For full disclosure, I’m black but I don’t even see race altering perspective here. If a black person came at me the way the OP described, I’d feel threatened too. Perhaps my race wouldn’t be the thing I attributed their behavior to, but I would still see the question as provocatively rude regardless of who is doing the asking.
White people should be able to get this just as easily as black person, in other words.
This explains it perfectly. His body language and whole demeanor were threating. I thought I made that pretty obvious in my OP, but I guess I was wrong.
Also, he wasn’t right next to me. He was the perfect distance to have a good swing with the 2 by 4, and I could tell he knew that.
Body language and demeanor appearing threatening would not justify pre-emptive use of force in a criminal trial. If you had killed this person how would you frame this threat to police or the courts at trial? “The tone of his question and his demeanor lead me to believe I was at risk of death or great bodily harm?” You would be asked to explain what specifically. The fact that it was a bad neighborhood? That he had a 2x4? That he asked you a rude question? If that’s all you have I believe you’d be convicted. Nothing he said would be viewed as “fighting words”, nothing he did was an act of violence against you, you did nothing to deescalate the situation etc.
I would, and have reacted the same way with a black person. I don’t respond well to anyone that is clearly threating me. That wasn’t really my reason for bringing up race.
I’m not some insane person ready to overreact at the slightest thing, I’m not a tough guy. The fact that nothing wound up happening here proves that.
While this is purely hypothetical, if you had killed the guy it’d be your word against his, and he’s dead. I’d suggest you would need to lie to avoid prison time. You’d need to say he used specifically threatening words, or even just claim he tried to use the 2x4 on you, it would be difficult to prove otherwise given the likely evidence available. If it’s a SYG state you’d have a decent likelihood of acquittal, and even a non-SYG one if you were able to convince that fleeing wasn’t a likely means of avoiding death/harm in the situation.
But you definitely would not want to relay the story as you’ve told us before a court.
Ok, thanks for that, it’s pretty much what I had in mind. I was thinking the 2 by 4 would kind of change things. I saw that as talking without saying anything.
Like I said, I thought I made it clear in the OP that the guy was threating me from the beginning. This wasn’t just some guy out for a nice walk with a 2 by 4 that was interested in trains and just wanted to have a conversation about what I was doing.
I think I showed a huge amount of restraint just letting him get to within striking distance of me.
The first thing you do is stop, look straight at the person and scream LEAVE ME ALONE. If they come after you then, you are justified in using force.
That’s your opinion–like I said, the way you’ve phrased it a court is not going to be likely to find that you had a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm. That is the general standard for being able to kill someone and successfully claim self defense. Threatening demeanor, or “implied threats” generally are not enough. You have made it clear that you felt threatened, but you’ve given nothing to me, as a potential juror or hypothetical judge, to explain how it was a reasonable feeling of threat, under the law. It may have been reasonable to you, but you need something to be able to demonstrate its reasonableness to others.
You’re relying on a mixture of your own “street savvy” from having worked in rough neighborhoods and your “spider sense.” As someone who has spent time in rough neighborhoods I think those are both valuable things, one doesn’t lightly ignore either. But neither are going to be grounds on which you can successfully build a case of self defense. You need to be able to say things like “he did this, which is clearly threatening.” For example shaking the 2x4 at you, or wielding it toward you “menacingly.” As you’ve described it he was just carrying it in a manner that would be typical of how someone would carry a 2x4. You’ve only said it gave him “easy access to use it as a weapon”, but you’ve not articulated that he “brandished it” at you. Meaning you aren’t saying he “made it clearly obvious by his physical handling of the 2x4 that he was intending to harm you with it.” You’ve not articulated specific threats made against you verbally. Any of those would make your case far stronger, the lack of any of them place you in grave peril of being convicted of a crime had you killed this person.
Also you have no idea what he was doing or why (in response to your saying he wasn’t just out for a stroll)–and would not be able to prove that in court. Again, without lying (which I’d have recommended in this scenario if you’d actually killed him.) You can wager whatever money you have that if you had killed him the prosecution would be able to call some relative, girlfriend or et cetera who would testify he was in fact just out for a walk, that he was expected home at any time, and was certainly not one to be out causing trouble. Without him being alive the prosecution would need to interview people to rebuild his movements that night, and it’s likely they’d find people to help them do this who would be sympathetic to him as a friend/neighbor/relative and not sympathetic to you as an outsider.
Obviously it’s possible investigators for your defense attorney might find someone, too, who might say “oh yeah, James took that 2x4 over to x street to try and shake somebody down for some money” and then you’d be in great shape. But you’re trusting a lot to fate if you think such a person would be found.
I am not sure why being black would make terror more reasonable. ISTM that it should be exactly the opposite, since blacks commit violent crimes against whites far more than vice versa, both in proportion to their numbers and in absolute terms.
So it would make more sense, statistically, to have reversed the races in the OP. It still would not have justified attacking a stranger for asking a question, but it would have been slightly less wildly out of proportion.
Regards,
Shodan
Here is how I saw things.
I’m standing alone in the middle of a parking lot at dusk. I’m wearing a neon green vest with reflective strips, a radio, a lantern. I’m standing under a streetlight in the lot. There are train cars stopped on the tracks beyond the lot. It’s my train, but I’ll grant there was no way for him to know that.
A guy comes out of a house and starts walking towards me. I don’t see the 2 by 4 at first, the houses were across a street. He gets closer and I see the weapon, and he stops at perfect striking distance from me.
