IT HAPPENED TO HIM: U.S. LawShield Rides to the Rescue in Chicago Self-Defense Triple Shooting

About a month ago, a Chicago resident used his concealed carry piece to repel a feral swarm of attackers.  We wrote about it as one of several defensive gun uses that happened in America’s Murder City in just one weekend.  Now that the dust has settled, we can share the rest of the story.

Here’s how CBS Chicago reported it:

CHICAGO (CBS) — A concealed carry license holder was attacked Friday night in Chicago and responded by shooting three men from his Northwest Side front yard. 

All four were hospitalized in critical condition after an argument led to the shooting.

The incident happened just before 11:30 in the 4700 block of West Wrightwood Avenue in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood.

Chicago police said the victim, a 43-year-old man, was in front of his home when an argument ensued with three men who began attacking him. The victim, a concealed carry license holder, pulled out a handgun and shot all three men. 

Here’s what really happened.

The CCW holder victim in this incident had asked his neighbors and their friends to turn down the music a notch or three at 11:30 pm on a Friday night. His 11-year-old daughter was trying to sleep for an event she had the next day. Instead of playing nice and doing the decent and honorable thing of dialing back the noise, the brazen neighbors and fellow party-goers attacked the CCW holder in his own front yard.

The neighbor, we’ll call him Raoul, had the foresight to put on his concealed carry piece before going outside to ask the neighbors to act a little more neighborly. When they savagely attacked him, he tried to retreat but there were too many. They beat him with fists, kicks and eventually even a metal rod of some sort, taking him to the ground to continue their frenzied attack.

Raoul pulled out his piece and shot one of the primary attackers, a 29-year-old man, in the chest. The younger man continued fighting, so Raoul kept shooting. He eventually shot that guy a total of five times in the chest.

While that took the wind out of that guy’s sails, the mob didn’t disperse. If anything, they became even more feral, seeking to disarm Raoul and get some retribution.

So Raoul shot another of his primary attackers. This 22-year-old attacker took a single round in the chest but it hit his spine. While that guy might not walk again, he might find some affordable gently used wheelchairs at the thrift store from where he can contemplate his poor choices in life.

The attack continued, so Raoul shot a third man, aged 55, in the throat, forcing him to miss church chorus that Sunday.

Seeing their numbers dwindling, the rest of the mob decided they had important business to attend to elsewhere…like turning the music down. They dispersed rather hastily. None bothered to stick around and render aid to their fellow attackers now leaking all over the yard.

Police and paramedics showed up after a few minutes and multiple 911 calls. Everyone, including Raoul, got rides to the hospital. The three attackers survived their wounds.  Raoul was evaluated for injuries and checked for a brain bleed among other things. Docs cleared him and released him from the hospital.

Of course, the boys in blue had questions. So, they took him to the police station.

Now, if you’re a cynic who thinks a Team Soros prosecutor like Kim Foxx isn’t going to let a guy shoot three people in self-defense get away with it, your Spidey senses are right on the money. They took Raoul to Cook County Jail when he asked for his attorney instead of answering questions.

Everything was going swimmingly for Team Soros until Raoul called his wife from jail and told her to get the emergency contact number for U.S. LawShield, of which he was a member, and call them for help.

The wife, a teacher, did exactly that and the U.S. LawShield independent program attorney for Illinois, Michael Johnson, took the call directly. Even though it was the middle of the night, he hopped in his car and started a multi-hour drive from northern Wisconsin back to Chicago.

Johnson called the police and introduced himself as Raoul’s attorney and told them not to ask him any questions. Johnson also spoke with the wife again, secured doorbell video of the incident (which didn’t show video, but the audio was helpful) and arranged for the detectives to retrieve it. He also spoke with a neighbor who witnessed the ordeal and expressed a willingness to talk with police.

I spoke with Michael Johnson and he had nothing but the highest praise for the two detectives handling the case. He said they were the model of professionalism and dedication to the job. In this case, they were very willing to go the extra mile to help secure evidence and witness statements that would further their investigation to a just conclusion, which also ultimately served to exonerate Raoul.

“It doesn’t always happen like that,” Johnson told me. Sometimes detectives say “tell it to the judge.” But not here. In fact, he said it was as if the detectives recognized the evidence that suggested this was a defensive gun use and were happy to report it as such.

The problem, however, involved Team Soros. The bottom-rung assistant state’s attorney handling the case initially charged it because their supervisor said to do so. “This is a heater case where he shot three people. Yeah, we’re going to charge him.” That was the word from on high.

However, Raoul had a Firearm Owners ID Card and a concealed carry license. He was attacked by a mob without provocation and beaten savagely. Only after taking a pretty good beating did he access his gun and start shooting. He fired only seven times and scored all hits. Moreover, he stopped shooting when the threats ceased. Even in a frightening, and adrenaline-fueled situation, he used only the force necessary to end the attack. From a self-defense point of view, he played it by the book.

After further “consultation” with prosecutors, Johnson got them to admit that they had nothing that would stand up in court. They ultimately dropped the charges and released Raoul in the middle of the night the next “day.”

Interestingly, before prosecutors dropped the charges, the local media relentlessly sought interviews with Raoul and his family. Then once news leaked out that the shooting was righteous and very justified, the media’s interest in interviewing him cratered. Johnson had warned Raoul not to say a peep to the media early on. They have a way of twisting things that can get people embroiled in the legal system in hotter water.

Since his release, Raoul’s gotten an order of protection against several of those involved.  He’s gone back to work and his family is doing their best to recover from this horrific incident.

Clearly, having a top-notch private attorney with decades of criminal cases, particularly focused on self-defense and gun ownership cases, behind him made all the difference for Raoul.  Without a competent attorney fighting on his behalf within hours of the incident, he might well have gone to arraignment court, gotten assigned an overworked public defender and had a judge decide to hold him until trial as a danger to those not-so-neighborly neighbors and their ne’er-do-well friends.

Now imagine for a moment if he spent the next three to six months in jail awaiting trial.  He would have lost his job and his family would have lost their father and been nearly defenseless against neighbors who had proven themselves less than kind. They also would most likely have struggled paying the bills and could’ve even lot their house as a result.

The moral of this story is simple: Get concealed carry legal coverage of some sort.  Nobody wakes up thinking it’s a great day to shoot some violent criminal predators, but it still happens. And just because you feel you are in the right, doesn’t always mean the police and prosecutors will simply agree. Think of it along these lines: Nobody expects to have a house fire either, but we all have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.

Research the concealed carry “insurance” products out there and find one that works for you. I’m not a salesman for U.S. LawShield but their attorney Michael Johnson hit a home run for one of the little people like you and me in this case. USLS and Johnson deserve praise for a job well done. So, too do the detectives who worked to recover the evidence.

U.S. LawShield has a great program, but other companies do as well. Don’t delay, sign up one of these companies today. Just in case. It’s a fraction of the hourly rate of a top-tier criminal defense attorney and can make the difference in the well-being of you and your family following an act of self-defense.

Editor’s Note: The Truth About Guns is affiliated with U.S. LawShield.