet goin on thair!
Luv the third video.
Dean, I appreciate the story but I have no intention of watching the videos posted (I don’t want to listen to broken ebonics/english/gangsta/slang/bragging). That being said, I had to read the story three times to gain a modestly clear picture of who was who in the story, this would not pass for a courtroom description of the events. The half-assed facts that are presented here are deplorable. Keep it simple…
Point taken. Article edited for simplicity and clarity.
The video demonstrates the utter stupidity of “pistols” that are just stockless rifles. Compared to an honest-to-God pistol, these contraptions allow you to miss your target with so much more power!
We all know what these pistols are for, until then, practice, practice, practice.
According to the third video, he didn’t miss, the AK pistol guy claims to have killed the handgun guy.
I agree his aiming looked extremely awkward when he was pointing it at the handgun guy (before the shooting started). But he wasn’t firing or attempting to fire at that point — he was trying to scare the guy off. When it came time to pull the trigger, the third video says that apparently his aim was accurate (within the context that we don’t know how many shots were fired or how many were hits, of course).
That’s why you put an AFG and a laser on it.
Exactly. Pistol AKs and shotties aren’t exactly rocket science to employ effectively. Laser or red dot that bitch up, slap on an AFG and you’re good.
CBS-46 is working to find out if his pistol is registered… (pistol registration? In Georgia? How far up their backsides do Atlanta TV investigative reporters store their heads?)
http://www.cbs46.com/story/32852260/exclusive-woman-shot-in-dramatic-atlanta-shootout-speaks-to-cbs46
Fortunately it’s illegal under state law for a local municipality to require registration in Georgia.
A to the muthafvckin’ K homeboy, A to the muthafvckin’ K (MUTHAFVCKIN’ K!)
To tha what?
Funny, I recently picked up an AK and I can’t stopping singing this in my head.
Muthafvckin’ K!
+5 Strictly [Hip Hop] for the Cypress Hill reference.
Lol, thanks for the laugh today man. That was good
All because a guy asked if he wanted weed and he was “offended” by that question? Crazy.
Not the way I heard it. I heard it that the handgun guy approached the AK pistol guy and asked him if he wanted some weed. AK pistol guy said “no, I’m good” — and at that point, handgun guy got offended and felt disrespected and initiated a dispute and, according to AK pistol guy, handgun guy brandished a handgun at him.
However, that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, since it seems like handgun guy hits the ground and struggles to get ahold of his gun, doesn’t it? Like he has trouble pulling it from his pants — so does it seem like he could have been brandishing?
If the AK guy is telling the truth, this looks like a defensive AK pistol use.
Brandished it IWB by lifting his shirt is the impression I got.
Okay, that makes sense.
The more I think about this, it sounds more and more like an unorthodox but textbook case of “Defensive Gun Use Of The Day.”
1. Man pulls up to a gas station to get gas.
2. He’s approached by someone who tries to sell him weed (or so he says; he may have been just using that as an approach line for a robbery, who knows).
3. Man declines, at which point weed-seller gets upset, acts disrespected, and then brandishes a gun.
4. Man is in a life-threatening situation, he’s been brandished at, and he’s got a girlfriend in the car to defend. So he goes and retrieves his legally-owned, legally-car-carried pistol (which just so happens to be an AK).
5. Man does not shoot! Instead, he gives the weed-seller every chance to get away. He attempts to defend himself and his girlfriend without firing a shot.
6. Weed-seller opens fire, so AK man returns fire and, according to the third video, the weed-seller ends up dead.
The fact that the man was taken to the police station, and freed, and given his AK pistol back, is evidence to support that the AK pistol was legally owned and legally carried, and that his actions were determined to be justified as per the video evidence and witness statements.
This wasn’t some gang-banger drug shootout in the ‘hood, this looks to me like it was a classic case of lawful and legal self defense with a firearm.
TexTed, that seems like a pretty good assessment given the facts available.
“Brandish” is not a word to me. Most similar would be “drawandfire”, his girlfriend would be uninjured.
I spent the first 30 years of my life in a place like this.
Quite literally an insane asylum with no fence. Just smiling, making eye contact or nodding can set off any and all events. Actively speaking to or engaging with another human being, even a relative or acquaintance, can lead you down a violent path in less than a minute.
I’ve since left urban life for rural peace and now whenever I see some redneck “good ‘ol boy” all bowed up just walking down the street I have to roll my eyes. Hostile aggro stupidity exists out here too. Just fewer people around so it’s easier to avoid. In the cities though there’s really no escaping it.
“Quite literally an insane asylum with no fence.”
