In April 16 of 2016, 34 year old Jovan Fresco was shot dead by armed security officers in Rockford Illinios. Ryan B. Mattingly was just convited of first degree murder. The criminal case against his partner the night of the shooting, Alijon Khalil, is still pending. 

Local Fox News has presented the most detailed coverage of the case. The two armed security officers were contracted private security working at Auburn Manor Apartments. Their responsibilities as private security were limited to protecting everything inside of the property line of the apartment complex. The Auburn Manor Apartments are located in the west side of Rockford and is a well known ghetto area frequented by the kind of operators you would expect to find in a high-crime ghetto neihborhood. The area is known for it's chronically high violent crime rate. 

Fox reports that the night Fresco was shot, he had entered the Auburn Manor Apartment complex driving a while Mercedes. He parked his vehicle apparently to visit a friend that lived in the complex. Since he was a stranger to the complex both security officers approached him and when they did, he fled on foot. At the time Mattingly and Khalil had recieved information about a shots-fired incident in the area, so they pursued Fresco on foot.

The Fox report states that the chase then went beyond the property line of Auburn Manor  where Mattingly and Khalil caught up to Fresco, took him to ground and a struggle ensued. At some point in the struggle Mattingly testified that Fresco drew a firearm and pointed it at Mattingly so Mattingly engaged Fresco shooting him numerous times. Fresco was pronouced dead on the scene. 

Court documents confirm that Fresco was armed with at least one firearm that night and it was found near his body, and here is where it gets muddy, prosecutors contend that since Mattingly was no longer on the Auburn Manor Apartment complex property, he had no legal right to engage and ultimately shoot Fresco.

The legal point here is that Armed Private Security officers are not law enforcement officers and while armed security officers may have the right to detain a suspect found in the commission of a crime, they have no powers of arrest unless those powers are appointed to them by the state or law enforcement. 

However, if an armed security officer witnesses a crime and is in continuous hot persuit of the suspect, and there is a reasonable fear that the general public is at immediate risk of death or serious bodiliy harm, the issue of leaving the contracted jurisdiction is not an issue. 

My concern with this case as it is presented by Fox news is that there is a reasonable claim of self-defense if Fresco pointed a gun at the security officers regardless of which property they were on. In America we have the right to protect ourselves from any imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm. The issue is whether or not Mattingly had a legal right to pursue and detain Fresco. While Fresco may have well been the person responsible for the gunfire reported to the two security officers when Fresco drove up, they did not witness Fresco committing a crime so while they had a legal right to approach and talk to him, as contracted private security they did not have the right to chase and detain him. 

At it's very worst that is a minor offense that may or may not result in a criminal proceeding, most likely it would end up as a civil suit. If Fresco did point a gun at them then Mattingly had a right to defend himself whether he was on the property he was contracted to protect or not. While Mattingly was convicted, I imagine there will be an appeals process as first degree murder required pre-mediation and it appears there is an arguement that while Mattingly did shoot Fresco, he did so in self-defense against an armed threat and shot in response to that threat, therefore, pre-meditation is abscent. 

While he did not see Fresco commit a crime, he may have reasonably felt that Fresco was responsible for the reported gunfire and, therefore, may have felt Fresco had bad intentions and felt the responsiblity to prevent further harm to the general public. Clearly at this point Law Enforcement should have been called but when Fresco fled there was an immediacy to respond. 

If this is elevated to a higher court it will be interesting to see how they rule and those of us that work in Private Armed Security roles should be aware of how this case is ultimately ruled.

I'm interested to know your thoughts.

You can read the Fox News report Here 

1. Practice Before Practice. I learned two important things during 2020 and the COVID debacle. First, when I took hydroxychloroquine, my covid symptoms were gone within 24 hours. The second important thing I learned was that dry fire training is an extremely effective method of learning and perfecting fundamental gun handling skills, which in turn improve accuracy.
   
   It was scientifically impossible for COVID to be contagious at any Costco or Walmart location, so they were open for business throughout 2020. Ranges, however, were deemed COVID death traps and, therefore, closed for months during the plandemic. The only available option for armed professionals to train was dry-fire training. I took advantage of that opportunity, and when I got back on the live-fire range months later, my skills had improved significantly. From that point forward, dry-fire training at home has become a staple element of my training regimen. On range days, I spend about 30 minutes at home dry-firing before I leave the house. I go through my safe gun handling drills, then practice drawing my weapon from the holster I will be using that day, coming to the high ready, pressing out, and acquiring a good sight picture. Next, I work on smoothing out my trigger pull until there is almost no perceptible movement in my sight picture while pulling the trigger. When it feels good, I get in my truck and head to the range. When I get there, those lessons are fresh, and my live-fire training is consistently better.
2. Have a Training Plan. I train to be safe, accurate, and proficient with my weapon for work. I know the sites that I protect, the kinds of challenges and obstacles I face, and the tactical problems I need to solve. I am also aware of the areas I personally wish to improve. I design my training plan to address and resolve those issues or to prepare for potential scenarios. For instance, at one site, I have a 60-yard corridor I have to deal with, and in that corridor, there are three obstacles that potentially provide cover from incoming fire. If I have to advance down that corridor while engaging a threat in a gun battle, I will need four magazines for my pistol. That will allow me to engage, then do a tactical reload before I leave one point of cover to move to another. So I will set up a shooting course on the range that simulates that scenario, then drill the tactical elements of that engagement. I work on moving and shooting, shooting multiple targets, shooting partially obscured targets, doing tactical reloads behind cover, working and moving from cover, simulating weapon malfunctions while moving and engaging the threat, and so on. If I am struggling on one element, such as mag changes, I may break that down into smaller elements until I master those and find the safest and most effective way to accomplish my goal.
   
