# Lifestyles & Discussion > Personal Security & Defense >  Armed diner who fatally shot robber in Houston restaurant heist to face grand jury

## Origanalist

By Snejana Farberov

 Texas grand jury will decide whether to criminally charge a Houston taqueria patron who shot a robber dead last week, police said.

The Houston Police Department announced Monday the 46-year-old customer has turned himself in and is cooperating with the investigation into the deadly shooting. He has not been named because he was not arrested or charged with any crime.  

story continues.. https://nypost.com/2023/01/10/diner-...ce-grand-jury/

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## ClaytonB

Well, if he's judged by the standards applied to police, that grand-jury hearing should take all of 5 minutes to render its verdict...

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## luctor-et-emergo

Looking at the footage, the backstop did seem a bit badly chosen. While he did have his back to the defender at the time, the guy obviously manifested himself as a deadly threat, even if walking towards the door. If he were to exit or not right away is not a fact but an open question I guess. According to the news story the guy shot at the guy on the ground again, could be reasonable ?

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## Occam's Banana

If this guy gets charged (or convicted), what's the over/under on whether he'll get bond (or early release)?

https://twitter.com/_its_not_real_/s...99819055267841

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## Origanalist

> If this guy gets charged (or convicted), what's the over/under on whether he'll get bond (or early release)?
> 
> https://twitter.com/_its_not_real_/s...99819055267841


My money is on being charged, but it's Texas so he may be found innocent in a jury trial. Bond? Hmmm, again, it's Texas but I'm flipping a quarter on that one.

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## Anti Globalist

Since this happened in Texas, I'd assume this diner will be found innocent.  Then again Houston is a leftist hellhole so being charged is also quite possible.

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## Occam's Banana

> [...] it's Texas so [...]





> Since this happened in Texas [...]


Wherever it is, it's the same place that early-released a (now repeat) armed robber who had killed a man and was out on bond for assault while on parole - and it finally took some rando in a diner to actually do something about it.

AFAICT, all bets are off in such a place.

#AnarchoTyranny

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## Origanalist

The hero customer who shot and killed an armed robber at a Houston taco joint last week has been ordered to face a grand jury by District Attorney Kim Ogg, the Soros-funded prosecutor who appears to have let the career criminal he put down out on bond.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...nd-jury-soros?

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## CaptUSA

Gotta love Rumble for allowing you to see the whole clip.

Hidden in case this stuff troubles you.

* *











I can see some people having an issue with the final kill shot.  But still, $#@! around, find out.


ETA:  Gotta love dude by the jukebox!  Right near the line of fire and doesn't even flinch.

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## TheTexan

Did the robber not even think to bring a bag in which to carry his stolen goods?

Was he planning on just stuffing everything into his pockets?

SMGDH

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## TheTexan

> I can see some people having an issue with the final kill shot.


By the letter of the law he's probably guilty of some degree of homicide.

By the spirit of the law, give the guy a goddamn medal.

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## CaptUSA

> By the letter of the law he's probably guilty of some degree of homicide.
> 
> By the spirit of the law, give the guy a goddamn medal.


I mean, he did saved the court system a ton of money and prevented that idiot from ever doing this again.  Of course, they'll probably spend even more money going after the hero.

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## TheTexan

> I mean, he did saved the court system a ton of money and prevented that idiot from ever doing this again.  Of course, they'll probably spend even more money going after the hero.


On the flip side of the coin, this robber could have turned his life around after this, and then become the first African American to earn a Noble Prize in Physics,

but now we'll never know

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## ClaytonB

> By the letter of the law he's probably guilty of some degree of homicide.


Only if you apply an unreasonable amount of armchair-quarterbacking that is a thousand miles beyond anything that would be applied to, say, a police officer. The difference, in this case, is that the defender fired all his shots directly into the perpetrator, where police doctrine would have had him crouching behind "cover" and indiscriminately spraying bullets all over the dining area, just like in the movies (because that's basically that police doctrine really is... "make it look like you're in a movie!"). Standard self-defense training (idk if he has had it or not) is "keep firing until the threat is neutralized". He fired until the man stopped moving, and he stopped firing after that. He struck no other guests and it appears he didn't even do any damage to the restaurant itself from over-penetration or missed shots (correct me if wrong). That "final shot" was not "execution style", it simply appears to me that he wanted to be completely sure of his target so that no additional shots would be required, and no additional risk would be presented to any innocents by the discharge of the firearm (an innocent bolting in front of the gun, for example). I realize that his posture does not indicate an intent to flee the threat but, as already noted, the exaggerated amplification of the sense of threat in order to put on a good show of how threatened you were in the moment so you can make it look really good for the movie-cameras -- while generally practiced police-doctrine -- has nothing to do with sensible self-defense. I cannot see myself having done anything differently in this situation if I were in his shoes.




