A member of TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia emailed a link to the now infamous McDonald’s beat down video. “I fully realize that the general consensus is you walk away, run if needed, rather than enter an engagement. But somehow this is different in my mind because it’s a female on female attack. That prevailing male mentally of ‘protect the women and children’ shining through I guess. Still, it’s a vicious attack all the same. In the ‘role-playing in my mind’ response, I went through constant escalation from yelling, physical contact all the way to presentation to stop the attack. Being relatively new to conceal carry, I have learned volumes by reading what others would do.” Yes, well. did you know that the woman being beat is actually . . .
a male cross-dresser who got into a confrontation with female patrons when he refused to leave the women’s bathroom at the Baltimore Mickey D’s?
This newly discovered fact [via Fox] shouldn’t make any difference as to your response. No one deserves a beating like that, for any reason. Or do they?
Although this video seems fairly clear—a person is being victimized—remember that there are such things as plain-clothes police. It’s entirely possible to come upon a take down that looks like a beat down. Or a store owner beating up a perp to stop the perp perpetrating a crime.
This is why defending an “innocent” life is a highly problematic action for a pistol-packing civilian. Unless you know exactly what’s happening, you don’t know what’s happening. And maybe not even then.
As Gilbert & Sullivan fans will tell you, “Things are seldom what they seem; skim milk masquerades as cream.” Do you really want to bet your life and the lives of those around you on your ability to discern the good guys from the bad guys?
Now, as for drawing your weapon to stop a beat down, that’s a really bad idea. Unless the unquestionably innocent beat downee is in life-threatening danger, brandishing a self-defense gun would represent a clear escalation of force, which would no doubt get you in a bunch of trouble, not to mention potentially escalating the violence.
911 is your friend.
I felt bad for the poor girl(when I thought it was a girl), and the empolyees did very little to help her. When I found out it was a crossdresser in the ladies room, I felt like he had it coming. I can see why the girls giving the beat down were so pissed. I know I’m WRONG for feeling this way, but life’s not fair. He’s lucky he didn’t go into the men’s room because some guy would have really given him a serious thumping.
There is a major difference between life not being fair and the criminal assault by multiple attackers on an unarmed non-criminal, no matter how distasteful the victim’s style may be.
You’re right – you’re wrong. The notion that having a cross dresser (assuming it was a cross dresser) entering a bathroom justifies a beating that results in someone going into a seizure and suffering brain damage is outlandish. What’s next? Beating people like this because you found out they were gay and in the bathroom?
I agree that this doesn’t make sense to pull a gun on, but I can give you a quick run down of what WILL happen if a male intervened: male intervenes -> attackers attack him -> he defends himself and is chastised for hitting a pair of “women” -> male camera guys jump in and start beating you.
I wouldn’t shoot – but I would have pulled the gun. When you see kicks to someone’s head when they are on the ground, it’s a life threatening scenario.
At what point is enough enough? Crossdresser, perv, Transgender, etc… Since when is it OK to be a vigilante? I think once you have a person outside of the restroom (the purported transgression), should you not stop the beat down? They clearly kept coming back after stopping, with no further “threat” and continued the beat down. Did the manager call 911? – I saw, tepid at best, assistance. The idiot filming the beat down, what is that? What a total breakdown in our society that it continued to escalate once the perp was no longer fighting. I found it, whether woman or male, to be abhorrent, disgusting, and embarrassing.
+1
Why cant people leave people be..The guy(Hackett) that was recording the situation posted on his Facebook and Myspace that it was a guy..a Male.
Would it be acceptable if two guys beat the hell out of a transgender female..i.e. A women dressed as a man? you would have every human rights group and womens group crying out for blood.
Hackett should think a little about civil rights. 60 years ago the restaurant hop could have been saying..”hey, he was black in a white bathroom”..disgusting behavior for everyone involved except for a crossdresser that needed to piss.
+2
“…know what you don’t know”; exactly right. In this situation the CCW has nothing to gain and everything to lose. If he/she is getting a beat down your responsibility is to gather up whomever you went to Micky-D’s with and leave…end of story.
Sure, you can deploy your gun and then what? Maybe the beat down stops and maybe it doesn’t but either way the police are on their way and when they arrive what are they going to see? You, with a gun deployed and chaos all around you; think you are going to be seen as the hero or a “guy with a gun”?
You are the kind of guy who shouldn’t have a permit and it’s not because you wouldn’t have drawn your weapon. Don’t you think that a call to 911 would be in order. It is every citizens responsibilty to call the police when they see a crime in progress.
Yes, tdiinva, I would call 911 but only after I’d gathered up my troops and left Mickey-D’s. By the way, I don’t carry a weapon, I carry a personal defense firearm. And if you don’t know the difference you are the “kind of guy” who should not have a permit.
In my profession any firearm is referred to as a weapon. We don’t refer to an M-4 as a “personal defense firearm”, We refer to it as a weapon. I can just imagine it now: ” lock and load your personal defense firearm”
Since when seconds count the police are minutes away you call first and then secure.
