by John Boch
At the Rangemaster Tactical Training Conference, some of my fellow GSL Defense Training instructors attended a seminar by nationally-known instructor Massad Ayoob titled “Lessons from Recent Trials“.
In that session, Mr. Ayoob counseled against automatically asking responding officers for an ambulance ride to the hospital to get checked out following a defensive shooting encounter. He says that in at least one trial, the victim of a criminal attack asked for that ambulance ride to get checked out and police later tried to use that against him to establish “inconsistencies” in his truthfulness.
You know how it goes: if someone will lie about one aspect of an event, they’ll lie about other aspects, especially with the self-interest of staying out of jail.
For this reason, Ayoob said, don’t automatically ask for that ride.
To which I say to all of you (and Mas when he reads this): “Better safe than sorry”.
“Officer, I’d like an ambulance. I’m not feeling so well right now.”
There’s no need to lie to the cops as to the reason you’re asking for a ride after you just had – for most folks who haven’t shot people before in the civilian world – the biggest adrenaline dump in your life. To say nothing of the rest of the chemical cocktail your adrenal and other glands have dumped into your body, concealing all manner of potential injury as Frank Sharpe writes about in his piece, “Requesting Medical Attention After a Defensive Shooting“. What’s more, your blood pressure is probably hovering well above medically sound levels. High blood pressure is the silent killer, after all.
“Officer, I’d like an ambulance. I’m not feeling so well right now.”
It’s not that hard. If skeptical or disbelieving Officer A. Hole wants you to provide a medically sound diagnosis of what ails you before summoning medical help, or a detailed description of symptoms, repeat after me: “Officer, I’d like an ambulance. I’m not feeling so well right now”.
To hesitate in asking for a medical evaluation could cost you your life. Be prudent and cautious. It’s not time to play Superman after a defensive gun use. After all, look what happened to Superman – he fell off a horse and broke his neck.
Yes, if you’re clearly uninjured and you take down bad people trying to kill you on a semi-regular basis, you might not even crave a cigarette after surviving a near-death encounter. In that instance, don’t ask for an ambulance.
But to automatically encourage reticence on the part of the average out-of-shape, over-weight Joe or Jane Sixpack seems an over-reaction to put it kindly.
Yes, don’t lie in the aftermath of a defensive gun use.
If nothing is found in the aftermath of the exam, and a prosecutor later maliciously mischaracterizes your request for an ambulance as a willful deception, you can recite some of Frank Sharpe’s piece (or similar works) to the jury, or hire him or other expert witnesses to testify on your behalf, gutting the prosecutor’s sleazy attempt to discredit your testimony.
It’s akin to a prosecutor trying to hang you out to dry for using “super-deadly, banned by the Geneva Convention” hollow-point ammunition, or having a “hair-trigger” job on your gun. If you can articulate the reasoning behind the decisions you’ve made and how those decisions make it safer for you and the people around you (and double points for making you less-deadly to the bad people you shot), you’ll not only survive a sleazy, self-defense hating prosecutor’s questioning (can you say Angela Corey, Marilyn Mosby or the prosecutor in the Harold Fish case?) but you’ll make them look like the idiots they are – undermining their attempt to undermine you.
Where do you learn how and what to articulate? Through high-quality training.
How do you know what is high-quality training? Here’s a primer on choosing a good training company, as opposed to an average or sub-par company.
Finding the right (quality) firearm training program for you
Pay particularly close attention to the sections on “FINDING A GOOD COURSE” and “RED FLAGS”.
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