When it comes to violence or being attacked many legal authorities will tell you how to not get into legal trouble, unfortunately, they have no idea how you can do this and stay alive. My wife and I were once attacked by someone who was probably high on crack. We had never seen him before that dark morning. He attacked my wife as soon as she started to leave our house. She was smart enough to come back inside and to come and get me. I ran the attacker off of our property but I scared him in the process. He went home and called the police. Since he called 911 first and reported that I had attacked him I was the one who got in trouble. At the time of the incident I was 33 and I had never been arrested before.
The attacker had spent time in prison had a thick criminal rap sheet and a bad mental health history. His problems were almost all about abuse against women & drugs. They did not even site him for the assault he committed on my wife and I on our property. He then sued us for mental damages that he said that he sustained because I caused him to have flashbacks to Viet Nam. To make matters worse he only lived about 4 houses away at the corner of our block. He began to present himself as a physical threat every time he saw me out. This guy was over 200 pounds and very solid and at one point when I was driving to work, when I stopped at the stop sign at the corner, this guy was swinging a large tire iron from hand to hand and trying to get me to fight. I kept on driving.
I asked my lawyer what I should do if the guy cornered me and attacked me again as I didn’t want to get into anymore legal trouble but I would defend myself before I would let this guy kill me. My lawyer said the words, “Don’t do it.” I explained myself and I asked the lawyer again what I should do if I were to find myself in a position where it was him or me. The lawyer said, “Don’t do it.” He kept repeating these words. No matter what I said, even if I was getting beat to death the lawyer said “don’t do it.”
The reason the lawyer gave this answer was to protect himself in case something happened. The problem with this was that I supposedly paid the lawyer to protect me and the only way that he knew to stop me from going to jail was if I had no contact with the attacker even though he had attacked my wife and I in the first place and was continuing to try to attack me. So, instead of giving me a way to defend myself the lawyer simply protected himself so that he couldn’t be held accountable if this guy attacked me and I hurt or killed him. The lawyer would not even address my question regarding what I should do if the attacker forced contact and I had no way out. He just continually said “don’t do it.”
After the situation was completely over I realized that the lawyer didn’t give any other answer for two reasons. The first reason was to cover himself and the second reason was even worse. He simply didn’t know any way that I could defend myself without going to jail.
To Be Continued in “Legality VS Survival: The Solution”
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