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By Brandon Curtis of concealednation.org

A 7-year-old boy was hit by a car ‘barreling’ down the road while he was trick-or-treating with his father Monday night. The man behind the wheel stopped shortly after, but soon tried to get away.

That’s when an armed citizen stepped in.

Danielle and Michael Lester had just crossed the street with their two children and nephew when they saw a sport utility vehicle “barreling” through the street near the intersection of North Eighth and North I streets.

“I actually saw the little boy fly through the air. It sounded like somebody hit a garbage can,” Danielle Lester said by phone Tuesday.

The boy is currently in critical condition. When the driver looked to be wanting an escape, Danielle Lester stepped in front of the vehicle and told him to stay where he was.

“He was revving his engine and bumping against me,” Danielle Lester said. A neighbor, Kenneth Hines, came over to help when he realized what was going on. Hines was also armed at the time.

He used his firearm to keep the man from leaving, who was attempting to run away. “I basically did a citizen’s arrest,” said Hines.

The man was believed to be intoxicated and was charged with suspicion of vehicular assault and driving under the influence, police said.

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39 COMMENTS

    • Well done to the homeowner! It seems that he has been the victim of robberies/burglaries in the past so was very sensibly armed. Now, I don’t know his background but for the time being will say that so much for the gun grabbers theory that only trained agents of the state are safe and effective enough to own firearms for self protection. Here was a fairly old guy, working on his truck who took out 2 robbers who it seemed already had their weapons in hand, bravo!

      Also refreshing was the interview given by the police spokeswoman. Perhaps she is grateful that citizens are refusing to be victims and are helping to clean up the streets in St. Louis!

      It also is interesting that one of the weapons used by the recently deceased was reported stolen ‘by’ the Florissant PD. Does this mean that it was stolen from them? I would say that if it was stolen from a home etc, it would be reported stolen ‘to’ the PD.

  1. yet you see no liberals championing for breathalizers in every car because then that would affect them. and this WOULD actually save lives, especially children.

    • 1st, yes, you do see some people advocate for that. Perhaps not front page of CNN but there are those who do.

      2nd, They’re fairly easy to defeat with nobody watching “Hey buddy, blow in my tube for me.” Or carry a tank of compressed air.

      • No, they aren’t easy to defeat. Not any more. Unless you are talking about some janky Piggly Wiggly brand blow-and-go you get with a “guaranteed false positive/false sense of control of your teenager” dip strip drug test for $19.95, your cliches are about 10 years out of date.

        That doesn’t mean, however, that the tecnology would be easy to implement on a massive scale.

        • Not easy to defeat?
          Make it a mandatory piece of equipment on all new cars and just see how long it takes for an app to show up on the Apple Store. All electronics can be hacked.

    • As a Type 1 diabetic, I absolutely do not support that. Having some high blood sugar at anytime, and I will blow hot. Don’t punish the many for the few.

      I understand your point though.

      • The chemical groups that diabetics ‘blow off’ in DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) are ketones (acetone), not alcohols; Modern breathalyzers are able to tell the difference quite accurately. An untrained ‘nose’ will often mistake the fruitlike odor of ketones on the breath of a diabetic for ethyl alcohol; A breath analyzer will not, because ketones do not activate the internal alcohol receptors correctly.
        Times have changed.

    • Here’s an idea. I’m a proponent of universal background checks (in order to purchase alcoholic beverages.) After a single DUI you get a scarlet letter on your driver’s license and EVERYBODY gets carded, not just young people.

  2. Can’t fault his actions, what would happen though if the drunk driver refused to stop and just drove off? In those situations, the police seem to have to have the authority to open fire to prevent escape but there is no way (in my mind) that an armed citizen (yes, I know the police are citizens too) should be doing that.

    Hope the child makes a speedy recovery on what should be a fun evening.

    • Assuming stand your ground is in effect, you have every right to stand directly in the path of his vehicle. Any motion toward you with that vehicle would be considered a credible threat of death or serious harm and would allow you to shoot to stop that threat.

      I am not a lawyer though.

      • And if your neighbor is standing in front of the vehicle and he’s revving the engine while threatening to kill her?
        I’m thinking you can draw and aim, and he can either put it in park or you can yell at her to get out of the way before you fire.

  3. I think the sensible thing to do in that situation is get a license plate number and make a mental note of the driver’s physical description.

    But I may have been like this guy – so incensed by the situation that I may have detained him with threat of deadly force. Especially if I realized he’s drunk and might run over more kids before the cops get to him.

    • “I may have detained him with threat of deadly force. Especially if I realized he’s drunk and might run over more kids before the cops get to him.”

      THIS is the reason to stop bad actors if at all practical.