Well, when you are in the street as a civilian its a firearm or personal defense firearm.
Just what is your profession?
And please, spare me the “police are only minutes away” canard; its why I carry in the first place.
Whether you are a LEO, military or an armed citizen your firearm is weapon and carrying a weapon entails a certain degree of leadership. You carry a weapon to defend and others where it is appropriate. Just by carrying you responsibilty to call the police when a crime against a person is progress. Nowhere in your original post did you mention calling the police. It was afterthought when challenged.
And what is my business? Protecting your ass against threats against United States citizens and interests. You figure out what that means.
FYI: The line about calling 911 was in the original post.
You are free to do whatever you want when you carry but please don’t lecture me about what my “responsibilities” are. I carry to protect myself and my family not to try and pretend I’m a police officer and protect others as you infer.
Getting involved in a situation that you can’t completely understand is just flat out wrong and could cost you your life or liberty.
You want to play Rambo? Knock yourself out.
It’s not acceptable to lay a wolf-pack beating on someone for breach of bathroom etiquette. Report to the store manager and have them ejected if they’re a problem.
I hesitate to comment on the handling of tense, violent, but non-life threatening situations like this, but my perspective is that pulling your gun would not be the right response here. One person non-violently standing with purpose between the perps and the victim would probably end the action. These all look like teenagers, after all.
The beating was WAY too much and too long. Yes, there are rare disgusting actions that warrant given an offender a fat lip, but this?
RF’s point regarding involvement was sound – be careful.
But I’m wondering – what if the CCW holder is the owner of the restaurant? Should he get involved sooner? Later? Does he call 911 and his Business Insurance Agent? Should he even be carrying while working?
My guess is that if you carry as an owner-manager you should have a good plan (and attorney)…
I’m glad to see this post, but it has nothing to do with CCW or open carry, either. The manager had a clear duty to intervene with convincing authority, and if I couldn’t buck him up to assume his responsibility, I would have intervened myself. No weapon necessary: only a loud voice, ready stance and extremely rudimentary self-defense skills.
Golden rule, people.
Ok, the restraunt manager and his employees had no legal duty to intervene.
You cannot force someone to put their lives in danger.
Perhaps McDonalds should consider hiring some security. Armed security.
Morally, things are a bit diffrent, in my opinion.
I think that the assailants would have continued until a credible threat of force
was made. They did, after all, try to drag their victim outside to continue
their assault undisturbed.
If there, I likely would have intervened, but might not have drawn a weapon.
Sometimes walking with a cane has it’s advantages.
Just the threat of force against them, and I think the assailants would have
broken off the attack and left, but that threat would have had to be credible.
It dosen’t matter that the subject of the assault was a crossdresser.
No one deserves to be beaten like that, over so trivial a matter.
I’m thinking they beat her so badly simply because they could.
Although I must say that most of the TS/TVs I’ve known could have handeled
themselves better. I’ve seen more than one guy get his ass kicked by a guy in a dress.
Interesting that the police report does not mention the crossdressing, but refers to the victim in the female gender the entire time..
http://media2.myfoxdc.com//documents/McDonaldsBeatingPoliceReport.pdf
This is a great example of a reason to carry a gun. But since this happened in Baltimore, a gun isn’t a viable option. The next best thing is to improvise.
For cross dressers, trans women, and biological women as well, the greatest improvised weapon of all time is the high-heeled shoe. A stiletto is a formidable weapon. If you’re on your back, you can kick with it or if you’re still on your feet, you can take it off and use it as a blunt object. A well-placed heel in an eye or throat is a good fight stopper.
Additionally, the heel of the shoe can be drilled out and inside, you can expoxy a cut-off ice pick, leaving just a fraction of the pointy end exposed. This has not only the benefit of increasing the painfulness of being hit with the heel, but increases the rigidity of the heel as well. The only downside is the point will dull over time. But what self-respecting fashionista wears the same shoes that long?
dont forget the McDonald tray..swung flat and hit the assailant with the edge in the face or throat is a quick way to turn the tide…and then there is the Mickey’D chair..pick it up and swing for the fences.
I think I would have intervened, verbally, when they started to kick/stomp the person on the ground. Even a weak incompetent kick/stomp such as those caught in this video have the potential to kill a person.
The metrosexual had it coming. Too bad the girls didn’t make him into what he was dressed as.
lol… wow. I don’t even know where to begin on how the above statement is just out there.
I would have left then called the police. No one in that video is worth my being in harms way.
There’s a lot of problems with intervening. One is the legal liability. Another is the man vs woman stigma. Another is the immediate racial stigma.
Some people will probably make assumptions about you(e.g. you attacked them because they were black, if you’re not black). One of the worst things that could happen is certain groups marking you as a horrendous racist for defending someone else, or just as bad: certain groups marking you as some sort of hero for attacking black people. And it’s not like that couldn’t happen, look at how bad the media is nowadays.
But on the other hand can you sit there and watch as someone is violently attacked for no good reason? It’s a shitty decision to have to make.
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