Discussion by Active Self-Protection Extra
John We hear all the time on the channel about people saying, I should be able to stop somebody stealing my car. I think you can. But here today with the attorney with Tim Forshey, the defense attorney extraordinaire, and here at C two, I want to talk about your buddy's car and what are my limits of protecting someone else's property.
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John This was an odd one out of Portland. Yes, it was. Was
Tim Forshey Portland, like you said. It
John Is Portland, Oregon. Odd. And listen, I say all this, I did get chided a little bit on YouTube because I kind of said, because Portland, I went to college at Oregon State. Okay, so I mean
Tim Forshey You earned the right to say that. Yeah,
John A little bit, right? So I'm a beaver alum. Now, court of S is two hours south of Portland, and when I was there in the late nineties, it was a nice town. We used to go up for Portland Winter hot games. The A HL had a professional hockey team up there at the time. And the last working Zer in America, in an American stadium there. No kidding. In Portland Coliseum. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. And they'd play, I want to drive the Zamboni anyways. Geez.
Tim Forshey Memory lane
John There go. Yeah. So I mean, Portland was a cool town, kitschy, weird, those kinds of things, but now it's just a not great place to be. So this dude sees somebody breaking into his buddy's car, decides he's going to yank him out of that car, tosses with him a little bit, and then comes to find out he's not bulletproof. So homie who's a car thief, happened to be an armed car thief and thankfully had terrible aim, thank God. So at the end of the day, car doesn't get stolen. A dude comes out, all right, no harm, no foul, no harm, no foul, right? But legally speaking, what right do I have to protect, not my property, but somebody else's property?
Tim Forshey Well, I would have to say in this case, the guy that interrupted the theft acted completely legally. Everything he did was legal. He didn't use lethal force. He used physical force. He dragged it out of the car. I played college football, pretty damn good tackle. Yeah, not bad. It took him down pretty good. And the size disparity wasn't anything to shake a stick at. So good job. Then what did he do? He turned around, made an assumption that the guy he just put on the ground was out of the fight and he's kind of get the we are the champion song playing in his head and turns his back and walks away nearly paid for that with his life, right? So the fight ain't over until everybody agrees the fight's over. So you don't turn your back on somebody just because you put 'em down.
Tim Forshey If you shoot somebody, you don't just turn your back and start whistling, right? Because that person, the Jason effect comes into play, their blood pressure stabilizes. They sit up and stab you to death. You just don't decide the fight's over because you think it's over. That's the moral here. Did he do anything illegal? Nothing that I saw. He used only physical force. He has a right to intervene to stop property crime. As long as he doesn't use lethal force, you can use reasonable physical force. Everything about this I thought was reasonable. I thought he has no legal repercussions that said he could have well paid with this for his life, paid for this with his life.
John He put a lot of chips in the pot.
Tim Forshey So again, is this juice worth this squeeze Uhuh? No way. Absolutely not. I don't care if that's a brand new Rolls-Royce versus whatever the heck it was. That's not juice. I'm willing to squeeze for it. No way. But
John It is legally allowed and morally okay to stop someone from stealing someone's
Tim Forshey Property. I would say it's morally correct. It's the moral correct thing to do. It's a good thing to do. Unfortunately, a lot of those things have a very high cost, right? Doing something that you know to be morally right. Just ask Martin Luther King can have a very high cost. So is that juice worth a squeeze with regard to intervening on behalf of your buddy's car versus your own car? It's the same thing. I can intervene. If I see somebody breaking into a building that doesn't belong to me, I can intervene. If it's a property only crime, I can use reasonable physical force to stop that. The question is, is it smart? Hear that, are you a vigilante or not?
John You can use force that is reasonably necessary to stop property
Tim Forshey Crime, but not mental
John Force. And force is not deadly force, right? So in every statute, in every state in the union, there's a distinction between force and deadly force.
Tim Forshey They actually call it physical force and deadly force,
John Right? In some states say physical or deadly, and some just say force or deadly force, I say you're authorized to use force, not including deadly force. See that in blackwood
Tim Forshey Wall punches up to including eight jewels.