      • The phrase is ” I was in fear for serious bodily injury or death of myself or others”. Or something like that.

        You stop the guy because he was dangerous enough to hit and almost kill one kid on a night where many kids may be present on the streets. There is nothing you can do about the first kid getting hit, but maybe you save the lives of a family that the guy could have run over after he fled.

    • You don’t have a legal duty to perform a citizen’s arrest, but you aren’t necessarily obligated by law to let criminals to flee the scene of the crime, either, and if you have the means to [safely] detain them for the police and prevent them from hurting anyone else [including you], then whether you do so or not comes down to personal ethics.

      They didn’t feel sufficiently threatened by someone who just committed a felony, so they didn’t shoot him; they instead got him to stop and held him for the police. I see absolutely nothing wrong with their judgment from a legal or moral standpoint, and no DA who valued his job would dare go after these two.

    • How is it “sensible” to let someone who rammed a kid and then wanted to just drive off just go on his way? That’s utterly irrational!

      The reaction to stop such a person is the logical one: he just nearly killed someone, and his desire is to go of and do it again, so you STOP HIM.

      • It may be sensible if trying to detain him may present a greater danger to myself or others than letting him go. He’s drunk, scared about going to prison, and very well may do something completely irrational. What if he tries to drive off, despite having my gun pointed at him? What if he drives over another kid while trying to get around me? If I open fire, I expose others in the neighborhood to flying bullets. A neighborhood full of kids on Halloween. I am not trained to apprehend drunks. I have no handcuffs.

        I admire the guy who detained the drunk. It’s a personal, situation-specific decision. I’m glad it turned out ok for him. Truth is, it could have gone terribly wrong.

  4. Just a friendly note to any would-be citizen’s-arrestors. My understanding of the law is this: while you as a non-LEO are allowed to detain people to enact an arrest if they are committing a crime, you are NOT granted the immunity that cops are if your arrest turns out to be invalid. Example: cop has reasonable suspicion (or whatever the proper legal mumbo jumbo words are… probable cause?) to believe you have committed a crime, he can lay hands on you, handcuff you, detain you, etc. If it later is proven that you did NOT commit that crime, you can’t then turn around and sue him/the police for kidnapping, battery, assault, etc, even though what he did technically meets those definitions. However, in those same circumstances, if you, as a non-LEO make a wrongful arrest, you have full liability for anything you did during the arrest. Tackle the guy? Tied his hands? Locked him in a closet until the police arrive? Turns out he just happened to be wearing the same outfit as the guy you saw punch that baby and run around the corner?You could be in for a world of hurt. So for all the “sheepdogs” out there, be mindful that if you make a mistake, you actually have to pay for it (unlike our brothers in blue).

  5. Year back local police claimed that someone came into station on a Sunday night and stole 32 issue handguns from the “locked” armoury without the two officers in the station noticing. I always assumed that they were “sold”.
    So the gun could have been “stolen” from police

    Congratulations for stopping driver

    • How many times do I need to be told how to unload a rifle?

      Apparently, every single time I open a post, and every time I go to write a comment, and every time I hit “Post Comment.”

      This is not advertising, it’s a pointless nuisance.

  6. So what are u gonna do as long as he doesn’t drive into you? Shoot him?

    If the guy was not driving into you or anyone else to begin with, what’s your excuse for pulling the gun?

    What makes you so sure that, insteading of running away, the guy is posing a CONTINUAL deadly threat AFTER hitting the kid?

    Piss off carjacking dumbass. You are the reason why people call us vigilantes.

    • If it makes you feel better, nobody who just read what you wrote immediately thought to themselves “Jeez, this guy seems like a real vigilante.”

    • Really? If someone had hit the kid with a baseball bat, then tried to leave with the bat, would you question whether or not the guy is still a threat? The drunken fool tried to wipe out a kid with his pickup truck, then threatened another man with the 4-wheeled weapon. When someone commits a felony in your presence, detaining them for the police isn’t vigilantism. It’s not like he tracked the guy down in his house with a pitchfork wielding mob at his back….

      • Bad analogy. If someone was running with a baseball bat and clipped a kid causing serious harm with 0 indication of intent, you wouldn’t reasonably expect him to be a threat if he tried to run away. It’s not like he Vegas Joyrided out of his way to hit the kid. I think what these guys did was commendable and it led to the most easily imaginable positive outcome, but I’m not sure it was legal by the letter of the law. Anyone have any actual expertise here?

  7. A good thing the driver stayed put after an armed citizen held them until authorities arrived. If he would have sped off the citizen would have been apt to shoot, not a good thing and if he injured or killed anyone, he could be in prison for a long time much less his career gone. There’s a lot of responsibility with conceal carry, glad this one went well!

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