Another can of worms is intervening on behalf of someone else, and I don’t mean chasing some guy down the street as happened here.
From what I gather you’re fairly safe from civil lawsuits if you use deadly force in lawful self-defense, might get less clear if you ain’t the one being attacked.
Closest I ever came to that was when I was birdwatching along a walking trail here in a park on the West Side. An attractive Hispanic woman, early twenties walks by in workout gear and she looks scared, shoots me one of those looks like she wanted to ask for help.
Parking lot ain’t far away so I follow at a discrete distance, she gets back to her car and there’s a large, dangerous-looking individual waiting, probable Ex-Con/gang member type, late twenties/early thirties. The gist of the loud conversation that followed was they know each other somehow, she was still really scared and wanted him to leave her alone, she’s in the drivers seat he is standing right there obstructing her from closing it.
Coulda been a boyfriend/pimp/debt collector/all of the above.
I commence to watch birds again at an appropriate distance, far enough away so as not to be involved, close enough to be someone who was “there”, not looking directly at them. Nobody else around just then. Me an older White guy with binocs apparently looking at trees.
After maybe five minutes of this (a loooong time for me right then) he steps back, she drives off, he gets in his own vehicle and leaves also. Huge relief on my part. I do suspect I helped her out just by being present but what I shoulda done is called 911 right off and then hung around like I did.
Otherwise it could have been me and my j-frame “diving into a deep well of schidt”.......
It coulda been a deep well even if I HAD called the Cops, maybe just a bit less deep....
