Using a Firearm to Detain a Person

Not every act of self defense involving a firearm ends up with a shooting involved. In fact, there are statistics show that 14 out of 15 times or 32 out of 33 times the individual, the armed citizen is able to stop the threat without having to fire a shot. Many of those times end up in the person taking and holding the criminal suspect at gunpoint. And this is what we're going to talk about. Uh, in this section is how to take a criminal suspect at gunpoint. And here's the deal unless you practice this, unless you go out and role play with other individuals and give it a good, hard dedicated training session. The first time you need to do this in real life, it's not likely that it's going to turn out very well unless you know what the heck you're doing. And so we're going to spend a few minutes on this, uh, presentation, uh, showing you how to take a criminal suspect at gunpoint. If you're an armed citizen, let's show an example of what I'm talking about. And for the purposes of this demonstration, we're using blue plastic training guns, ok? I have a criminal suspect walking towards me. He's got a gun in his hand. I identify this. I draw mine, stop. Don't move. Drop that weapon. Ok. Now he freezes for a minute. Uh, you can relax so criminal suspect. And now what I want to explain is what I've done here. First thing is I don't have my finger on the trigger. It is indexed along the side of the frame. Ok? If your finger on the trigger and you're startled or something happens, you may end up shooting someone who just complied with your commands and dropped his weapon. And if there are witnesses around, you're probably gonna end up having a huge legal problem. So train for your finger off the trigger unless you intend to shoot. Ok. The next thing I did was use short concise commands. Stop, don't move, drop that weapon if I am mistaken as an off duty police officer, that is not a bad thing. Ok? Because this guy has probably run into cops before. Uh If he thinks that perhaps that the commands I'm using are those of an off duty cop. You know, that's OK. I'm not trying to uh mimic one. I'm not trying to uh be one. But the fact of the matter is if I sound like one that's perfectly acceptable uh in everybody's uh in everybody's situation so short, concise commands. The next thing I did was I aimed at the Pelvis, not up at the head like this. But down at the Pelvis, the reason I did that was two fold, one is it's still a good disabling shot. And perhaps a person is armed with a contact weapon, uh such as a knife or a club. If that's the case, then a Pelvis shot will more likely shut them down quicker. Uh, shots to the chest. A person can just keep running and end up, uh uh end up being right on top of you before the, uh, the effects of the bullet take place. But a pelvis shot could break the pelvic girdle, uh could put them down and stop him from getting to you. The second reason I aim for the pelvis and not up in the chest is if I'm aiming here, I can no longer see his hands if I bring the gun down to here and I can still look him in the eye. I can still communicate to him that I mean business, but I can now see his hands. I can see what he's holding. Uh, in this case, he was holding a gun, it might be a knife, it might be a cell phone. And I want to be able to identify that. I also want to be able to see if he moves his hands to his belt line or perhaps around his back in order to, uh, you know, to access another weapon. The next thing I do is I want to get him away from looking at me, slowly, face away from me, slowly, face away from me. Stop, slowly, raise your hands straight up in the air. OK. Now, I can do a visual look and make sure that there, I don't see anything that he's possibly hiding, uh, perhaps by raising up his hands, his t-shirt exposed his whole waistband in this particular instance. It didn't, but I didn't know that. Ok. And so he's got his hands up, I think, OK, he's pretty good to uh to go down to the ground in this particular situation. I don't want to put him down on the ground near that pistol. And so I am going to have him step a step or two forward to get him away from that. And so I'm back here now. Ok, sir. Take one step forward, stop. Ok? I want to command every move he makes. That's why I told him to stop. Ok, sir, slowly kneel, slowly kneel and as I put him down kneeling, that is my cue to move the gun off of him. I no longer need to be pointing the gun at him. Ok? Ok. I don't want somebody startling me. I don't want to have an accidental discharge. I don't want to put a brown in his back uh after I just controlled him and put him down in the kneeling position. And so I've now moved the gun off of him. Ok, sir, slowly lower yourself to the ground, keep your hands where I can see them. You're doing well all the way down to the ground, face down. Now, put your arms out to the side. Excellent. Now, turn your palms straight up, cross your ankles and don't move. If you move, I'll presume you're going for a weapon and I will shoot. Do you understand? Ok. I've gained verbal compliance from him. Him and I are communicating well, I think he thinks, I mean, business or elsewise, he may have just left, the area may have taken and, and run off. And so I'm in pretty good shape here. Ok. There's one other thing I want to do though, to increase my potential for survival. I want to move laterally. Now, sir, I want you to face away from the sound of my voice. Excellent. Now, don't move. If you move, I'll presume you're going for a weapon and I will shoot. Ok. So what I've done now is I put him in a disadvantageous position, he's away from the firearm. If he makes a move for it, I should be able to react to that and solve that problem. And so that's basically uh the steps of taking a criminal suspect at gunpoint. Uh One thing to remember is that you need to stay fluid, you need to train through the different possible scenarios. What if he didn't drop the gun immediately? You may have to reiterate your commands. Uh What if he doesn't turn around, you may have to bring the gun back up on target for a moment and let him think that you mean business. Remember pointing the gun at the criminal suspect is lawful. As long as you can articulate the facts and circumstances that led you to believe that your life was about ready to be assaulted. This guy walking towards me with a gun in his hand in a manner that wasn't normal, wasn't natural. Uh, gave me the, the legal right to stop him to take him at gunpoint. But under these circumstances, I didn't believe I had the legal right to shoot him. Ok. That was a textbook example of taking someone at gunpoint. But things can go wrong. Let's replay the scenario. The criminal suspect walks towards me with a gun in the hand. Stop, drop that weapon slowly, face away from me. Stop, slowly kneel. Ok. Do I shoot? Do I not shoot? What do I do? Of course you don't shoot, but I don't know how many times we hear of people shooting bad guys in the back as they try to get away. That happens all the time in the news. And if you've got him disabled, if he's no longer a threat to you, if he's running away, let him run. Ok, your job isn't to necessarily hold him for the cops. They have canine units that if they get called quick enough they can come and track him down and guess what? Even if they don't find him, you've got a good description of the guy and maybe they will be able to find him. Uh, you know, the next time he tries to rob somebody, but here's the deal. Don't shoot him in the back as he's running away. Ok, let's talk about one more scenario. This time. The criminal suspect has a knife. Stop, drop that knife, drop it slowly, face away from me. OK? Do not go for that knife, do you understand? Ok, that's good enough. We would do the same exact thing. But you saw this time that because of the tool or principle, the fact that an individual can close a distance of, uh, of 1015 2030 ft in the time it would take for me to identify that I'm under assault, uh, to, to get the gun up on target, to shoot, I want to be creating distance. And so that's why I immediately started walking away as I was taking him at gunpoint.