tl;dr A group tried to carjack me using a COVID homeless camp as cover. CCW likely saved my and my roommate's lives and ended with no shots fired and no one hurt.This just happened a few hours ago and I'm still processing it. My roommate and I decided to grab some lunch and we went to a Five Guys downtown in our city. On our way back to our apartment, we passed an intersection adjacent to what is normally a beautiful courtyard with trees and flowers. Well, because of Corona, this courtyard has been converted into a place for all the homeless people to stay. This means that downtown, just two blocks from "the circle" (a massive monument/fountain/gathering place) there are probably 50-100 guys hanging out and screaming and causing problems in this courtyard.We didn't plan to stop, just drive by on our way home. As I'm traveling north on the road I've marked here, first I see a large Ram pickup truck blocking two lanes of the 5-lane road. There's also some adult African American people blocking the right two lanes. I also see the legs of 5 people hiding behind the Ram pickup. I recognize that this is a potential threat and draw my handgun from appendix to a low-ready in my lap. I'm driving with my left hand as I'm holding my gun in my right hand. My roommate also draws his handgun.As we near the intersection, a group of people come out from behind the pickup truck and start approaching our car. One person is in front of us, and one is walking to the left side of the car and the other on the right. They're attempting to surround us. At this point, I don't know what their intentions are and I don't care. I perceived this as an immediate threat to my life and so I drew on the primary aggressor in front of the car. My windows are down and so I immediately start issuing verbal commands. I yell for all of them to get back and get on the sidewalk (but not quite as nicely). All but the primary aggressor complies. He only takes a few steps back and starts yelling "You aint gonna do shit".At this point I have to make a judgement call as I am still blocked and the only way out is forward through him. I rev my engine (manual Mustang) and tell him to get the fuck on the sidewalk or I will end him. This must have got through to him because he took a few steps back and cleared the way through. I gunned it as quick as I could and pulled over about a block away.As I was driving away, he started pulling up his shirt revealing what I assume to be his own firearm. I pull the car to the side of the road on the other side of the block and start dialing 911. The primary aggressor is still within range and begins walking towards us aggressively, telling me to come back and face him saying again, "You aint gonna do shit." At this point it became obvious that I was not in a safe position, so I gunned it again, through a red light, and got the fuck out of there.So now I'm on the phone with 911 and giving the best descriptions I could of the four primary assailants. This whole incident happened right next to the city-county building, so it took all of two minutes for cops to show up. I'm watching from a few blocks away, and see cops searching for the suspects. But in a crowd of 50+ people that all look very similar, they're long gone. I wait where I am and eventually a cop comes to me and takes a statement. I explain what happened, and his response was honestly depressing.Apparently, because of COVID-19, they are not allowed to do anything more than handle incidents when they occur. He said that this courtyard has been a hotbed of issues and these kind of things keep happening. He said the city is getting progressively more out of control as these people realize what things they can do without consequence.Reflection:Now that I have time to consider all the facts, the group was far too organized to be a random encounter of aggression. My guess is that they were using the chaos of the homeless camp on that courtyard as cover to steal someone's car. My Mustang was targeted and they had a previously developed plan on how they were going to take it. The car that was blocking the left two lanes was likely their getaway car. Again, just a guess.Everything is always clearer in hindsight, but there are a few things I definitely could have done better.- Obviously I should have removed myself further from the situation when I had the opportunity. There was no reason for me to stay in the area as I was making myself available to police by calling 911. I was so worried about calling 911 in order to increase the chances that the assailants were caught that I put mine and my friend's safety on the line. First priority was and is always safety.- I pointed my gun through the windshield. If the primary aggressor would have drawn on me and forced me to fire, I would have had no choice but to shoot through the windshield. Glass drastically changes the aerodynamics of a bullet and considering my backstop here was a crowd of homeless people and a city bus, a missed shot could have proved fatal to an innocent bystander. Short of getting out of the car, there wasn't much I could do to prevent this.- I could have just drove through them. With a manual transmission, you can drive or you can shoot. I had to pick one. I chose to "shoot"/brandish. My roommate had his gun trained on them, I could have just drove and hit them if I needed to while my roommate covered me. Instead we both drew and sat like ducks until the road was clear.- My decision to shoot happened to work out and no one got hurt, so it's hard to argue that it was the wrong decision. Perhaps if I drove towards them, he would have drawn his gun after seeing me drop mine and it would have turned nasty. Who knows.The work part of it all was finishing talking to the cops, explaining what happened, finally getting home and feeling safe only to realize that your Five Guy's burger is cold.... /sI know that was a super long post, but I'm genuinely curios what people think of my decision making or what you would have done in that situation. I'm going to call the city building and the bank on that corner tomorrow to try to get the footage and submit it to Active Self Protection.EDIT: Why the hell have I not bought a dash cam yet. First thing I did when I got home was order one on Amazon that I've been looking at. Would have been tremendously helpful in court if this encounter would have turned for the worse. via /r/CCW https://ift.tt/3d5FYhO
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