What I did wrong, yell at me its ok

[Yo Mama]

We have been having a lot of problems with a young 20 year old in the neighborhood. Today he drove through the neighborhood yelling he would beat the 12 year old kid who ran in to tell his parents. I know them and went to check and tell them what happened.

The father asked where the 22 year old came from. I showed the house and said maybe we can make can make contact with a parent there to let them know. I had tried before and could never find anyone. I had my dog on a leash and we went over there.

The owner answered the door and I asked if we could speak about what just happened, everything was good.

Then a pitbull came out. I had mine on a leash and asked that they grab their dog, no one loved with them saying I was on their yard. The pit attacked my dog. No one from the home moved to stop it. My dog is elderly. I said three times to get their dog no o e moved. I grabbed at under my shirt and held the pistol butt telling them I will shoot their dog if they dont stop it. Guy tells me he will shoot me if u shoot the dog. I said you do what you want but if you dont get the dog now I'll shoot. He got the dog.

Now that the dust has settled a few lessons and updates. The home owner took full responsibility and has offered pay any vet bills as well as apologizing for the behavior of the 22 year old in the home. I'm hoping it will be a good opportunity to start to have a decent relationship with these neighbors who were from hell but we'll see.

Lessons that hurt my ego but need to be learned: should have either just called the police, and i put myself at a disadvantage by bringing my dog. The whole I almost shot your dog will be an awkward conversation at some point also.

Law btw where I am is homeowners dog legally be on a leash when answering the door unless your safety is threatened.

 

[GRIZ22]

I think you made a mistake bringing your dog. The pit bull was only defending it's turf.

Most places I know of you can't shoot a dog to save your dog. I'm not sure of the law everywhere.

 

[40-82]

The whole I almost shot your dog will be an awkward conversation at some point also.

This statement suggests to me that you haven't learned what you need to take away from this situation. Your whole post emanates with the attitude that if you behave reasonably, you'll elicit a reasonable response.

The lesson you should have learned is to leave these people strictly alone. If you have future complaints about their behavior, let the police handle it. Your assumption seemed to be that if the father knew how his son was acting in the neighborhood, he'd do something about it. If this young adult is in the habit of harassing and threatening twelve-year olds, his father already knows about these behavioral patterns, and he either won't or can't do anything about it. Simple discipline doesn't always work. Furthermore, If he was willing to allow his dog to kill yours, right in front of your eyes, it suggests to me that he might not be overly concerned with his son's behavior.

Your encounter with the man and his dog could have easily ended up in court and almost certainly would have, had you shot the dog. It could have been worse. The man did threaten to shoot you if you shot his dog. From my reading of your account, I suspect the only reason he pulled his dog off was that he realized that if you had to you would have shot both him and the dog.

Had either happened you would have been reported as an angry man who showed up on another's man property with a dog and a gun. The story you would have heard in court very likely would have been a version of events unrecognizable to you, but, nevertheless, presented by a professional prosecutor who knew the judge, and fully expected to gain a conviction. Even if you weren't convicted, you would have been in for a lot of trouble and a lot of expense.

Bottom line: which is important enough to emphasize again, don't go to a neighbor's house in an attempt to resolve threats of violence. If the issue rises to such a level that it must be dealt with, let the police do it.

 

[Yo Mama]

Very true guys. Every word of it. I was not trying to make light of any of it, hard lesson for sure on what not to do. I pride myself on not putting myself in a situation, and that is what I did.

I'm sick to my stomach about it and how it could have been worse, much worse.

 

[40-82]

We all make mistakes, but in this case no one was hurt, and you learned. I'm glad that your judgment is sophisticated enough to realize that decent intentions--and your intentions were decent--won't always carry the day.

 

[Zerodefect]

Bringing the dog was a bad idea. Never do that again. Fluffy can survive a few hours in his crate at home.

Doing anything with your pistol on someone else's yard is a bad idea. CCW is fine, but ''I'll shoot your dog'' on someone else's property is very likely to escalate into a real gun fight. Bringing a pistol at all was likely a bad idea. But concealed is concealed.

I might have just lit you up with a shotgun and then moved your pistol from your holster to your hands before calling the cops. Lolz.

Strange people with guns and dogs in my yard........ain't going to end well. Mentioning shooting anything would just be an instant chest full of buckshot.

