Ash Street Shootout - Rangers vs Gang Members

[SSN Vet]

A snapshot of what's wrong (and right) in the USA.

Wrong...

Race politics provides a "get out of jail free" card for those who do ill and well meaning cops have their hands tied for fear of being labeled racists.

Bureaucrats cover their political assets and do nothing for fear of bad press.

Drugs erode the fabric that supports a strong society.

Right...

The constitution preserves the right of citizens to keep arms.

When the facts finally sift to the top of the rhetoric, the PC liberal hype doesn't add up.

And one annecdote...

Handguns are the wrong tool for urban combat actions.

 

[Trebor]

I remember the controversy when this happened and some follow up within the next year or so. After that I never heard any more about it and always wondered how it ended up. Glad to know.

As far as the the appropriateness of the Ranger home-owner's actions this situation is obviously is NOT the typical self defense situation. Having a group of drug dealers pubically tell you they are going to shoot you, and then actually following up on it, is so beyond the typical situation that it has to be looked at as it's own unique situation.

The Rangers did not fire until they were fired upon. They wanted to keep the attackers from getting close enough to either storm the house or be close enough to take better aim. I'm sure they also wanted to reduce the amount of incoming fire by returning fire at the places where the shooting was coming from. Yeah, you could call it "suppressive fire" in that they were probably firing at muzzle flashes, but it seems that was what was needed in this case.

It sounds like most of the "innocent bystander" neighbors were already at the Ranger's house, which helped reduce the potentional for injuries or fatalities to bystanders.

Still, the men in the house were still responsible for every shot they fired. If they hit an uninvolved neighbor or an attacker they would have had to face the legal criminal and civil consequences. That was a risk they took even if it turns out to have worked out.

This is a neighborhood, not a battlefield. Firing at muzzle flashes doesn't seem to fit this definition.

If multiple attackers are shooting at an occupied house and the only thing the defenders can do to stop the attackers is to return fire *and* the only target they can see in the dark is the muzzle flash, then shooting at the muzzle flash seems like a reasonable thing to do to stop the attack. You'll either hit the person shooting at the house, which stops their firing, or you may cause them to duck or run off, which stops their firing. Either way the number of incoming rounds is reduced and the chances of someone in the house being hit is reduced.

Granted, as I said before, the defenders are still legally responsible for their actions and all the shots they fired. But, I think firing at the muzzle flashes would be appropriate in those circumstances. If the defenders would have waited for a clearer target before shooting the volume of incoming fire would NOT have been reduced and there would have been a greater chance of injury to those in the house and if there was no return fire the attackers might have attempted to rush the house. As it stands it sounds like when one of the attackers did attempt to close in to the house, and was identifiable as a specific target, he was shot.

 

[MagnumDweeb]

Man, love it when I see stuff like this. I'm glad no innocent persons were hurt. Sad to see the drug dealing scum weren't put down but in retrospect there could have been a bigger media explosion. The wussified sissy media was hell bent on making every black and white hash out a gear up to a race war or some nonsense. I'm only 25 and don't remember much of the 80s and I'm thankful for that, but so much of the popular media of the time paints a grim image of tense race relations or imminent nuclear holocaust. Had some Rangers justifiably killed some of the scum you'd probably had had the media out there screaming at the Rangers as murderers who should have laid down their arms and relented to being murdered.

If something like this happened today you can only imangine what the idiot and sissies on the left would be screaming "they shot at drug dealers in self-defense, this is like New Orleans, take their guns away so the two cops covering a few square miles can be left to protect them at a disadvantage of manpower and arms".

Glad to hear the Rangers got cleared, sad to hear the one guy never got to gain rank and was constructively asked to leave.

I would have got my wife and kids out of town and never let them return, which I understand would have defeated the ultimate purpose of reclaiming the neighborhood, but I couldn't bring myself to leave them in danger. And yeah I would have only fired on muzzle flash from a high on low angle so that if I missed the rounds would go into the dirt or hit pavement that would sap most of the energy from the round. I wouldn't have wanted to be on level or below those I was shooting at because of the risk of stray rounds. If some punks are firing at me from behind parked cars and I can't get a clear shot at them without putting out a round into the houses behind them, I'm putting rounds into the engine block to try and suppress them. If they keep it up I'm going for the gas tank, maybe they'd lose some courage standing right next to a burning car.

There probably wasn't any street lights, so it was a low light, or no light kind of situation. And you don't want to be shooting innocent bystanders trying to flee who are doing it poorly or foolishly in the chaos of rounds going off left and right. A gun running down the street might be someone trying to get away from the shooting and not someone running to fire on you. When you are the good guy you are stuck limiting your actions to what is right, and if you don't see someone for a fact firing on you right there and then, you can't be firing on them. And you don't want to be shooting someone in the back, because god forbid the sissy media(CNN, Time, People, etc.) get wind of you shooting at someone that fired on you and decide to reposition for a better shot, won't matter what the reality was, that he just two seconds before was firing on you, you shot a man in the back, a murder bent drug dealing waste of space scum.

 

[ny32182]

I probably would have done the same thing.

If muzzle flashes is all they have to shoot at, then it is what they've got. The choices evidently were to either return fire, or not return fire while bullets continue to penetrate the residence? If you've got muzzle flashes coming from a group of cars, that is a viable-enough target; I'm going to be firing back, and insurance can fix the bullet holes later. My life is more important than Joe Blow's windshield in that situation.