> By the spirit of the law, give the guy a goddamn medal.

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## TheTexan

> He fired until the man stopped moving, and he stopped firing after that.


I'm pretty sure he was firing into a corpse there by the end.  But as any good horror/action movie will teach you, it's best to be sure.

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## ClaytonB

> I'm pretty sure he was firing into a corpse there by the end.  But as any good horror/action movie will teach you, it's best to be sure.


 pretty sure from the comfort of your armchair ... when things are happening in real-time, it's different... even if a limp leg slides to the ground, this can appear "in the moment" to be an active attempt by the perpetrator to rise and recover his weapon and begin firing again. People have played dead after not being hit and then grabbed their weapon and resumed the crime. Everything this defender did looks textbook to me. I don't think we need to be splitting hairs in the defense of the rights of a daylight armed robber who might, in some hypothetical parallel universe, have been resuscitated and put on the public dole for the rest of his life, had one less shot been fired. I hope that the grand-jury also understands that; this man does not deserve to get raked over the coals because he handled the situation _better_ than any police officer probably would have, had they been on the scene (and that's the _real_ reason for the GJ being called here).

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## sam1952

My only comment is I’m sorry he took that last shot after he had the guys weapon in his hand.

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## TheTexan

> pretty sure from the comfort of your armchair ... when things are happening in real-time, it's different... even if a limp leg slides to the ground, this can appear "in the moment" to be an active attempt by the perpetrator to rise and recover his weapon and begin firing again. People have played dead after not being hit and then grabbed their weapon and resumed the crime. Everything this defender did looks textbook to me. I don't think we need to be splitting hairs in the defense of the rights of an armed daylight-robber who might, in some hypothetical parallel universe, have been resuscitated and put on the public dole for the rest of his life, had one less shot been fired. I hope that the grand-jury also understands that; this man does not deserve to get raked over the coals because he handled the situation _better_ than any police officer probably would have, had they been on the scene (and that's the _real_ reason for the GJ being called here).


Losing his cool based on adrenaline is a perfectly valid defense I think, but to say he handled this in a textbook fashion is giving too much credit.

Once a person is disarmed and on the ground and not moving (outside of perhaps involuntary leg twitches), there is no legitimate need to shoot again.

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## acptulsa

> I mean, he did saved the court system a ton of money...


Exactly the problem.  Depriving the government of an excuse to spend money may not technically be illegal, but it will get you persecuted.

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## tod evans

> Losing his cool based on adrenaline is a perfectly valid defense I think, but to say he handled this in a textbook fashion is giving too much credit.
> 
> Once a person is disarmed and on the ground and not moving (outside of perhaps involuntary leg twitches), there is no legitimate need to shoot again.


Being a complete novice in killing perps it's understandable that this guy "feared for his life" until the perp quit twitching.

Works for the 'professional' killers in court.

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## pcosmar

> My only comment is I’m sorry he took that last shot after he had the guys weapon in his hand.


made a furtive movement?

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## ClaytonB

> Losing his cool based on adrenaline is a perfectly valid defense I think, but to say he handled this in a textbook fashion is giving too much credit.
> 
> Once a person is disarmed and on the ground and not moving (outside of perhaps involuntary leg twitches), there is no legitimate need to shoot again.


Well, we just don't see it the same way. I see no lost cool whatsoever. He was completely composed, unlike 99% of public police probably would have been in the same situation. I don't know what was going through his mind in those last shots, but I can tell you what would have been going through my mind and why I would have done exactly or almost exactly the same thing. Especially with baggy clothes like that, there is no way to be certain that you have hit your target, and the perp could have been hiding a knife or gun and waiting to roll over and fire or lunge. He wanted to get control of the firearm and, before approaching it, he ensured the target was neutralized. There may have been minor twitching that is not visible on-camera, or other factors that made him feel that the perp was still an active threat, despite the fact he was laying face-down. Reaching down within arm's length of the perp to recover the firearm required him to place himself in potential danger in the event he had not actually hit him.

So, yes: *textbook*

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## ClaytonB

> Being a complete novice in killing perps it's understandable that this guy "feared for his life" until the perp quit twitching.
> 
> Works for the 'professional' killers in court.


You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to tod evans again.

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## A Son of Liberty

He had 7 or 8 in him before that last shot.  

I'm not saying the guy should be prosecuted, but that last shot doesn't seem to me like it was necessary.  I don't know - maybe in his mind it was a mercy killing at that point, as odds were that guy wasn't going to walk again, or chew food.  But based on the video - and that can be deceptive - it seemed cruel.  But basically that guy made his bed, so...