   It doesn’t need to be that complex, but having a plan will make your training time far more productive and will build your proficiency and confidence as a gunfighter.  
3. Do The Hard Stuff. Nobody really enjoys shooting with their support hand (weak side) or one-handed. And rarely does anybody get excited about training malfunction drills, reloading drills, or incapacitation drills. Same for anything at all that is humbling and a lot of awkward and challenging work to do. We all love to train the things we are best at, but it’s your weak points that provide your attacker with the advantage.  They may not be as fun to train until you do enough reps to get good at it, and then it’s very gratifying doing the hard things well.
   
   I recommend training those lesser-used handling drills at home during dry-fire training, as it’s a convenient way to put in a lot of reps and develop good habits more quickly, which will turn the hard stuff into the fun stuff you will want to do all the time.
4. Become A Safety Freak. Our brain manages information in a couple of different ways and that work is performed in different areas of the brain. Decision-making is a process where the brain gathers information, evaluates that information, makes a decision, and then acts on that decision. It can be a slower and more deliberate process, and mistakes can be made easily. Once we repeat a specific action exactly the same way many, many times with the same outcome, we catalogue that even in a different part of our brain that works without the need for intense focus and concious thought. When you dressed yourself this morning, for instance, you most likely put your clothes on in the identical way that you have been putting them on your entire adult life without consciously thinking about it. We commonly refer to those actions as habits.
   
   If we want to be safe with our weapons, and especially in a stressful situation, we must develop safe weapon-handling habits. Even if you know the weapon is not loaded, you still handle it as if it were. Develop a routine of how you unpack a weapon from your bag, make it safe, and checking it to be sure it’s safe. Do it the same way every time, no matter how many times you pick up and set down that weapon. Every time you touch a weapon, follow that same process of checking it, making it safe, and checking it again. Do that over and over until you can’t stand to do one more rep, then do ten more just to be sure. Soon you will find yourself following your safety rules without even thinking about it. Under stress, you will do whatever you have consistently programmed into that part of your brain that stores habits, so train good safety habits constantly whenever you pick up a gun, and if you do, you have a much higher probability of being safe under pressure.
5. Clean and Check Your Weapons and Mags After Every Use. We have all gotten lazy and put away a weapon after range day without cleaning it and checking it to ensure it is operating properly. In fact, I know guys who take it as a point of great pride and confidence in their chosen weapon that they never clean it and then boast that it hasn’t failed them yet! Yet...is the operative word. Why would anyone choose to neglect a mechanical tool that they use to protect themselves or others from a lethal threat is beyond me. Every time you pull the trigger and a live round is fired, realize that a significant explosion has just taken place in your hand, and the device that executed that process has endured significant stress. Things break, they get dirty from the environment and from firing ammunition, and they can get clogged up. Magazines can get dirty, and foreign objects can get inside, causing parts of the magazine to impede its operation.
   
   Every time I handle a weapon, I perform a simple visual inspection, and I work the action and trigger to ensure it is functioning properly. Every time I put rounds through a weapon, I clean and inspect it so I feel confident my weapon will perform as expected if I ever need it to save a life.

• Updated protection levels:
• • The old classifications (II, IIIA, III, IV) have been replaced by new "HG" (handgun) and "RF" (rifle) levels.
  • HG1 and HG2 replace II and IIIA.
  • RF1, RF2, and RF3 replace III and IV.
  • RF2 is a new intermediate rifle rating.
• Improved testing for women's armor:
• • Includes specific test requirements for body armor designed for women to account for different fits.
  • Considers angled hits and angles from a seated position.
• More rigorous conditioning and testing:
• • Soft armor conditioning now includes submersion in water to better simulate water resistance.
  • New tests address edge-strike performance and blunt force trauma.
  • Hard armor testing now specifies exact hit locations, including multi-curve plates.
• Faster response to new threats:
• • The new structure separates test methods (Standard 0101.07) from threat specifications (Standard 0123.00).
  • This allows the NIJ to update threat ammunition and levels (in Standard 0123.00) more easily without changing the core testing protocols in Standard 0101.07.

• Improved safety: The new standards are designed to be more effective and better reflect the threats officers face.
• Classifications are easier to understand: The new HG and RF classifications are intended to be more straightforward than the previous levels. HG=Handgun and RF=Rifle.