911 response time

[drssg]

Well you gotta let him in first, and get to know him. Then you'll find out.

Exactly. Until he actually starts raping and killing, it’s not really fair to judge.

 

[riptides]

I too have a vol. fire dept.. less than 2 miles away.!!
My garage/workshop caught fire a few years back..
The vol. fire dept FINALLY got there after passing the street SEVERAL TIMES..
THEN they stood there watching it burn & wetting the trees so it didn't spread..
I'm glad they finally showed up BUT "I think" it coulda been saved.. I wasn't a happy camper..
OH WELL..

I had this happen once, we now have strobe lights and our address is clearly marked. Plus, in this place, I visit the Fire Station so they know who I am.

 

[riptides]

How long do you have to decide whether you are facing a friend or foe? What's the correct reaction?

When they smack you upside your head. Shoot them and drag them into the house.

 

[MossRoad]

Sadly I found out what that response time is In my area. As many of us do here we live in a rural area. To my west is a highway. North is all farm fields. South and east are woods.

Sunday night the Mrs was putting in a load of laundry. She starts screaming bloody murder and telling me to grab my gun.

I assumed there was a four leg predator. Nope there was a 2 leg kind at the back door.

It was about 930 at night. Dude was shirtless, bald or close cropped hair cut and all tatted up. Said he just needed to use the phone.

Well our phone was busy being used as the Mrs was calling 911. I advised him through the closed door that we were armed and he needed to leave.

He walked west away from the house. There are no other houses that can be seen in that direction. He got down to the bridge over the highway and then turned back toward our house. Walked back past our house the other way.

County police finally showed up. Some 8 minutes later. Felt like an hour.

Obviously I am thankful he did not try to enter the home. I am also thankful I have the necessary tools to solve that problem if he had tried.

Many advantages to living in the country. 911 response time is not one of them.

Now that the adrenaline levels have returned to normal I am considering an alarm system and cameras.

Also I think I have wife convinced she needs a pistol in her barn. Of course since she teaches riding lessons to children it will have to be properly stowed in a quick access safe of some kind.

Sorry just had to get all this off my chest.

Op here

Re dog - we have one. She is an awful watch dog. We love her anyway.

Re wife actively carrying - she will not. So need best 2nd choice.

As for those who say I over reacted.... wrong. Dude comes up to my BACK DOOR. Only way to do that and not see the no trespass sign and not set off the drive way alarm is to not enter the property from the driveway.

Out come is the police did not come back to the house. They found him and he was wanted on warrants. That does not matter to my resolution of the matter in the moment because of course I did not know that. I had to call dispatch to find that out.

I cannot imagine opening the door in that situation. That is just crazy talk.

Indiana law is if the person is in the house I am justified in shooting. Outside the house it becomes much more complicated.

From a personal standpoint I would not want to have to live with having killed someone. However had things gone the other way and had he tried to break in there is no doubt in my mind I would have shot.

Amen. Indiana is also frequently listed as a stand your ground state. I would not want to push that though. Better to get away if you can - assuming you are in public and not your own home.

All in all looking back on it only thing I would have done differently is affirmatively tell the guy the cops were on the way. That way if he really was looking for help he would know it was coming. Of course he had to know from my reaction 911 had been called.

You did the right things.

I agree with your assessment that you should have told him the police were on the way. Any reasonable person would then say thank you and sit down and wait for the help they need. Even if it ended up being just a flat tire, the cops would assist you.

We've had it happen several times up here, too, people coming to the doors and asking if they could use the phone, and did similar to what you did, and offered to call the police for assistance. All of them declined the offer, so we called the cops anyway. Most were hauled off when the police arrived. :laughing: Fortunately, your county police station is 60 seconds from my house. :thumbsup:

8 minutes on a Sunday evening isn't bad response time at all. But it seems like an eternity when it's you that's waiting. Even my 60 second wait seems like forever when it's an emergency.

Most TBN members don't realize that you and I live on the western edge of the eastern time zone. It's light out at 9:30pm this time of year. Doesn't get dark until after 10pm. Probably helped the police catch him.

 

[MossRoad]

Another lesson for you out of this is now that you know it's gonna be several minutes, what about medical emergencies? Hmmm..... makes you think, yes?

Anytime someone in our neighborhood calls for medical emergencies, the county police show up first, followed by the fire department, and finally, the ambulance. The cops are trained in basic first aid, the fire department has paramedics, so does the ambulance. But it takes more minutes than you might have.

Make sure you and your spouse have some basic first aid training, and maybe even some advanced training, a good first aid kit, and a good emergency phone and plan in your house and horse barn, and refresh yourself a couple times a year. Can't hurt.

 

[Liquidsilver]

Wait, first you seem to be saying say you CAN tell the difference, then you seem to be saying you CAN'T tell the difference. Which is it?

Brother, you're working REAL hard on this devil's advocate role. Haha!

Unless he's an Oscar-nominated actor, I don't think it's very hard to tell the difference between someone that truly needs help and someone that could be dangerous, whether he's dressed as a born-to-lose ex-con or a TV preacher. It's so easy to judge somebody else's on-site reactions when we're sitting behind a keyboard, too.

At my ranch, you won't see anybody for 45 minutes unless they just happened to be driving past. I just hope I would be firm enough to make the right choices before a situation would become dangerous. I'm a pretty 'live and let live' person and I rarely have a firearm on my person, especially when I'm outside working or relaxing.

 

[CobyRupert]

Brother, you're working REAL hard on this devil's advocate role. Haha!

Yes. Ha ha.
But truth be told, my hearts not into as much anymore as more facts come out after OP's original post and my stance gets weaker. (i.e. Regarding his actions: there was trespassing signs avoided, came from a direction that avoided motion detectors, etc....., but his appearance is still irrelevant.)
It very well may of been the Devil at their backdoor (but isn't the Devil always portrayed as being sharply dressed?)....anyways, I'll will no longer advocate for the Devil.....at least not pro-bono.....however if I can get paid...!!

"I don't think it's very hard to tell the difference between someone that truly needs help and someone that could be dangerous" - Maybe, but not always. It seems a large portion of this country can't recognize a con man when they see one.

 

[atsah]

It seems a large portion of this country can't recognize a con man when they see one.

Ted Bundy looked like a nice enough guy..

If you can see what's inside a person without knowing them for a long time, you would be very valuable to law enforcement..

 

[turnkey4099]

It is common practice here to use the back door on rural properties.

And a stranger is going to know that....riiiiggghhhttt.

 

[turnkey4099]

After having seen the response my parents have gotten (multiple times) I can also add that depending on the location they may even get lost along the way.

In fact it got to the point my parents started giving directions to their place to the dispatcher whenever they called 911 (and even when they made non-emergency calls directly to the sheriff/police departments) ..... and the officers still get lost and have to re-request directions.

All due to an over reliance on the navigation devices in the squad cars -- which have flawed map info for my parent's area (even though they live at the city limits of a city with a metropolian population of 200,000).

One major problem is people rely on what is on the 'net. Google maps is notorious for having addresses in the wrong location. My place is 7 miles from where google says. It has caused problems with service people finding me and they are always surprised when I point out "DO NOT TRUST GOOGLE". It is rather stupid in this county to rely on a map to find a place. Addresses are assigned by miles and tenths of miles from the start of the highway, Looke at first mailbox after finding the road and you know exactly how far you will be from the destination, It will even tell you what side of the road y0u need to watch.