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## TheTexan

> Well, we just don't see it the same way. I see no lost cool whatsoever. He was completely composed, unlike 99% of public police probably would have been in the same situation. I don't know what was going through his mind in those last shots, but I can tell you what would have been going through my mind and why I would have done exactly or almost exactly the same thing. Especially with baggy clothes like that, there is no way to be certain that you have hit your target, and the perp could have been hiding a knife or gun and waiting to roll over and fire or lunge. He wanted to get control of the firearm and, before approaching it, he ensured the target was neutralized. There may have been minor twitching that is not visible on-camera, or other factors that made him feel that the perp was still an active threat, despite the fact he was laying face-down. Reaching down within arm's length of the perp to recover the firearm required him to place himself in potential danger in the event he had not actually hit him.
> 
> So, yes: *textbook*


Nah, the dude was definitely neutralized before that last shot.  Any movement that would justify another shot would have been picked up on camera.

I'm not saying the dude should be charged with anything.  I'm not even saying that the dude was even wrong in making that lost shot ($#@! that dead scumbag).

I'm just saying it wasn't necessary.

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## Occam's Banana

As far as what he "needed" to do ...

https://twitter.com/Occams_Banana/st...38575842033664

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## Occam's Banana

> I'm not even saying that the dude was even wrong in making that lost shot ($#@! that dead scumbag).
> 
> I'm just saying it wasn't necessary.


I agree. I have no problem conceding that the last shot was entirely superfluous.

I just don't care.

The retaliatory use of deadly force is warranted in a situation like this (i.e., an active, ongoing armed robbery). Under such circumstances, the application of more than minimally sufficient force is not really problematic (unless someone else is harmed as a result). IOW: The criminal is dead, and that's okay. It's not like he's a special kind of dead because of that last shot.

File under FAFO.

(Of course, "the law is an ass", so ...)

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## ClaytonB

> Nah, the dude was definitely neutralized before that last shot.


Yep, that is crystal clear from the armchair!




> Any movement that would justify another shot would have been picked up on camera.


Don't be ridiculous.




> I'm not saying the dude should be charged with anything.  I'm not even saying that the dude was even wrong in making that lost shot ($#@! that dead scumbag).
> 
> I'm just saying it wasn't necessary.


From the comfort of the armchair, yes, we can all agree that it wasn't necessary.

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## ClaytonB

> (Of course, "the law is an ass", so ...)


Exactly, and that's why it's important to differentiate between what can seem reasonably necessary _in the moment_, versus the armchair, with the luxury of pause, rewind, replay frame-by-frame, etc. Was that shot biologically necessary in order to ensure the perp was incapacitated? No, it does not appear from the CCTV footage that it was biologically necessary. However, in the heat of the situation, the defender may have perceived that the perpetrator was still moving or seemed to move. Given that the guy is in darks, on dark, and obscured by the defender, the CCTV footage is not even remotely close to being clear enough to assert, beyond reasonable doubt, that there were no twitches or other micro-movements that the defender may have reasonably interpreted as a last-ditch attempt to attack.

But armchair quarterbacks gonna armchair quarterback...

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## TheTexan

> Yep, that is crystal clear from the armchair!
> 
> 
> 
> Don't be ridiculous.
> 
> 
> 
> From the comfort of the armchair, yes, we can all agree that it wasn't necessary.


LOL sure OK.  If that single shot was placed into any other context, it would be straight up murder.

Even a *cop* would have a hard time playing the "you weren't there, man!  the video doesnt tell the whole story!" card.

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## ClaytonB

> Even a *cop* would have a hard time playing the "you weren't there, man!  the video doesnt tell the whole story!" card.


Right, which is why a *cop* would have crouched behind the likely location of any CCTV and then proceeded to just spray-and-pray the dining area in a hail of bullets.

You've lost track of the narrative: perp committed armed assault and robbery against everyone in the dining area, the defender fired on him at his first opportunity and continued firing until the perp was visibly disabled and disarmed. Killing the perp in self-defense cannot be a tort/crime even if the defender didn't huddle behind a wall and spray the room with bullets while "in fear for his life". In fact, following your (Establishment) line-of-reasoning, effective defense tactics are "unnecessary" and "homicide". Isn't it amazing how that dovetails with the courts protecting reckless police use-of-force. The fact that it was very unlikely that the perp was any threat at the time of the final shot doesn't translate into any moral or legal duty on the part of the defender to refrain from the use of _effective_ defense tactics.

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## TheTexan

> In fact, following your (Establishment) line-of-reasoning, effective defense tactics are "unnecessary" and "homicide".


Pulling your trigger at even the sign of the tiniest twitch or micro-movement is indeed an "effective" defense "tactic".

But it is not a justifiable one.

There are a million ways to justify that last shot - if it even needs justifying.  But a "micro-spasm" is not one of them.