John But whether it's my property or if I know it's not that person's property, and I know they're stealing it, so it's my next door neighbor and it's his car. And I know my next door neighbor, we're friends, we have dinner together all the time, and somebody's jumping into his car and I'm like, you don't belong here and I don't know anything about you. And I jerk that door open. I say, get out of my buddy's car. Now you might say, I'm your buddy's nephew and I borrowed his car. In which case you go, hang on a second nephew, we need to go knock on the door and talk to buddy and make sure you're not stealing my buddy's car.
Tim Forshey And that would be great.
John It'd be fine.
Tim Forshey On the other hand, what if the guy responds by drawing a Glock 19 and opening fire on you? So now was it worth getting involved? So to me, I hope I'm not the kind of person that's just going to watch and not do anything, but I think what I'm going to do is get out my video phone and I'm going to find a position of cover and I'm going to shout, I've got you on video, stealing that car, leave now. And then if the person starts shooting at me, I'm behind cover. I draw my weapon and do what I have to do. I've gotten involved, but I got involved in a prudent safe way I think, or safer. Maybe I do that. But do I just walk up and grab the guy and pull him out of the car? Man, if he turns around and stabs me or shoots me, I'm going to really wish I hadn't gotten
John Involved. And so I think everything you did legal. Yep. Okay. Completely stopping somebody from stealing your stuff. God bless you. God bless you opening that door and the guy and get out of the car. No. Yes, you can use regular ordinary force of a proportionate nature that a reasonable person would think is necessary to
Tim Forshey Achieve that. And 99% of his psyche was cheering the guy. God bless you, man. I mean, thank God people still get involved and do the right
John Thing when the guy he tosses him turns away from him, dude pulls a gun. Could he have used a gun to defend himself then? Absolutely. Unequivocally, yes.
Tim Forshey But now you just won a gunfight over an old used car that belongs to your buddy. I mean, I don't want to get into that gunfight. And then not to mention you're running the risk of losing said gunfight over a car.
John, It's funny, I say this at times like, okay, so the house down the street from me went for sale and they put out, they had an open house and it's a pretty nice neighborhood. This was an expensive home. It's up on the top of the hill and it's a big house and all that stuff. They had a bunch of brokers there where my office is sitting up in my house on the second floor and I overlook the street. So I see all these nice realtor cars parked from the road and one of these old realtors, one of these realtors comes out and smashes another car and then looks at it and
Tim Forshey Takes off and
John Jumps back in her car.
Tim Forshey Oh man.
John And so I just popped my door and I was like, and I had my phone with me, grabbed my phone real quick, starts snapping pictures, snap a picture of the driver in their door, got a picture of their license plate from the second floor from a little ways away, whatever, and then just waited. I was like, I could see the car from here, and
Tim Forshey You're thinking maybe she'll come back. Maybe she'll circle the block. And so I
John Just keep working. Eventually the other realtor comes out and starts looking at her car and I was like, I popped my head out of my office and I go, Hey, I've got pictures for you. I saw what happened. And she's like, oh really? Yeah. So give me your number. I'll text you your stuff, whatever. Here's my phone number. Have your insurance company call me. I said, now my thing is I didn't want to get in a fight with this person that was there or start anything. And guess what? I can just say I took pictures of it. Send it to the police. The police can go over and contact. You guys all
Tim Forshey Heard that how you handle this, right? You're doing the right thing. The justice will be served, the right person will be held responsible, but you didn't go out and run the risk of some crazy drug dealer opening fire on you in the street. I mean, you just can't
John Do that. I mean, should have been a high dollar realtor, probably shouldn't have been a problem, but just the
Tim Forshey Lacquer on the hair could be a danger.
John Yeah, but no need to have a confrontation. Right? No need for that. Now, in this case, I don't think of the guy did anything wrong. In fact, I think morally he did something right. I agree.
Tim Forshey But he nearly paid for it with his life.
John So be cautious of that. And n being dead right is not the way you want to be, right? Yeah, it's not the best. So hey, always appreciate the advice, Tim,
Tim Forshey Always. You bet. My pleasure buddy.
Credit: Active Self Protection Extra
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