That’s how it was for me for a while after it ended, not remembering things clearly or at all for a while. That’s not uncommon in stress response situations – it varies, but things can be confused or you don’t remember details right away, or your sense of time or direction or body movements can be lost or distorted for a while, there can be lots of effects and it varies for each person. Its not uncommon, for example, for a stress response situation for someone to say “it was like time stopped” – that’s because for them time did stop in their awareness of it due to the stress response. So right after the incident, especially on scene, is when police sometimes tend to like to get you talking because they know its likely you are not going to recall everything right then and might say things incorrectly or leave things out that you don’t recall at the time that when looked at by a prosecutor can be exploited to prosecute you. So rule number 1 is do not talk to police telling them what happened until you have had time to recover from the stress response and can think more clearly, and, rule # 2 is get a lawyer as quickly as you can and do not talk to police without one.

That’s how sudden it was, the guy came out of – well, no where because he was just suddenly there. I did not remember seeing him coming from ‘some place’ or approaching and was simply suddenly there and coming at me. And the next thing I know the police and ambulance are there, the bad guy is dead, and there is crime scene tape and people standing around looking, and this police officer asking me questions and me muttering to him in this kinda almost whisper low voice telling him my name and him going “What? I couldn’t hear you.”

Then I snapped out of it some and spoke up and gave him my name and address and DOB then kinda went quiet staring at him. The officer asked me to sit down at the back of the ambulance and told me I might need a lawyer. The ambulance crew gave me some water and checked me out. The police then took me to the station.

They put me in a room, let me make a phone call. I didn’t have a lawyer in mind but I asked for one. So my phone call was to my then future to-be wife, who put her dad on the phone and I told him I didn’t have a lawyer but had asked for one. He said “You have a lawyer now. I’m sending one to come get you and bring you home.” then he gave me some of the best advice I had ever received – he said “Don’t answer any questions or say anything about what happened until the lawyer gets there then only speak to her and do what she says.”. This detective comes in and wants to ask me questions and I tell him I have a lawyer coming and will not answer any questions yet. But by this time I’m remembering everything and all the details.

So about 30 minutes later after telling the detective that, the lawyer my then future father-n-law sent shows up. She asks me to tell her what happened, I do, and she asks me various question and she gives me a sort of short lesson on how to talk to the detective when he comes back in and if I get stuck just look at her and ask her for advice and do what she says. She goes out and tells the detective I’m ready to answer questions, she and detective come back in and I go thorough everything answering the detective questions. He tells me hes done and hes waiting on someone from the DA office to arrive. Back then, where I lived, if there was a death involved in such an incident someone from the DA office had to come down and go through everything with the defending victim which was me in this case. So my lawyer gets me something to drink, and when she comes back in the detective and the DA lady are with her and there is another lady who sets up at a small table in the corner of the room with a typewriter. My lawyer tells me they want a written statement and the DA lady is going to ask me some questions and the statement is going to be typed out and then I will sign it then I will be able to leave. So I go though everything with the DA lady, the lady in the corner types out my statement and the DA lady hands it to me, I let my lawyer look at it, she says its ok to sign so I sign it. The DA lady tells me ‘Looks a lot like like self defense to me. You are not going to be charged with anything. You can go.”

And that was it, and about 6 hours after the incident I was home.

Now years and several DGU’s later …. The day after that first DGU I started carrying everyday without fail. It was only pure chance I was armed that day and time when it happened. I didn’t EDC back then, only carried occasionally and then a lot of times I simply put it in the car when I went in some place. But that day and time, as I got out of the car I started to leave it in the car and decided not to do so. And just as I started walking away from the car it happened.

I’ve had lots of ‘tactical defensive gun use’ type training since that first DGU. It gave me skills I would need for my wife and I both to survive when the time came – the training taught me how to engage and stop the threat quickly and effectively and efficiently and legally and how to deal with the stress response. But in all that, among some of the best training I ever got was after my first DGU when my then future father-in-law told he “Don’t answer any questions or say anything about what happened until the lawyer gets there then only speak to her and do what she says.”

well concluded. besides whatever else happens, you’ll probably lose your knife.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ4yTRh6wPw

By the looks of the jury, half of them are most likely left wingers that would want to convict you even if you were killed by the bad guy and never fired a shot.

It was a knife review and the conclusion is don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.

https://www.ammoland.com/2025/07/democrats-violent-rhetoric-is-precisely-the-point/

https://www.ammoland.com/2025/07/why-anti-gunners-need-violence-to-push-their-agenda/