> The fact that it was very unlikely that the perp was any threat at the time of the final shot doesn't translate into any moral or legal duty on the part of the defender to refrain from the use of effective defense tactics.


And on this I have never disagreed...

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## ClaytonB

> Pulling your trigger at even the sign of the tiniest twitch or micro-movement is indeed an "effective" defense "tactic".
> 
> But it is not a justifiable one.


Again, losing track of the narrative. What is justifiable is the use of effective defense against an active perpetrator. "Keep shooting until they stop moving" is standard firearms defense doctrine you will learn in any competent armed self-defense course. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, without pumping adrenaline, in the calm, cool, comfort of the armchair, sure, we can see that the final shot was not biologically necessary to incapacitate the perp. So, instead of 11 shots, the defender "should have" fired 10. That's a 90.9% score which, in a live-fire situation, is a pretty damn good score.




> There are a million ways to justify that last shot - if it even needs justifying.  But a "micro-spasm" is not one of them.


If the last shot really is "legally unjustifiable", then the defender would be liable to charges, which is absurd. All of us in this thread can only speculate about what was going through the defender's head. Perhaps it will make more sense after he explains himself, but even without an explanation, as I stated already, I would have done almost exactly what he did. That final shot would not be off the table for me if I saw the perp move, at all.




> And on this I have never disagreed...


Then perhaps our disagreement is over the potential seriousness of the word "justifiable" in a legal context. If firing a weapon at someone is _not legally justifiable_, then somebody's getting in a hell of a lot of trouble. In most states, armed crimes get 10-year sentence boosters, or more. So, yes, it's very important that that last shot _was_ justified. It was justified because the defender was clearly employing effective defense doctrine. All shots were placed on the target and he continued firing until the perp stopped moving.

What I will definitely agree is that he needs to make sure he has a good lawyer lined up in case the GJ tries to go all "even a cop wouldn't do that"-mode. What happened here was clearly justifiable -- all 11 shots. The last shot wasn't biologically necessary, as we can see from the armchair. But that is in no way related to the question of whether it was legally justifiable. Making that argument could potentially become extremely legally complicated, so I hope he doesn't try to represent himself if this goes to trial, or anything stupid like that.

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## TheTexan

> So, instead of 11 shots, the defender "should have" fired 10.


Correct.  As long as we are both clear on that point, I don't think we really disagree.

As a side note, to add a small subtraction to his "90.9%" score, I would say he did a poor job managing ammo.  He essentially emptied his mag into a corpse, when the perp could have had friends outside.

So from my quarterback armchair position, I would give him only a 80%

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## ClaytonB

> Correct.  As long as we are both clear on that point, I don't think we really disagree.
> 
> As a side note, to add a small subtraction to his "90.9%" score, I would say he did a poor job managing ammo.  He essentially emptied his mag into a corpse, when the perp could have had friends outside.
> 
> So from my quarterback armchair position, I would give him only a 80%


Fair enough

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## Occam's Banana

> Originally Posted by Occam's Banana
> 
> 
> (Of course, "the law is an ass", so ...)
> 
> 
> Exactly, and that's why it's important to differentiate between what can seem reasonably necessary _in the moment_, versus the armchair, with the luxury of pause, rewind, replay frame-by-frame, etc. Was that shot biologically necessary in order to ensure the perp was incapacitated? No, it does not appear from the CCTV footage that it was biologically necessary. However, in the heat of the situation, the defender may have perceived that the perpetrator was still moving or seemed to move. Given that the guy is in darks, on dark, and obscured by the defender, the CCTV footage is not even remotely close to being clear enough to assert, beyond reasonable doubt, that there were no twitches or other micro-movements that the defender may have reasonably interpreted as a last-ditch attempt to attack.
> 
> But armchair quarterbacks gonna armchair quarterback...


To the question of whether this particular ham sandwich actually ends up being indicted, it is precisely because "the law is an ass" that parsing out "what can seem reasonably necessary in the moment" (from the "armchair" or elsewhere) will be far less relevant than the political ambitions and sensibilities of the prosecutor presenting the case to the grand jury. If those sensibilities require that "what can seem reasonably necessary" be parsed this or that particular way, then that is the way it will be parsed. 

In a sane and just world, only two questions would really need to be answered here:
(1) Did the circumstances justify the application of deadly force?
(2) Did the application of deadly force harm only the perpetrator(s)?

If the answer to both questions is "yes" (as it appear to be in this case), then that ought to dispose the matter.

Any parsing beyond that will find whatever number of pinhead-dancing angels the parser (whether in the armchair or the grand jury room) needs to find. That the "necessity" (or lack thereof) of the final shot is of more than academic interest is a symptom of the fact that "the law is an ass".

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## CCTelander

A real life Paul Kersey? I’m ok with that.

Somebody $#@!ed around and found out. Good riddance.

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## ClaytonB



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