GA: Gunfight with an AK Pistol Clone in Atlanta

On Sunday, 21 August, 2016, at a little after 8 p.m., at a Texaco gas station in Atlanta, a gunfight erupted.  Most of it was caught on video. A hat tip to Beardedrambler at TTAG.  He pointed me toward the video.

The videos show a sequence of events where the driver of the black Charger is threatened by a man who flashes a pistol. The driver retrieves an AK 47 clone of a pistol and drives off the pistol flasher, who he says offered to sell him some "weed".

The video was posted online on 22 August.  Two days later, a follow-up video was posted by a couple that claimed to have been involved in the gun fight. I believe them.  If you compare the images from the video with the follow-up, the hairstyles are the same.  The man has a distinctive, two tone hair style. The couple also appears to have an AK pistol clone, as shown in the gunfight video.

The next day, August 25, a third video was posted.  In this video, the purported shooter of the AK pistol is still high from being alive.  He is at the stage in Kipling's poem In the Neolithic Age where "It is well that they are dead,". The Charger driver was questioned by the police, and released after they viewed the first video and interviewed witnesses.

He celebrates being alive, and is glad that the man who tried to kill him is dead. He shows us more weapons, a full stock AK clone and a Taurus Millenium G2 pistol. He also gives an account of what happened.

Link to video

The account is consistent with the gunfight video. The man with the two tone hair says the other man offered to sell him some weed. He said the he had "his own stuff".  The "weed seller" then flashed a pistol.  The victim with the two tone hair and the AK pistol is the driver of the black Dodge Charger.  The fellow that flashed the pistol follows him.  That puts the Charger driver into a high state of alert.  He pulls out the AK pistol from the driver's side of the black Charger. 

The "weed seller" who flashed the pistol sees the AK clone and retreats around the car.  The Charger driver follows. The aggressor falls down, desperately trying to clear his pistol which is caught in his clothing.

The Charger driver keeps giving the "weed seller" chances to give up or retreat.  It seems the Charger driver gave him too many.

The "weed seller" signals for mercy by lifting his left hand, but he continues to attempt to clear his pistol with the right hand.  He acts as if he is retreating. The Charger driver, in an act of mercy, is letting him go.

Then, in classic "gansta" style, the pistol flasher fires with the pistol held sideways, and hits the windshield of the black Charger.  He doesn't miss the Charger driver by much.  This may be where the Charger driver's passenger is slightly wounded in the left shoulder. 

The Charger driver fires the AK pistol in reply.  In the original article, it is stated that the pistol flasher retreats to a red and black Mazda, and drives away.
 From 11alive.com:

In the video, a black Dodge Charger is seen parked near the front door of the gas station. As car's owner walks out from inside the store, he is approached by an unknown suspect. The two exchange words as the suspect follows the car owner around the back of the car.

The exchange escalates until the suspect flashes a gun from his waistband. At that point, the car's owner walks over to his front door and pulls out an AK pistol.

The car's owner aims the gun at the man and appears to threaten the suspect, who had fallen to the ground. As the suspect gets up, he runs around the front of the car and opens fire on the other man.

At least four bullets strike the car's windshield, and at least one hit the woman, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the car.

Here is the video from the couple, two days later. Not much there, except for some bad gun handling.

 

 Link to second Video

In the third video, the Charger driver regrets being as slow to use deadly force as he was.  He realizes that this resulted in his girl being wounded, and that he could easily have died. He claims that the man he shot at is dead. I have not been able to confirm that claim.  The shooter seems to believe it.

Link to third video 

The video of the shooting shows that a person who threatened you with a gun cannot be assumed to be retreating.  They may be attempting to gain time or a better tactical position.  Just because they are moving away does not mean they have stopped being a deadly threat. It took a fraction of a second to shoot at the Charger driver, and wound the woman.  Either one could have been killed.

If a jury is sees this video, they can understand the problems a defensive shooter faces.  Now that you have seen it, you can testify that you know how quickly someone who appears to be retreating can use deadly force. Such knowledge might be enough to introduce the video into a trial, as evidence of your mindset.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.

Link to Gun Watch