The community came together Sunday to support two transgender women who say they were attacked near a light rail station in Minneapolis.
The incident happened Nov. 10 at Hennepin Avenue and Fifth Street in downtown Minneapolis. It’s where community members gathered for a rally Sunday afternoon, one week since the attack.
Amber Muhm, a community leader with Trans Movement for Liberation, said the two trans women were attacked by a group of men at the light rail station after one of the men used transphobic slurs.
“No one came to help them. In fact, they said people were cheering the attackers on while they were getting beaten,” Muhm said.
FYI: In MN you have a duty to retreat if you can before you can legally defend yourself. It’s very likely these women would be in jail if they had shot their assailants after confronting them. Unfortunately in MN you can’t claim self defense after confronting someone when you could have retreated. Very sad situation all around.
Edit to add a link
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/transgender-women-attacked-minneapolis-rail-station-b2649250.html
Not really. You only have a duty to retreat if a reasonable person would feel they could do so safely.
Once an angry mob is surrounding you, you don’t have to make the attempt.
That said…. Taking up running will ALWAYS be more likely to save your ass than taking up shooting. Even more useful is learning to maintain (reasonable) situational awareness. Avoiding fights winds every time, hands down.
Right you can only retreat when it’s safe to do so, but what I’m saying is that if you’re legally carrying a firearm you can’t turn back around and confront people because if things do turn violent that will be used as evidence you were a willing participant, you didn’t retreat when you could have and instead continued the confrontation until it escalated to physical violence. FWIW I’m no expert but I have a permit to carry in MN and I feel like the instructor was very clear about this.
I am an expert in this (training security guards in use of force is a major part of my job, including use of firearms.)(I’m also working out of Minneapolis,)
If you actually manage to leave or disengage, and then return, then yes, it will be seen as you picking that fight.
But… again, there is no absolute duty to retreat- there is a duty to retreat if it is safe to do so. That last caveat carries a lot of work.
Basically running away is part of the use of force spectrum, and you’re only allowed to use reasonable force to prevent harm to yourself or others. The test is if a “reasonable person” would find it so… and the duty of retreat follows the same test.
Some things that would preclude a duty of retreat:
And, because it’s very important to keep in mind- situational awareness and avoiding the fight will always be the best and most effective self defense skill you can have. Followed closely by running. (And skill with a firearm is way way down the list.)
(In this situation, they were at a rally and got ambushed on an LRT station. It was probably unavoidable, and the goons probably came in from the outstate to do exactly what they did.)