Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
It was just 16 months ago Shreveport great-grandmother Elzie Pipkins stared down a 16-year-old who’d broken into her home and held her at gunpoint.
That night in January 2014, she did something people in Louisiana can do she’d never wish on anyone: She used deadly force to defend herself, her grandchildren and her then 3-month-old great-grandson.
She had a gun of her own, bought earlier after someone had burgled her home. When her shotgun-wielding attacker forced her to open her safe, she reached inside for the weapon, managed to get off a shot and killed him.
“I was only defending myself and my family inside of my home,” she says today. “It wasn’t on the outside, this was on the inside. When someone comes at you with force to do bodily harm, you have the right to defend yourself.”
As a mother on several levels, she grieves for the young man’s family, but is thankful she was able to save her own.
“Every time I look at them I thank God I was able to think and to act,” she said. “I was only trying to survive. I knew we would have lost our lives and no one would have ever known who did that.”
Today she has nightmares, “and I see the person’s face sometimes when I go in my room. ... At night I can walk up and look over at that closet and I see the shadow so well.”
No criminal charges were needed.
A decade ago, a room full of Shreveport beauty school students decided enough was enough, and turned the tables on an armed robber.
The women at Blalock’s Beauty College in the 5400 block of Mansfield Road used force to trip, and then beat silly with curling irons, hair dryers, boards and even a chair leg, a man who had pulled a gun on them, demanded their money, threatened them, then tried to flee.
“You can tell the world don’t mess with the women here,” owner Dianne Mitchell told The Times shortly after officers took the battered and bleeding would-be robber, Jared Gipson, to the hospital after the June 14, 2005, ordeal. He later was convicted in Caddo District Court of armed robbery and sentenced to 20 years in prison, with an extra five years tagged on for the use of a weapon.
In neither case did the people who used force to protect themselves, one with deadly effect, face conviction or even arrest, for defending themselves. Louisiana’s “Castle Law,” also known as “Stand Your Ground,” protects them and others in their tragic situations.
The two widely spaced incidents are bookends to the debate that has swirled nationally in the nearly two years since George Zimmerman was acquitted in the death of Trayvon Martin following an encounter between the two men in Florida in February 2012.
Fears were that in 21 states with stand-your-ground laws, there would be an increase in the number of instances where people did stand their ground and used that as their defense in the use of force, even deadly force, to counter a threat.
But since Louisiana’s law was passed in 2006 and signed by Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, little has changed in that regard, says Caddo Parish’s interim district attorney, Dale Cox.
“You would think you would encounter it all the time, but you don’t,” he said. “I haven’t.”
He said the defense is more likely to be made in burglary, carjackings and home invasions, the last of which is his main source of worry where claims of the justified use of force, even deadly force, are concerned.
“Home invasion is something we’re starting to see more and more of that we didn’t used to see,” he said. “Usually when you’ve got home invasions, you’ve got drugs involved. That’s the predominant motive. My experience is it’s usually one drug gang trying to rip off another one, they’ve had bad blood in the past, some transaction that went bad or because they think there’s a lot of money or drugs there they can capture. A home invasion is not usually a random act of violence.”
When and how a person can use deadly force to protect their life or that of another person is set out in state law.
Louisiana Revised Statute 14:19 says force or violence is justifiable when a person uses it to protect themselves or another person in their home, business or car when they are peacefully minding their own business and another person unlawfully commits an act or makes a threat and the victim “reasonably believes that the use of force or violence is necessary.”
The use of deadly force is covered under the next state law, LRS 14:20, justifiable homicide. It says deadly force is permissible when the victim “reasonably believes he is in imminent danger of losing his life or receiving great bodily harm and that the killing is necessary ... The circumstances must be sufficient to excite the fear of a reasonable person that there would be serious danger to his own life or person if he attempted to prevent the felony without the killing.”
Each law has provisions that disallow the use of the force by anyone who “is engaged, at the time of the homicide, in the acquisition of, the distribution of, or possession of, with intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance.”
Yet another state law, LRS 9:2800.19, limits liability. It says the person “who uses reasonable and apparently necessary or deadly force or violence for the purpose of preventing a forcible offense against the person or his property ... is immune from civil action for the use of reasonable and apparently necessary or deadly force or violence.”
Crime report breakdowns submitted by Shreveport Police for the last seven years show most categories of crime, based on reported arrests and incidents, have gone down, though they still remain high. However, rape numbers have risen sharply following a two year lull.
Cox said the devil is in the details of each and every encounter where these defenses are offered.
