A highly-decorated retired police captain from the Oakland, California police department faced down three armed robbers in the lawless east by city while fueling his car. Unlike on-duty cops working Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s security detail in Chicagoland, Ersie Joyner didn’t surrender his gun. Instead, he went down fighting.
Even while suffering multiple bullet wounds, he killed one of his assailants and possibly wounded a second.
The attack happened near downtown Oakland in the middle of the day. One would think a decent-looking filling station in broad daylight would be a relatively safe environment. Perhaps it is by Oakland standards.
As he pumped gas, retired Oakland police captain Ersie Joyner was shot during an apparent robbery attempt, surveillance video shows.
Three people approached Joyner and he pulled out a handgun. He fired multiple shots at his assailants. https://t.co/lD66gyt2Zm pic.twitter.com/MH1UX9NMs0
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) October 22, 2021
See the full video here.
Joyner spent most of his 28-year career battling street gangs. Not only did he work to arrest offenders, but he also headed up the Oakland PD’s “Ceasefire” program.
We shouldn’t close without pointing out that the criminals who committed this armed robberies violated reams of California gun control laws. Of course, they also ignored other laws like prohibitions against armed robbery and attempted murder. But that’s why they are criminals. They fully expected that Captain Joyner would just be another retiree who’d be easy to fleece. They chose poorly.
We wish him a complete and speedy recovery.
As a quick reminder, gas stations are one of the three locations the average person is most likely to be attacked, statistically speaking. With lots of electronic devices on the gas pump to facilitate task-fixation and obstructed fields of view, there are near endless opportunities for bad guys to loiter without attracting much attention. Many instructors like myself liken gas stations to watering holes in the animal kingdom.
Parking lots represent another of the top three locations where bad guys love to accost intended victims. Again, plenty of places to hide and the ability to loiter unobtrusively when identifying targets.
Bad guys prefer folks who have their hands full, are distracted with electronic devices, or who look extra submissive (with bonus points for two or more of the aforementioned). Parking lots are like a victim shopping mall of sorts for criminals…a parade of possible tempting targets for the redistribution of wealth.
The third common location for attack is that last fifty or one hundred feet outside your home, right up to and including your front door. People tend to be distracted and oftentimes don’t pay attention when they come home. Or when they are at home. After all, everyone has to relax sometime.