PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Texas Self-Defense: Armed citizen stops violent carjacking, learns not to judge a book by its cover :: 05/30/2015
A couple enjoying an evening out for dinner at a high-end shopping center in Houston last week became the targets for an attempted carjacking, but the tables quickly turned when the suspects discovered that the potential victim had a handgun in his car.
Reports from local media indicated that crime – particularity robberies – have been on the rise in the area lately, but Daniel Bertrand admitted that he never would have expected such behavior from the well-dressed men that set him up.
Bertrand said his son was attending kids’ night out and he and his wife were excited to have a date night. After eating dinner out, they were leaving the parking lot in their Mercedes G63 when they were rear-ended by another vehicle – ironically, another Mercedes.
The second vehicle was occupied by four individuals, and immediately after the fender bender, one of the passengers got out of the car. Bertrand said the man was well-dressed and polite.
“He’s apologizing and asking us if we’re okay,” Bertrand said.
But then things took a turn for the worse, and the man slipped into the driver’s seat and attempted to steal Bertrand’s car. It is unknown if Bertrand’s wife was still in the car at that point, but regardless, he wasn’t about to let himself – or his wife – become a victim.
Bertrand pulled the man out of the vehicle, and that’s when the situation became violent. The man began hitting Bertrand, pushed him to the ground and stomped on his head, before getting back into the car for a second time.
But Bertrand fought back and was able to gain control of the situation when he grabbed a pistol out of the driver’s side door of his vehicle and aimed it at the man. At that point, the suspect’s eyes became very big. He ran back to his own vehicle and promptly fled the scene.
“I think it was the biggest surprise of his life,” Bertrand said.
No shots were ever fired, although Bertrand ended up at the hospital and received stitches for injuries he sustained during the assault.
Bertrand said he just doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else and that the kind of behavior will eventually leave the suspects in a bad place.
“You’re going to end up prison or you’re going to end up dead,” he said.