An imperfect solution, surely, but I humbly suggest: “burn flat, and replant with trees. Repeat as needed”
Or “…nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
Crazy as it is I believe it. I didn’t get shot at but I was hanging out at a local watering hole, smoking a cigarette out front actually, in my former shitty neighborhood when a guy approached me and tried to sell me cocaine. When I told him no he got really, really pissed.
He kept pushing and pushing at which point I became suspicious that he just wanted me to take out my wallet so he could rob me. He started saying “Awww… comon’ man just help me out here buy a $20 bag” and that he had kids to feed and whatnot. I told him I couldn’t help him at which point he stated “Maybe no one will be able to help you when I’m stomping your brains out”.
Fortunately at that point I just walked inside. The guy followed me inside but not around the bar. I let the staff, whom I knew, know that this guy was trying to sling beak in their establishment and let them deal with it. He got arrested when the cops showed up, searched him and found a bunch of bags of blow in his pockets.
Dealers who have no customer base sometimes try to make a customer base and they’re not really smart about it because if they were smart they’d already have a customer base… without threatening people.
I had a guy try to sell to me while I was tailgating at a Steelers game. When I said I didn’t need any weed or crack, he proceeded to offer acid, meth, heroin, etc. I said thanks, but I am good. He asked what my motherfucking problem was. My reply was “Apparently, I am going to have kill a shithead before kickoff.” He finally took the hint, but what the hell is up with that? Aren’t dealers supposed to be on the down low, covert?
Dealers that use their own product tend to think everyone does, too. Cocaine’s a hell of a drug, man.
These damn white Amish gangsters need to be severely punished. Oh, wait a second…. they’re just shtrugglin’ black folks. Never mind. Continue on, savages, the DOiJ has your backs.
“Savages”? Really? And what, you’re making this assumption by the guy’s choice of hairstyle, or the way he speaks? Get over yourself. This is a pretty clear case of self-defense
Poor Zastava. I would expect that kind of lunacy from a Draco Mini or Micro.
It is always entertaining watching two untrained people shooting it out. So many wrongs that I am sure it is not worth talking about it. Also, I couldn’t bring up the audio, but posting a video about the incident is downright stupid. Obviously, they did not consult an attorney before posting the video.
Bad hair guy kept moving to KEEP his woman in the crossfire!
The actual event went something like this:
Bad Guy: Smoke or coke?
Bad Hair Guy: Fool, look at my hair. I’s already stoopid. I don’t need to be stoned too.
Gunfight ensues.
There’s probably a 145 IQ score there somewhere, if you add up all the participants.
Say what you want about the AK guy, but from a legal perspective he was 100% in the right. He even allowed the offender to get away and that dickweed STILL shot at him. The sad thing is if he had drilled him right off the bat most of you would probably be screaming bad shoot.
Indeed
All the black men, and most black women in Atlanta are armed. Glock for the road and AK for the crib.
95% of them voted for Hillary. I don’t get it.
My people are brainwashed. it’s just that simple. My father hates, hates, hates, half the crazy, looney-leftist laws on the books in Chiraq, but he votes straight Democrat every time. Nothing I say to him matters. My mother once complained that Rahm Emanuel was going to raise her taxes. When I asked who she voted for after the election, she said that she’d voted for Rahm ‘because he was going to win anyway’. And he raised her taxes, naturally.
SMH
Glad I escaped the nuthouse, or I might be one of the nuts too.
In 2012 after Obama’s reelection, A black coworker who has my same income, kids go to the same school, and has conservative family values, voted for Obama. When we talked about it, he told me that the Republicans need to start lying to the people just like the Democrats do.
At that point, there was nothing I could say to change this man’s mind. SMH.
What they have is already illegal, even Hillary can’t make it more illegaler. And with more free stuff, we can use our $$ to buy more drugs!
My takeaway: “You don’t know what these n****z got out here, main!”
Food for thought. When i leave my rural area, have I got enough?
“Ak47. When you have to kill every motherfucker in the room, except no substitutes.”
Hilarious, and true. i got one, and love it, great for patrolling the ol’ perimeter, but not sure about carrying it around town in the truck. Not sure why i’m concerned, particularly after reading what YOU carry. Tennessee popo appreciate you carrying, encourage it even.
My lesson from this event? Buy gas at some place not a Texaco…
Frankly, I applaud the man’s choice in self defense firearms. The Zavasta PAP92 is a respected AK pistol platform and 7.62×39 is potent cartridge with a mag of 30 on tap. Or if you’re feeling saucy, a drum mag of 75. You’d be hard pressed to find a more effective, compact, and most importantly, reasonably priced platform for that night you get stuck in a bad part of town and the riots kick off, because that never happens these days, does it.
Glocks and PPCs are nice for get home bags, but nothing says ‘fuck-off’ like like an AK or AR pistol.