A North College Hill Man shot and wounded one of three people who jumped in North College Hill, Ohio Saturday morning., in what may have been an attempted strong-arm robbery.

A man was shot Saturday during an assault on a concealed carry permit holder in North College Hill, police said.

Officers responded to the 6500 block of Betts Avenue at approximately 11:45 a.m. for reports of a shooting.

In a press release, North College Hill police reported Verlin Stone, who possesses a concealed carry permit, was located when police arrived.

Verlin stated he opened fire while he was being assaulted by a man and two women, according to the release.

“Mr. Stone stated he was scared he may have a weapon and fired one round from his firearm at the (male) victim,” the release said.

Stone said his attackers fled the scene after the shot was fire.

The unnamed man was driven to Mercy West Hospital, then transferred to University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

As a general rule of thumb, it is not legal to bring a handgun into a fist-fight. That said, there are lot of exceptions/justifications to that general rule, and in many jurisdictions a group attack like this may justify a deadly force response, depending on the size disparity of the various attackers and victims. If the man and woman who attacked Mr. Stone were considerably larger/stronger than he was then this would seem to be a clear-cut case of justified self defense, as the attackers had a distinct possibility of severely injuring or killing him in a 3-on-1 attack. If Mr. Stone is a relatively large and strong man and the attackers were smaller, then he might have a harder time justifying shooting at them in self-defense. Stone also said that he thought the man was about to produce a weapon.

Those caveats made, the details of this story are shaping up for a “good shoot.”

Stone stayed on scene and was able to articulate his reasons for shooting the male suspect, and it’s worth nothing he was both judicious and accurate with his fire. The suspects all ran away, and never contacted authorities. The suspect was not located until he was brought to a hospital to treat his wound.

Charges have not been filed in this incident.

When they are, I suspect that the perforated suspect at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center will be the once facing jail time.