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TTAG commentator Jim writes:

This video of the jewelry store robbery in Bakersfield CA raises some interesting questions. The storyline [via bakersfieldnow.com]: “Three men in masks are seen running into the store. One man comes to the back of the store where Jarvi was working and jumped over the counter. Jarvi grabbed a gun from his pocket and said he fired a shot . . . In the video, that man is seen wrestling with Jarvi. The shop owner said the suspect grabbed his hand and got his gun away. A second man is seen in the video approaching the same counter a couple seconds later. That’s the suspect who had come into the store with a gun, Jarvi said . . .

Right then, Jarvi said his wife hit a button that activated a siren in the store. He said that helped save him.

The man with gun opened fire on him, Jarvi said. The store owner managed to reach into his office and get a second gun.

“We both exchanged shots at one another,” Jarvi described. He said the suspect’s bullets went right past him, and one ended up in a doorway and the other hit a desk. According to police, Jarvi fired two shots at this time.

In short, the store owner fired once from his gun before it was taken away by perp #1. Perp #2 is the only one who came into the store with a gun. I don’t think perp #2 ever fired his weapon. So the two shots that almost hit Mr. Jarvi came from his own gun.

Questions raised . . .

Jarvi probably only saw the first perp coming at him (who didn’t have a weapon), so his shots were against an unarmed attacker. That’s a reasonable reaction for someone in fear for their life BUT it would have been extremely bad press had he killed the unarmed perp.

The wife pushed an audible alarm button—which probably would have scared everybody away. Maybe with no shots fired. Remember: the only gunfight you win is the one you never have.

Notice the baby and family in the store. The robbers pay them no mind as they hit the deck. They seem to focus on him and not the wife. If Mrs. Jarvi had been armed she would have had more time than her husband to shoot their attackers.

I don’t know what I would do. I certainly wouldn’t let them take my gun. So I guess I would be shooting and retreating, not running sideways. If perp #1 saw the gun pointed at him with the owner yelling stop maybe they would have all run off.

Who knows? [ED: result.]

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28 COMMENTS

  1. Remember: the only gunfight you win is the one you never have.

    Really? The reason I drive SUVs is because they win in accidents? I consider winning a accident when I can drive away and the other guy can’t. My 1991 Isuzu Trooper even won against a P71 style Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

    • Damn you missing edit button. More recently my 1999 Jeep Cherokee won against a mid 2000s Chrysler Seabring, and won against a block of granite.

        • The only accident i’ve been in which was my fault was that block of granite. The cop hit me when I was at a dead stop, and the Seabring was due to a lady running a red light and hitting me when I was making a left hand turn. And yet another accident involved my car being hit twice by a hold lady, while it was parked and on jack stands, although she managed to drive away.

          I would hope you would want to go driving with me, at least my car will win and we can still make it back home. Or would you rather be in a Smart car and have to wait for the fire department to cut you out of it.

        • Still, it sounds like you attract other heavy objects while in the driver’s seat. I’ll second Steve’s assessment.

        • Try living in Chicago. Once every 1 – 1.5 years I walk out of my home to find a peice of my car dangling off thanks to a hit and run. My bumpers are also rainbow colored in spots. People around here just don’t know how to drive or parallel park.

        • Damn, I need to start subscribing to email updates for the comments. I have no clue what jwm could have possibly said. And come on RF, I have a thick skin, I can take their abuse, no need to start deleting flames against me.

        • I didn’t think what I said was a flame. Let me try to rephrase it. I’ll use a line from that old Hee Haw song “if it weren”t for bad luck, you’d have no luck at all”.

          +1 on the not riding with you. By the way, how many people have been hit by lightening while stranding near you, matt.

    • Or, we could call it after-action ana-lysis. Learning from the objective eye of a camera is even more useful than a first-person account of what went down.

      • True Story. It is like any football player that watches game film on the other team so he knows how he should and wants to react in the same situation.

  2. It looks to me like he wasn’t carrying, but had to run to the back to get his gun. I can’t help but feel it would have gone differently had he had his firearm on him.

    It also appears that it would have been hard to ascertain who was and wasn’t armed – but I believe he would have seen all three masks through the store’s front glass.

    It is interesting scenario, especially considering the distribution of bystanders in the store. Glad no one was seriously hurt.

  3. He had the first gun on him. I normally support armed resistence to attack, but with that baby in the line of fire I would like to think I would have held off until they made some move to actually hurt someone.

    The father of the baby did well to use his own body to shield the kid. Tip of the hat to him.

    • The baby is the last one you should be worried about. Life is horrible for them, they spend all day screaming about how bad things are, and you can always make another.

  4. Geez, how about the customer in the red shirt that didn’t move an inch during the whole scenario. Unflappable or sheeple?

  5. After watching the video…I can see the stereotypes will live on. Scumbags. I with the owner had one on his side…had a faster draw…and took them all out.

  6. Numbers count for disparity of force just as much being armed does. “Three dudes walk into a jewelry store wearing masks” is a prelude to a robbery, not a joke.

    An aggressive DA can make a case out of most anything, but this would be a lousy use-of-force issue for the DA to push.

  7. “That’s a reasonable reaction for someone in fear for their life BUT it would have been extremely bad press had he killed the unarmed perp.”

    Really? REALLY??? Is that what you think?

    A man operating a jewelry store has every right to expect that a hooded man jumping over his counter after rushing in is armed and means to harm him.

    You really, deep down, are from New England and that taints your perspective on things. You have been indoctrinated by your environment to believe that using a gun is inherently bad even in self-defense. I really don’t understand why someone who has had as many classes as you claim to have had can arrive at the conclusions and skewed innuendos that you exhibit here.

    • I’m not entirely sure if youre interepting his message correctly. I do belive that you have every right of fear your life, but no matter what it is going to look bad if shoot a unarmed man. Look at what happened to George Zimmerman. Is this right? Of course not, but there are plenty of anti’s who will want to hang you.

      • Unlike Zimmerman, the attack had witnesses. And unlike Zimmerman it was in a jewelry shop and glass was broken with hammers. It’s reasonable for people to question the Zimmerman case because it was so unusual. Jewelry store have a tendency to get robbed by armed men.

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