Armed Employee Turns the Tables on Attacker in Shreveport

A Louisiana man who allegedly went looking for a fight ended up getting a trip to the hospital and a felony charge after his intended victim turned out to be armed.

According to 710 KEEL, Shreveport police were called to a business called Whaley Food Service after reports of a shooting. When officers arrived, they discovered 42-year-old Michael Durham suffering from a gunshot wound to his hand. Another man had sustained minor injuries to his head.

An on-call Violent Crimes Detective responded to investigate. During an interview, a witness told the Detective that Durham entered the business and punched the other man in the face.

The witness then heard two gunshots and saw Durham run from the building. Investigators learned that the other man allegedly fired a handgun during the altercation, striking Durham in the hand.

As police conducted their investigation, it became apparent that this was no random act of violence. Instead, authorities say Durham had a personal grudge against the man who shot him.

Apparently, Durham believed the other man was having an affair with his wife, and had previously threatened to harm him over the alleged relationship.

Now, I have no idea whether those suspicions were correct, but even if were, Durham didn't have the right to walk into someone's workplace and start throwing punches. And his intended victim wasn't obligated to take a beating.

After interviewing witnesses and reviewing the circumstances, detectives determined that Durham should be arrested for second-degree battery. There's no report of the armed citizen facing charges at the moment. Louisiana self-defense law states that the use of force must be based on a reasonable belief that you or someone else is in imminent danger of losing your life, suffering great bodily harm, or facing a forcible felony. The level of force you use must match the level of threat you face, so it is possible that police could end up charging the gun owner if they believe that the shots in self-defense were disproportionate to the punches the man took in his face. 

However, we also don't know whether Durham was armed, how many punches he threw, or precisely what happened in the moments between the initial blow and the gunshots.

Those details will matter when it comes to determining whether deadly force was legally justified. People can be seriously injured or killed in fistfights, and someone who has already threatened violence before showing up at his intended victim's workplace and physically attacking him gave the victim a valid reason to fear what might happen next.

There's also a larger point here about the right of self-defense.

The armed citizen in this case apparently wasn't looking for trouble. He was at work when trouble allegedly came looking for him. He didn't get to choose the time or place of the confrontation, and he certainly couldn't count on police arriving before the violence began.

That's one of the fundamental realities when it comes to self-defense. Violent criminals don't operate on a schedule, and victims generally don't get advance notice that they're about to be attacked.

Firearms instructors encourage their students to avoid confrontations, de-escalate arguments, and retreat from dangerous situations whenever possible, and that's all great advice. Sometimes, though, the aggressor makes those options impossible.

Carrying a gun doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to fend off a violent encounter, but it can give someone a fighting chance when they're attacked. 

Louisiana is a permitless carry state, and Durham shouldn't have assumed he could (allegedly) threaten and attack his intended victim without them having the means to defend themselves. We'll keep an eye out for any updates to this incident, but for the moment it looks like Durham is the only one who's going to have to answer for his actions in a court of law. 

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