I wouldn't pay your vet bills. You're on my property. If someone's pet elephant sits on my parked truck, I'm not paying for elephant sized butt band aids. If you have vet bills, I'd just eat that, in good faith. And learn from the mistake. Especially if you can salvage your relationship with your neighbors. Domestic dogs are rarely socialized to a proper pack mentality. Little, ancient pug dogs with two feet in a grave pick fights with big healthy dogs all the time.

I'd let the Leo's here judge your actions a bit. I think you stumbled into some dangerous legal territory. You have to be on extreme best behavior,if you're going to CCW on someone's property. You might not be innocent of the ''neighbor from hell'' bit. Gun, dog, shoot threat,......that sounds like a nightmare neighbor to me.

 

[coloradokevin]

This probably would have been a situation where calling the police initially would have been the best course of action. The problem person described in the beginning of this scenario is an adult, and he was threatening a child. Why bother talking to the adult's parents? He's making adult decisions, and adult decisions have adult consequences. It doesn't sound like the older adult generation was any better in this instance, and I'd definitely recommend steering clear of these neighbors in the future.

Taking your dog with you was definitely a bad choice, and you recognize that now. I wouldn't have any heartache about carrying a CCW on someone else's property unless your jurisdiction somehow prohibits that (most don't). My CCW is on me for my protection, and no one needs to know about it unless a situation transpires that requires me to reach for it. You didn't go there looking for a fight, and although you were on someone else's property, your actions were reasonable for being there, and you hadn't been asked to leave (which is an element of trespassing in most cases). As such, you weren't really doing anything wrong (legally or morally) by being there, you were just doing some things that weren't tactically sound.

As for threatening to shoot his dog, well, it seems to have resolved the situation without the dog getting shot, or your dog getting killed. That's CLEARLY the best outcome in this case, and it's really hard to say how things would have gone (legally) had you shot his dog. In general, would I shoot another dog to prevent it from killing my dog? Absolutely. Would I want to be in that situation on someone else's property, with their dog? Not at all. Would I want that situation to escalate to the point that I had to shoot the dog's owner to defend myself after I shot his dog? Yeah, that's just getting ugly now... the moral of the story, of course, is that many situations that end up in a critical incident are situations that might have been avoided if different choices were made along the way. You see what those choices are now, and that's good. But, otherwise, all is well that ends well.

Honestly, if I had made the same two mistakes (not letting the police handle it and bringing my dog), and ended up on the guy's porch with his dog trying to kill my dog, and him doing nothing to stop it, I would have likely responded just as you did.

 

[Yo Mama]

So one thing I thought I learned a while ago was that you cant reason with crazy, so talking is irrational. Hence the fact I should not have tried to talk with crazy because only crazier can happen. I'm humbly reminded of that again today. I'm glad if it helps anyone else so I wanted to share.

 

[Zerodefect]

I think the mentality people need to keep in their minds:

How the heck, am I going to explain this in court?

 

[Yo Mama]

I think the mentality people need to keep in their minds:

How the heck, am I going to explain this in court?

How it actually happened is different than how it would be presented in court, with me understanding both versions would actually be correct depending how you look at it

 

[Dibbs]

Seems to me like a specific lesson learned about these particular people, in this neighborhood.
Some folks take some kind of sick thrill from watching their dog maul other people's animals.
Sounds like the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree, to me. The kid grew up learning
bullying. Stay away from these people, you don't want to be involved with them especially to
put your CCW at risk, which they now know about, which also isn't good.

Seems like there's one in every neighborhood.

 

[edwardware]

. . . the attitude that if you behave reasonably, you'll elicit a reasonable response.

The lesson you should have learned is to leave these people strictly alone. . .

Problem is, you must have that attitude to be a reasonable neighbor. . . until you shouldn't. It can be difficult to change channels soon enough.

Certainly, in any situation that smells like an out-of-control child (indicating an out-of-control parent), I'd stay well away. They said, I am really hesitant to call the police until it's absolutely necessary, and there's a large gap between the two.

 

[FL-NC]

The cops get paid to deal with these situations. The rest of us tend to get in trouble with the cops by trying to handle it ourselves.