He then says “What are you doing”. That’s it. To me, it’s pretty obvious what I’m doing, so I don’t answer. My first thought is to say fuck off, but what if he didn’t like that answer. Then what? So I prepare to defend myself, not necessarily kill, but anything can happen once the violence starts. So I just assume it would end with someone’s death.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my ride pulling up. I walk away with out saying a word.
I thought about it later and was thinking what if my ride didn’t show up then? What if I wound up getting into it with this guy. Would I have been justified in light of all those facts if he died?
I said that a white person advancing on a white person with a two by four is, while frightening, less frightening than a white person advancing on a black person with a two by four.
I did not say that a white person advancing on a black person with a two by four is less frightening than a black person advancing on a white person with a two by four.
In the situation in which a white person is advancing on a black person, it is even clearer that combat is being considered by the one doing the advancing, than it would be if a white person were advancing on a white person.
I did not read the question that way AT ALL. In rereading it, I don’t see where you’re getting the point that we should take it as a given that the guy was about to attack. All we know is that an unknown guy walked up to him carrying a 2x4 and demanded to know what the OP was doing. Now MY assumption in reading this is that the guy thinks the OP is up to no good, and is carrying a 2x4 in case he needs to defend himself. That seems way more likely to me than some random dude has the intent of assaulting him.
And even if he lies, and avoids prison, his life has still been fucked up by going through months or years defending himself from these charges.
In no way would it be an advisable thing for the OP to use violence in the situation described.
None of that would be super relevant to a claim of reasonable fear for life/limb, if reasonable fear was present it may contribute to your inability to effectively flee instead of fight (i.e. you’re stranded at a work site by yourself, far from home, you don’t know the neighborhood well etc.)
This would also be called normal conversational distance by the prosecutor.
What are you doing would be very difficult to sell as a threat, borderline impossible. What are you doing isn’t actually an uncommon greeting. I’ve certainly used it to greet friends in a friendly way before. Now you’re going to argue it was said in a threatening way. This person also didn’t know you. You can demonstrate it was rude, but it’s going to be difficult/near impossible to make him asking you what you’re doing “fighting words” or a clear threat.
Your original post posited what if you had just attacked him in response to the question. The answer is you would almost certainly be legally unjustified, and would be convicted of a crime. If you had told him it was none of his business, and he then acted more aggressive or attacked you, and you killed him, it’d likely be self defense. If it’s not a SYG state, you’d only really need to show you couldn’t have reasonably escaped (and if you’re suddenly attacked that’s not a super difficult argument to make.)
Please.
If the situation were reversed, if I was a white guy and a black guy had the 2 by 4, every one would be saying I would have been justified. You can try to deny that, but I’ve seen it on these boards. I’ve been lurking here for a long time.
That’s why I brought up race, to see the hypocrisy.
I was thinking both things, but I do stand by my OP, I was thinking about hitting him in response to the question, instead off saying f-off.
To be fair, if the races were reversed, I think there a number of posters would be saying some benefit of the doubt should be given to the black person. Others would also point out prejudice might be coloring your perception of threat.
But I agree that discussion overall would be less skeptical of your perception or your assumptions about the guy’s intent. For instance, fewer people would be to trying portray “what are you doing” as an innocuous question from a curious, potentially mentally challenged train-o-phile. I also doubt anyone would be calling you a hypocrite for carrying a blackjack for protection.
Let’s frame it this way. If you had hit him and just knocked him out, and a cop happened to pull up and witness it, you’d be immediately arrested. If you told your story, you’d be booked on assault charges and almost certainly convicted. Not sure why you think it’d be different if it was a murder charge. I think you’re just not super well familiarized with the self defense laws. Along with it you’ve chosen to arm yourself with a weapon that in my opinion isn’t a great tool for self defense, but choosing to arm yourself for your own good you need to familiarize yourself with self defense laws. Just from your tone here I basically get the feeling it made you mad that he asked you this rude question, and you wanted to hurt him in response. Is that what you felt? I don’t know. But I know if I was a prosecutor it’d be really easy to sell a jury that’s what happened.
If you guys had gotten in a verbal argument and it escalated to a physical confrontation, everything then gets murkier. Who hit first, was there a point in the fight where you had to kill him or be killed/seriously injured yourself etc. It gets real complicated at that point. SYG would generally allow you to get into a fight with someone but then kill him if the fight escalated to the point you felt threatened. There was a case in WV where two men had an argument in a bar, they took it outside essentially and one of them started to lose, so he shot and killed the other guy. This was two white guys from WV so never got the attention of the SYG case down in Florida with Zimmerman and Martin, but actually was more egregious–because the shooter actually admitted to willingly entering into mutual combat with the deceased (Zimmerman claimed he was assaulted without provocation.) But the shooter still got off. So in a SYG state if you got into a fist fight over it, and at some point during the fight you chose to use a weapon, you’d maybe win. But you make it real, real hard when you say you’re thinking about killing someone in response to a question that simply would not meet the definition of “fighting words” or “threat” under American law.
No, my feelings weren’t hurt, and it’s clear to me people still think this was just a guy carrying a “piece of lumber” just trying to have a friendly conversation about what was going on.
Because it’s totally normal to go up to random people with a “piece of lumber” and ask them what there doing.
I think I may try it myself and see how far I get. I’ll say hey it was just a piece of lumber as my defense when I get arrested.