I gotta rant

[Redmt]

This has no place here but I have just got to put it out there. Earlier this year one of the kids (34) that helps me out quite a bit and is an all around good person took his 2 year old an 5 year old fishing. On the way home he became the victim of road rage. He's driving his 4 door dually flatbed truck and a gang banger in a little Mercedes coupe starts dive bombing him, brake checking him and flashing him gang signs. This goes on for a couple miles, IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN! The Mercedes finally gets him trapped in traffic at a stop light and starts to jump out of his car. My buddy flashes a locked pistol at him and the guy does a cut and run. My buddy hurries on his way to get home and get his kids to safety. When he gets home he unlocked and loaded the pistol and locked the truck back up while getting the kids settled down with their mother. They are separated. When he comes back out there's cops everywhere. The cops ask about what happened and he tells the truth including flashing the pistol and loading it. It is still locked in the truck. They search the truck with permission. They take him into custody and is charged with several felonies. Fast forward to where the DA is threatening 24 years in prison. BUT if he cops a plea deal it could be as little as 2 years jail time. If he fights it in court and looses the DA will go full out after max penalties on all charges. His lawyer is recommending to take the plea deal because if he looses the minimum sentence will be 5 years.
This kid is the hardest working, straight up guy you would be proud to call a friend. California gun justice at work.

 

[Flatbrimmer]

This has no place here but I have just got to put it out there. Earlier this year one of the kids (34) that helps me out quite a bit and is an all around good person took his 2 year old an 5 year old fishing. On the way home he became the victim of road rage. He's driving his 4 door dually flatbed truck and a gang banger in a little Mercedes coupe starts dive bombing him, brake checking him and flashing him gang signs. This goes on for a couple miles, IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN! The Mercedes finally gets him trapped in traffic at a stop light and starts to jump out of his car. My buddy flashes a locked pistol at him and the guy does a cut and run. My buddy hurries on his way to get home and get his kids to safety. When he gets home he unlocked and loaded the pistol and locked the truck back up while getting the kids settled down with their mother. They are separated. When he comes back out there's cops everywhere. The cops ask about what happened and he tells the truth including flashing the pistol and loading it. It is still locked in the truck. They search the truck with permission. They take him into custody and is charged with several felonies. Fast forward to where the DA is threatening 24 years in prison. BUT if he cops a plea deal it could be as little as 2 years jail time. If he fights it in court and looses the DA will go full out after max penalties on all charges. His lawyer is recommending to take the plea deal because if he looses the minimum sentence will be 5 years.
This kid is the hardest working, straight up guy you would be proud to call a friend. California gun justice at work.

Sounds like Bozeman too. And a prime example of the scenarios I’ve mentioned a couple times here, of charges being the maximum so that they take a plea deal they otherwise would NEVER take. I’d still fight it. Justice prevails. Those cops would have done the same thing with their kids in the car… double standards

 

[pabearhunter]

In Cali the good guys are now the bad guys.

 

[Redmt]

You have no right to protect yourself or your family. I feel absolutely helpless watching a very good guy go down for something not of his doing.

 

[DouglasR]

In before the Calvary gets here.
Road raged is f’d up.
To quote a lawyer
“I’d like to be the one to flip the switch on this pos”
If they ever find him...

As search for road-rage shooter continues, mother thankful for support

Liam Gasser 'is still on a ventilator in ICU and not as far along as we would like,' his mother said.

www.news-gazette.com

 

[GoGriz]

This situation is where I feel a “jury of your peers” is the key to regulating and sending a message to the DA that they are chasing the wrong people/ are not representing the people. While I say this, I also understand that a jury of peers is very different in California now, than most other mid west states (to some degree that is changing quickly). I also had a very similar situation with a guy in a Mercedes brake checking people and swerving and throwing up gang signs occur two weeks ago in Southern California - my wife and kids were in the car and my wife was freaking out a little the guy was being so aggressive.

 

[Irrelevant]

Fight it. But quit packing a pistol, it should never be used as a threat and is only going to cause more problems than it solves

 

[Redmt]

Agreed. In this case he took the pistol for security while fishing a remote river. It doesn't really matter the why's and why for's. He's going to take it for something he wanted no part of. I asked him why he didn't call 911? He said the kids were in the backseat playing games on his phone and dropped it during the panic. He was afraid to stop.

 

[shrapnel]

Fight it. But quick packing a pistol, it should never be used as a threat and is only going to cause more problems than it solves

Too bad that this is the truth. You should never pack a firearm if you have no training or intent to use it. If you have a firearm for defense, you had better be able to know when and how to use it.

This is the America we live in today. You have to wait for that Mercedes driver to actually threaten your life before you brandish that firearm and when you do, you had better be ready to shoot that guy if he calls your bluff…

 

[Straight Arrow]

Pulling a firearm as a threat is the game changer and flips the victim to perpetrator.

No disrespect meant or questioning of your description of the incident, but it seems there's always "more to the story".

 

[Nick87]

I mean... l understand that technically showing him the pistol was a threat, but I'm guessing had he not turned tail he was prepared to use it so once the gun is drawn what was he supposed to do shoot the guy in the back? It's a very tricky situation I guess and I'm no police officer or lawyer. But I sure think taking it to trial would be best case scenario.

 

[elkduds]

One problem w going to trial is witnesses, or lack of. Juries want video, eyewitnesses. Don't get me started on jury pools.

 

[woods89]

I don't have a dash cam, but this makes a pretty good argument for one.

Hope it turns out ok.

 

[Salmonchaser]

He needs a new lawyer if the facts are as presented. I spent 20 years on the job, we’re missing something in the reporting. Also, if you’re ever involved in something this serious simply state you’ve nothing to say until you speak to a lawyer.

 

[Potsie]

Sounds like a clear cut case of brandishing to me.

 

[Carnage2011]

I understand that this is a tough one because he obviously showed the pistol as a threat. However, if the guy is approaching him and his children with intent to harm then he has the right to defend himself. If someone is putting my children in danger and is approaching me and my children there is going to be a problem. I can’t say how I would handle it because I’ve never been in that situation, but if the situation escalated I would defend myself and my children. If that results in me needing the best attorney available then that’s what I would do.

The problem here is that he’s in California which basically classifies him as f*cked. I wouldn’t carry a handgun in Cali, oregon, or Washington as protection right now.

 

[GoGriz]

One problem w going to trial is witnesses, or lack of. Juries want video, eyewitnesses. Don't get me started on jury pools.

Put the kids on the stand - two cute innocent kids vs a gang banger… shouldn’t be that hard for the moms and dads in the jury to come back with not guilty.

 

[gouch]

I can see how they could charge him with menacing which is punishable by up to a year in jail in California. What were the other charges? Did they find a pound of meth under the seat of his truck or something? There is probably something he isn't telling you, because that story doesn't line up with a possible 20 prison sentence.

 

[np307]

There's not nearly enough information to decipher this. One of the problems with road rage is that it doesn't matter how "good" of a person you are in the rest of your life, if you get caught up in it you do really stupid things. A guy I know who was as nice as you could imagine was a truck driver and one day he got caught up in a road rage incident and ran a car off the road, driver died, and the guy I know never even stopped. Threw his life away and took someone else's.

How do you know the Mercedes driver was a "gang banger" and "flashing gang signs"? How did the police know that it was your buddy?

 

[Flatbrimmer]

You can tell a gang banger when you see one bud