 

[WestKentucky]

We need tort reform. Any move you make is liable to get you in trouble with the jack wagons that are driving the societal bus. You can’t even go talk to your neighbor anymore without worrying of some sort of legal troubles or lawsuits. We live in a nanny state. The police are the nannies. Your best bet is to tattle.

 

[scaatylobo]

We have been having a lot of problems with a young 20 year old in the neighborhood. Today he drove through the neighborhood yelling he would beat the 12 year old kid who ran in to tell his parents. I know them and went to check and tell them what happened.

The father asked where the 22 year old came from. I showed the house and said maybe we can make can make contact with a parent there to let them know. I had tried before and could never find anyone. I had my dog on a leash and we went over there.

The owner answered the door and I asked if we could speak about what just happened, everything was good.

Then a pitbull came out. I had mine on a leash and asked that they grab their dog, no one loved with them saying I was on their yard. The pit attacked my dog. No one from the home moved to stop it. My dog is elderly. I said three times to get their dog no o e moved. I grabbed at under my shirt and held the pistol butt telling them I will shoot their dog if they dont stop it. Guy tells me he will shoot me if u shoot the dog. I said you do what you want but if you dont get the dog now I'll shoot. He got the dog.

Now that the dust has settled a few lessons and updates. The home owner took full responsibility and has offered pay any vet bills as well as apologizing for the behavior of the 22 year old in the home. I'm hoping it will be a good opportunity to start to have a decent relationship with these neighbors who were from hell but we'll see.

Lessons that hurt my ego but need to be learned: should have either just called the police, and i put myself at a disadvantage by bringing my dog. The whole I almost shot your dog will be an awkward conversation at some point also.

Law btw where I am is homeowners dog legally be on a leash when answering the door unless your safety is threatened.

I would NEED to know a great deal about you neighborhood before I made a real judgement.

But bringing a dog to another persons property is a huge no,no.

And if you could see that the 22 year old was a "problem child" then you should have guessed that he learned that at home !.

And if there were any indication that the above were true,it should have been a neighbor complaint to the police.

As a retired LEO, with 26 years of 'those calls' I will attest to that is how you MUST err.

On the side of caution,and legal repercussions.

 

[WrongHanded]

My perspective is this:

You got into a bad situation, and did the best you could to resolve it.

As others have said, you shouldn't have gone in the first place, and shouldn't have taken your dog. A 20+ year old is not going to be reigned in by his parents. Either they have control and he doesn't act like that, or they don't and so can't do much. If they can't control him, they likely don't want to admit that to a stranger and will get defensive. Therefore, there's no point talking to them. Bringing a dog to someone else's front door isn't cool and can be seen as a threat.

I suppose the end result is that your response to the situation showed the home owners that you're potentially dangerous, but not actively threatening. So you may have gotten lucky and get some sort of respect out of the whole incident. Now it might be best to keep your distance.

 

[JeffG]

I think you are being naive. These people are trouble, and I suspect your trouble with them has just started. Avoid them.

 

[GRIZ22]

The fact is you went from a witness to a participant in this situation. You brought this on yourself. You appear to have knowledge of the 20 or 22 year old threatening people. You told the father of the 12 year old and this is where your participation should have ended. Let the father of the 12 year old decide what should be done at that point.

The father of the 20 or 22 year old is not responsible for his son's actions. The son is.

What occurred is more than "just talking to a neighbor" and IMO just escalated the situation which included your dog getting hurt and someone threatening to shoot you.

As someone else said, the police are the ones who should handle situations like this.

 

[Yo Mama]

We need tort reform. Any move you make is liable to get you in trouble with the jack wagons that are driving the societal bus. You can’t even go talk to your neighbor anymore without worrying of some sort of legal troubles or lawsuits. We live in a nanny state. The police are the nannies. Your best bet is to tattle.

I know I really wanted to just simply have a conversation with a neighbor, however the dog fight changed everything quickly. Had i dropped her at home, or they keep their dog inside upon answering the door I think it would not have escalated.

 

[Yo Mama]

I think you are being naive. These people are trouble, and I suspect your trouble with them has just started. Avoid them.

4 cameras going on the house today. All the other neighbors have them pointed at this house so I was feeling left out. I will not interact with them in the future and police will handle it if anything else happens.

 

[JohnKSa]

Good suggestions and critique provided. If anyone has any additional insights not mentioned already, PM me and I will reopen the thread to allow the comment to be posted.