The failure here as I read it is with the police enforcement, not the Rangers. "Beggars can't be choosers", and if the police are not willing to maintain order in the neighborhood, they've got little room to complain about what goes on there. The cops show up as soon as the law abiding start defending themselves? Don't worry about the drug dealers; the homeowners are the bad guys? Sounds more like a California attitude than a Washington state attitude to me...

As far as why they didn't hit much, well... regardless of how Ranger-trained you are, you are going to have a hard time hitting what you can't see, and if the street was as pitch dark as the story describes it, they would have needed night-friendly optics to see human forms, I take it...

 

[mustang_steve]

I think this is a clear-cut example of why we shouldn't rely on police for protection of our families. It's not the officer's fault, but you never know when they are already busy with something, and rarely have any say when they have a cutback on manpower in your area.

Given, how they handled this is pretty messed up, it could have backfired on them a lot harder than it did.

 

[Werewolf]

This is a neighborhood, not a battlefield...

And that's where you're wrong. It was a battlefield. It was citizens protecting their homes from criminals because the cops wouldn't do their JOBS and protect their homes.

But of course it really wasn't the cop's job because the supremes have said over and over again that the police don't have a responsibility to protect individual citizens. Jackasses. If that's not what the cops are for then they're little more than garbage men cleaning up the mess afterwards and we the citizens are the garbage.

It's a darn good thing you weren't on that street that night 444. The bad guys would probably have won, the sarge's home would have burned and no telling what else - what with you running around gnashing your teeth and wailing at everyone don't shoot, oh god don't shoot! you'll be breaking one of the 4 rules - ohhhh noze - you'll be breaking one of the 4 rules.

You're the one that doesn't get it 444. That world of ZERO tolerance you live in is gonna bite you in the arse one of these days.

 

[DAVIDSDIVAD]

Allow me to touch on 444's post.

1) If you are shooting to defend your life. Fine. You are still responsible for every shot you fire, but it is justified in order to save your life. That doesn't mean that you might not be sued if some innocent bystander gets hit or their property is damaged but you are justified in shooting back.

2) If you fire at them and are purposely NOT trying to hit them but instead shoot up the neighborhood, you can be, and should be charged and sued. It is dangerous, it is negligent and you should NOT be applauded on the internet.

No.


That shot suddenly becomes the opposite of justified the nanosecond it touches an innocent.


You cannot be charged with a "1st degree Whoopsie" or a "shooting at a bad guy but missed"

You hit someone else, and it becomes serious.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

Until the time I left Ft Lewis the hilltop was still considered dangerous. If you can afford it you never move into an area like it. One last note as a common rule of thimb as we all know "if you go looking for trouble than trouble will find you".

 

[atomd]

Chances are if you called the police right away they would take down some information, file a report, and increase patrols in your area looking for trouble. The police are not going to have a dozen armed officers standing on your front lawn all night long every night...waiting for someone to come and try to shoot you.

What do you do when you know someone is going to come and try to kill you and your family? Pack up and move out in less than a day's notice? Call up the gangsters and ask them politely not to come and shoot you? Sit down, have a beer and hope the police take care of it before they get you?

I just can't think of a really good solution. It's just a matter of time before things don't end well in a case like that. If that shootout didn't happen that night, he might have been shot while on his way to the grocery store the next day...or shot while answering his door 2 weeks later. He couldn't go on the offense. It sounds like he tried to put together the best possible defense he could in the time he had. I really have no idea what I would do in his situation with that short amount of time. Anything can happen. It's a unique situation and thank God it ended well.

 

[NMGonzo]

My money is that the rangers did not try to kill anyone beyond the property line.

 

[daehawc]

A lot of opinions on this one and the fact remains that none of us were actually there. Being a Marine, I can vouch that not every military member is an expert shot, even in the "elite" Rangers. Add into that the stress of keeping your family safe, low light environment, and an enemy behind cover and it's not all that suprising that no one got hit. Plus military tactics tend to revolve around the concept of fire and movement/ fire and maneuver. Your individual soldier/Marine is not always directly killing the enemy, a lot of times you just supress until you can get in to a better position to take them out. These guys were likely just defaulting to their training but restricted from attempting to flank due to the situation and the environment. It seems unlikely that any of them were trying NOT to kill the enemy but rather were doing as trained and simply trying to supress the threat by whatever means necessary.

With the report of gunfire coming at them from all sides, how long would you be willing to sit exposed in the window trying to get a perfect sight picture on one target while rounds are coming at you from two other directions as well?

 

[tresimpson]

Us rangers

First of all, I don't think that people have read all the article before they have made their comments, otherwise they would know that The Hilltop historical hasn't been supported by the police department. This is the reason that all the surveillance equipment had been installed. That is the reason that things had to be taken in to one own hands. People were sick and tired of the happenings around them and nothing being done about it.
No one was killed because the rangers had no plans on killing them just to suppress them, keep their heads down.Anyone that has any ranger training now how to suppres wit hout killing, maximize killing whether day or night, and for this and other reason, I feel that they had no intention of killing anyone.

 

[Browns Fan]

Quote:
"As the tough colonel predicted, he was never promoted. He left the Army in 1993."

I would hardly call a colonel tough if he caved in under political pressure to threaten an NCO's career.

 

[searcher451]

That is one heck of a fascinating read. Many thanks for taking the time to post it.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Was it bad marksmanship on the Rangers' part that only one bad guy was winged or something else?