Such acts “are so fact-intensive you can’t make a general statement of the law because whenever the law puts words like ‘reasonable’ or ‘reasonable man’ as a standard in a statute, what they really mean is ‘it depends,’” he said.
“You have to look at each case to decide what the facts were, and the facts are all-important in deciding whether the use of force was reasonable, whether it was necessary. Those are things you just can’t say in the abstract.”
Bossier District Court officials can only recall one such instance over the past few years, and that involved law officers.
“We were only able to recall one such case in that time frame,” said Jennifer Hay, Bossier Parish felony division supervisor. “It was the officer-involved shooting at the Payless on East Texas (street) in June 2014. The suspect pointed a gun at officers after robbing the store. It was determined that the officers used what force was needed and was not presented to the grand jury.”
Though not terribly common, examples of where “stand your ground” has been used do appear in media accounts from across the state.
In addition to the two from Shreveport, cases include a Houma Grand Jury decision in early 2013 not to indict a man after he claimed self-defense in shooting another man, even though the shooting occurred during an alleged drug transaction; and in 2012, a LaFourche Parish Grand Jury refused to indict a 21-year-old man who shot and killed a 15-year-old during a reported gang confrontation, determining the man had acted in self-defense.
“Stand your ground,” Cox said, means “you don’t have to flee. They used to consider flight as one factor. Could you have fled and did you choose not to? Now you don’t have to flee to begin with. You can ‘stand your ground.’”
Veteran Shreveport criminal defense attorney Peter Flowers says reasonable means using common sense.
“If a 15-year-old kid that weighs 90 pounds comes up to you and says he’s going to kick your (butt), you really don’t have the right to punch him,” Flowers said. “On the other hand, if the guy is a biker and he looks like his head is about to blow off from meth and you think if you don’t do something its going to be your (butt), it’s debatable if you have the right to do something even if he didn’t hit you first. The rule is, words aren’t enough.”
Flowers said people are allowed to respond to force with like force, and this extends to people with you who might be attacked.
“The ability to defend myself from an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm transfers to another person,” he said. “I’m able to defend you as a third person from death or great bodily harm from an illegal attack. Imagine they’ve got your daughter or wife or girlfriend. You have every right to defend them.”
He said he tells clients they can defend themselves with like force with regard to any imminent threat.
“You don’t have to wait for someone to harm you,” he said. “It’s got to be imminent danger and your actions have got to be reasonable and proportionate.”
As a side note, people cannot lay traps to keep bad people from entering a residence or business. You can’t break the law to keep others from breaking the law. Cox said that is covered under the state’s Civil Code, Article 2315, which establishes tort liability, and Article 2323, which covers comparative fault.
The stand your ground law “is not going to protect you booby-trapping your house,” Cox said. There, “you’re both intentional tortfeasors.”
Local cases
2014
Aug. 17: Isaac McClain, 40, was stabbed and beaten after he allegedly attacked a female acquaintance and Valerie Bass, 36, a friend of the woman, defended her. The case was presented to the Caddo Grand Jury, which did not return a true bill.
June 29: Ruby Barnett, 55, was shot and killed during an argument. Investigation showed that Barnett, who had a previous homicide charge, pulled a knife on Arthur Washington, 67, who defended himself. The case was presented to the Caddo Grand Jury but no true bill was returned.
June 12: A 58-year-old Michigan man, Larry Allan Jerrils, was shot and killed by officers in the 2000 block of Airline Drive in Bossier City after he pointed a weapon at police moments after allegedly robbing Payless ShoeSource. The District Attorney’s office investigated but the officers were determined to have acted in self-defense and the case was not brought before the Bossier Grand Jury.
April 27: Demonta Wills, 19, was shot and killed during an exchange of gunfire with Edward Bessard, 23. After review, was not taken to the Caddo Grand Jury.
Jan. 28: Sirdarren Jackson, 25, was shot and killed by resident Tyrell Jackson, 20, during an apparent home invasion. After review, deemed self-defense and not taken to the Caddo Grand Jury.
Jan. 5: Elzie Pipkins, a 63-year-old grandmother, shoots and kills a 16-year-old robber who broke into her home; was deemed self-defense during a home invasion and not taken to the Caddo Grand Jury.
2013
Sept. 3: Frank Smith, 32, was stabbed once in the abdomen following an argument with his father-in-law, Carl Love, 51, after an argument. After investigation, not taken to the Caddo Grand Jury.
Jan. 7: Montrell Webber, 20, died after being shot in the 2500 block of Mabel Street in the Queensborough neighborhood. Cordavien Anderson, also 20, was arrested but Caddo Grand Jury did not return a true bill.
Source: Caddo and Bossier district attorneys offices