Fast on the heels of the gang attack upon the white couple described in yesterday’s post, “Caught on Video: Vicious Group Attack by Thugs on Young Couple,” comes another video capture of a gang of black teenagers beating unconscious what appears to be a randomly selected white man intent on nothing more than doing his grocery shopping, as well as two store employees who came to his aid.
Breitbart news site Big Government reports that:
According to Memphis police, the group emerged from a restaurant in the same strip mall and immediately attacked a 25-year-old man as he left his car in the parking lot and headed for the grocery store.Two grocery store employees ran to the man’s aide, and the black mob attacked them as well, brutally beating all three victims into unconsciousness.
Cell phone video of the attacks as captured by an observer is embedded below.
The screen cap of that video in the image above captures the moment that one of the attackers stomps down upon a fallen store employee’s hand, which had been protecting his face, so that the attacker could next swing a kick directly into the now unprotected face.
The victim was, not surprisingly rendered utterly unconscious by the vicious attack, as were the other two victims of the gang.
The attacking gang can be heard laughing throughout, as can spectators.
Needless to say, this is again a disparity of force attack of a deadly force nature that would unquestionably have justified the use of deadly force in self-defense as previously discussed in both yesterday’s post and the prior “When can you legally use a gun against an unarmed person?”
Indeed, watching the store employee being viciously stomped unconscious one cannot help recall the vicious attack by Trayvon Martin upon George Zimmerman, repeatedly smashing Zimmerman’s head upon the sidewalk. Any one of those blows could have been the one that rendered Zimmerman unconscious and helpless.
Can there be any doubt that if Zimmerman had not been lawfully armed and able to bring that Kel-Tec to bear against Martin that this, or worse, would have been the outcome? (Click here for a comprehensive list of all my coverage of the Zimmerman trial, including the famed “Mythbuster” posts.)
Sooner or later one of these vicious gangs of “children” is going to chose as a target one of the 5% to 10% of Americans lawfully licensed to carry concealed weapons for personal protection. I expect that they will find it considerably more difficult to stomp an innocent person unconscious when the intended victim is able to lawfully and adequately defend themselves and those they have a duty to defend.
I also expect we’ll be hearing considerably less laughing and a lot more lamentations about how awful it is that yet another “unarmed black child” was killed in lawful self-defense.
I beseech the parents of these attacking teen gang members to do whatever is necessary to save their children’s lives. Nobody wants to join the tragic ranks of the Martin or Davis parents.
At the same time, no civilized society can allow roaming bands of gangs to randomly target innocent people for deadly force attacks.
As an aside, these vicious attacks against which defense is possible only with a weapon surely doom any efforts to restrict or diminish either concealed carry or self-defense laws. Indeed, I expect these attacks will successfully advance efforts to expand both the circumstances under which both concealed carry and the use of deadly force in self-defense are lawful.
Be careful out there, folks. There but for pure luck goes any one of us. Be alert, be prepared, know the law.
–-Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
NOTE: It seems Amazon is running a “Kindle Countdown” on “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition.” Until 4PM (US EST) today the Kindle version of the book is available for $4.99, half the usual price. 🙂
Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog (autographed copies available) and Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle). He holds many state-specific Law of Self Defense Seminars around the country, and produces free online self-defense law educational video- and podcasts at the Law of Self Defense University.
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